During class, I see there is a new girl, Lyla, sitting in Anton’s old seat. We get assigned to a group project, and I get stuck working with her.

She’s mousy-looking, with metal-rimmed glasses and scarecrow-straight hair. She’s constantly biting at her nails and seems a bit out of it.

“The semester is like halfway over,” I say to her once we are sitting side by side to start working on our project. “How did you get to enroll in this class so late?”

“I was taking this class with Dr. Weyland,” she says. “But...uh...I had to change sections.”

“Are you an education major?” I ask her.

She nods enthusiastically, forcing a smile.

The assignment is to create a mock syllabus for a sixth grade classroom that offers something for all types of learning styles.

“What age level do you want to teach?” I ask her.

She bites her lip. “High school.”

“I think I do, too,” I say.

“Elementary school is too much like babysitting,” Lyla says. “And middle schoolers are too mean.”

I nod. “I’m still considering middle school, though. It’s early enough that you can still make a real difference for some students.”

“All teachers make a difference,” Lyla says.

She’s not trying to talk down to me; she says it with a smile that tells me she really cares about education and her future career choice, so I smile back.

We get to work, and after class she follows me out into the quad. “Do you have a boyfriend?” she asks me.

I nod. She seriously hasn’t heard about my engagement to Liam Lions? I figured the whole campus knew by now.

“Does he go here?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No, he’s--uh--older.”

She gives me a nervous smile, then says, “I dated a guy in my freshman year, but he was...he had anger issues.”

She breaks eye contact with me then and looks away. Anger issues? I’m wondering if the guy hit her, but that’s not exactly something I can ask a girl that I just met.

“Good thing you broke up then,” I say.

“I’m not ready to date again yet,” she says.

“I took a long break, too,” I say, not adding that it wasn’t exactly voluntary.

“And it was worth it?” she asks.

I nod, thinking of Liam, and smile. “Yeah, it was.”

“How did you know it was the real thing?” Lyla asks. “I thought Dave was--that’s the angry guy. He was so sweet and caring at first, and by the time I realized that he really wasn’t, it was so hard to throw it all away because of all those old memories.”

I shrug. “I feel like I just got lucky. It’s not like I was trying for anything; it really just kind of all fell into my lap.”

“So you knew right away?” she asks. “Love at first sight?”

I give her a look, and she shows me her palms. “Sorry if I’m getting too nosy.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “Honestly, when we started out, I don’t even know what it was. I sure as hell didn’t think it was love at first sight, though.”

I have to keep our secret, but I can at least tell some version of the truth if I’m vague enough.

“When did you know it was love then?” she asks.

I start thinking back, trying to pinpoint a time frame. Come to think of it, that first conversation we had in his garden was already something, wasn’t it? Sure, when I found out he was Liam Lions, and when he offered me an absurd amount of money to pretend to be engaged to him, my first impression was altered quite a bit. Really, though, there wasn’t ever a time I didn’t feel something for him. It was there from the beginning, and it’s just grown since then.

“I guess we always had a certain kind of chemistry,” I say. “I think that’s why he picked me.”

“Picked you?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

I laugh nervously. “You know what I mean,” I say, hoping she won’t ask me to elaborate further.

“But you love each other now?” Lyla asks.

I bite my lip. We haven’t exactly said the words yet, and it’s a bit early yet in our relationship, but I can’t deny that warm bursting feeling in my chest.

I don’t want to put it into words in front of someone I just met, but I don’t want to deny how I feel. I compromise by just nodding and smiling, and Lyla smiles back.