Letters In The Park
The university cafeteria buzzed with life that chilly autumn morning. Students hurried between tables, trays clattered, and the hiss of the coffee machine filled the air.
Chloe paused at the doorway, tray in hand, heart fluttering with a mixture of nerves and excitement. Her first day at university, the start of everything new. She smiled faintly, inhaling the scent of coffee and toast, thinking how grown-up it all felt.
Balancing her tray, Chloe searched for an empty seat. Her mind drifted, schedules, lectures, new faces, when the edge of the tray tipped.
A cup toppled, spilling its drink across the table.
For a heartbeat the whole room seemed to pause. A rush of embarrassment flooded her cheeks as she froze, mortified, staring at the spreading puddle.
Before she could move, a hand appeared with a napkin.
He was beside her, tall, dark-haired, a gentle smile on his face.
“Looks like the drink tried to escape,” he said, and Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. Together they wiped the table, awkward at first, then easier. Their fingers brushed as they reached for the same cup, and something electric passed between them, quiet but certain.
They straightened at the same moment, both smiling now, the embarrassment forgotten.
The noise of the cafeteria returned, but softer somehow, as if the world had stepped back to give them space.
Chloe felt a strange stillness inside her, a realisation that this ordinary morning had changed something small yet significant.
She didn’t even know his name, but she would never forget his kindness, or that fleeting spark beneath the glow of autumn light.