"She's Rachel."
The words hung in the air like a delicate whisper that I had not intended to speak out loud. They had merely been echoes in the quiet corners of my thoughts, concealed and unformed. Yet somehow, it felt as though Rachel had heard them—like she had tapped into an unseen current connecting our souls at that very moment. Suddenly, as though compelled by some invisible force, she pivoted toward me, her gaze locking onto mine. The intensity of her stare was disarming, leaving me breathless, as if the world around us had faded into a blur, dimming the noise and chaos of everything else that existed beyond that singular moment.
“Hi!” The exclamation escaped my lips before I even recognized that I had spoken. It was the only coherent phrase that came to mind as the solidity of re
