Captain Don't Look Back (BXB)

Elias POV

The first rule of forgetting is that it doesn't knock.

It waits.

Sometimes in the hallway outside your dorm. Sometimes in the quiet after practice. Sometimes in the way someone's gaze lingers on you long enough to make your skin prickle. I knew it well by now. The weight of being seen, judged, whispered about. And still, I refused to hide.

I walked through the quad that morning with my usual confidence. Skirt red enough to turn heads, boots scuffed but polished, lips slightly glossy, hair tucked behind one ear. I was not trying to provoke, not trying to shock. I was simply existing. And the campus, as it always did, watched. Some with admiration. Some with disdain. Some with the curious distance of people who want to see the spectacle but will never speak to it directly.

I did not care what they thought.

Or at least, I pretended not to.

I had mastered the art of walking like the world had already made its decision-and I had already decided to live anyway.

That's when I saw him.

Noah Carter.

Captain of the Ridgeway University men's soccer team. Golden boy, perfect posture, hair always in place even after hours of practice, shoulders wide enough to make anyone think twice about looking directly at him. I had seen him dozens of times before, had admired him from the safe distance of my first-year obsession. But today was different.

Today, he noticed me.

It was subtle at first. The way his gaze lingered too long as he passed near the quad, a slight narrowing of his eyes as though he were trying to reconcile some sudden dissonance. He knew me. Not just saw me. Really saw me. The skirts, the boots, the unapologetic boldness-all of it. And for a moment, the golden boy hesitated. That hesitation, that break in his perfection, was all I needed to make my chest tighten.

I smiled slightly, just enough for him to notice. A small, private victory.

The rest of the campus moved around us like noise: students laughing, scooters rattling along the brick paths, the occasional bark of a dog from someone's apartment window. But between us, there was a charged silence.

I walked past him, slow enough to feel his eyes, fast enough to maintain my pride. I didn't look back. He didn't either-not yet.

I had been living in moments like this for years.

Since first year, really.

When I first saw him on the soccer field, striding across the stadium lights in the golden late afternoon sun, I had felt something unfamiliar, sharp, and unavoidable. My heart had refused to settle. Every smile he gave to someone else felt like a minor wound. Every casual brush of his arm near someone in class left me dizzy with imagined possibility. I had told myself it was harmless. Infatuation, a crush, nothing more. I told myself that for two long years.

And now, standing here in my red skirt, boots clicking on the stones of the quad, I realized I had been lying to myself all along.

I wanted him.

I wanted him more than I had wanted anything else.

And, as always, I knew the rules.

He had a girlfriend. He had a life carefully mapped out. He was golden, untouchable, and unbroken. He didn't need me. He didn't want me. Or at least, he shouldn't.

And yet...

And yet, there was that flicker in his eyes. That pause. That momentary recognition that some part of him remembered-or maybe had never been able to forget-the way I had looked at him from the sidelines, from the library, from the cafeteria, from any place we crossed paths without anyone noticing.

I allowed myself a slow exhale. I didn't run. I didn't hide. I let him see me, let the memory of me exist in the spaces he had already claimed.

Because I knew the truth.

I was patient. I could wait. And I would be impossible to ignore.

The morning passed with the usual rhythm: classes, brief nods to familiar faces, small comments from friends that floated around me like a protective halo. Ivy, my roommate and closest friend, caught me after Philosophy 202. She was perched on the edge of my bed, laptop balanced on her knees, her bright, messy hair in its usual chaotic bun.

"You walked past him this morning," she said, half teasing, half accusing.

I raised an eyebrow. "Did I? Must have been a hallucination."

Ivy smirked, not buying it for a second. "You didn't miss it. He saw you. I saw him see you. He's... conflicted."

I laughed, a small, confident sound that carried no nerves. "Noah Carter, conflicted? Surely not."

"Don't play coy," she said. "He's intrigued. And you-well, you're doing exactly what I knew you'd do. You're visible. He can't look away."

I shrugged, allowing the simple truth to roll off me. Ivy understood. She always understood. No judgment, only perspective. She knew I had been in love with him since the first day I saw him stride across the field like he owned the world. She knew I had been patient. She knew I was strategic without ever being cruel.

I let her grin, then left the dorm to grab a late lunch, skirt swaying, boots scraping against the stone steps. I walked with the confidence of someone entirely certain of their own worth, because in this, at least, I was unshakable.

Noah noticed me again that afternoon, outside the dining hall. I could feel it-the almost imperceptible hesitation, the way he straightened instinctively, like posture alone could shield him from desire. His girlfriend was nearby, laughing at something mundane, a book balanced on her hip, oblivious. The scene was ordinary, and yet, the tension crackled in the space between us.

I let him approach, close enough for me to feel the warmth of his presence without giving anything away. I smiled lightly. "Hello, Noah," I said, soft but audible enough for him alone.

He cleared his throat, avoiding my gaze at first, then finally meeting my eyes for a moment that felt longer than it should have. "Elias," he said, clipped, polite, measured. His voice was calm, but there was tension woven through it, a thin thread of something unspoken.

We walked together for a short stretch, our paths overlapping between the dining hall and the library. Neither of us spoke too much. The silence said everything: desire, denial, curiosity, and fear. He was trying not to look, and I was making it impossible for him to forget.

It was a delicate game, played daily in the margins of campus life. I had learned to enjoy the subtle victories: the way his hand paused momentarily on the door frame, the slight flicker of recognition when I laughed at a comment, the way he shifted his weight as if the world were suddenly unsteady beneath him.

By the time the evening rolled around, I was back at my dorm, changing into something more comfortable-a soft skirt, oversized sweater, boots pushed off to the side. Ivy was still there, working away on some assignment. She looked up and gave me a knowing look.

"He's thinking about it," she said simply.

"I'm aware," I replied, sinking into the chair by the window. The campus lights flickered through the branches outside, long shadows cast across the room. "And he will be, until he either admits it or leaves. I just need to keep existing."

"That's what I'm talking about," she said. "You don't chase. You don't beg. You don't hide. You just... are. And he'll either come or he won't."

I nodded. She was right. Always right. And so I would continue to walk the quad, wear my skirts, speak my mind, and live in full color. Because some things-like being seen and being remembered-could not be denied.

And some people-like Noah Carter-could not resist noticing forever.

Later that night, I lay in bed, letting my thoughts drift over the quad, the stadium, the practice fields, and the memory of his eyes on me. I knew the pattern. I had been following it for years. I knew how to be invisible to everyone but him. I knew how to make him question his choices without ever demanding anything from him.

It was power, yes, but subtle. It was seduction, yes, but rooted in truth.

And as I drifted toward sleep, I smiled, knowing that the boy in the red skirt-bold, unapologetic, visible-was impossible to forget.

Some mistakes, some people, linger. And some of them-if you play your cards right-become impossible to erase.

And I, Elias Moore, intended to be impossible.