The Eternal Return to Your First Gaze

I am running toward a future that has already happened.
Every step I take down this sun-drenched corridor is an act of memory, yet the air smells freshly of floor wax and unwritten letters—the scent of things not yet begun. The paradox is simple: to reach you for the first time, I must have already known you forever.
I feel your gaze on my back before I turn around; a touch that exists only because it was promised in another life. My heart beats with an ancient rhythm, pounding against ribs that are barely seventeen years old. We are two strangers who have spent centuries memorizing each other's silence between classes.
When our eyes finally meet at the end of this hallway, time will fold like a love letter tucked into a textbook. I will smile because you remember me from tomorrow morning; you will blush because you’ve loved me since before we were born.
The warmth that floods my chest is not new—it is an echo returning home. We are trapped in the most beautiful contradiction of all: falling for someone who has already taught us how to fall.

Editor: Paradox