rise by Laurel Krown

Laya woke before her alarm, the early morning light slipping through the sheer curtains of her bedroom. She lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, her mind waking faster than her body. Mondays usually felt heavy, too many obligations, too many thoughts crowding in before she had the chance to sort them, but this morning felt different. Not lighter. Just alert in a new, unmistakable way.

Maybe it was the stars she drove under last night. Or Beth’s warm stories at Sleepy Monk Café. Or the two boys who’d shown up needing a jumpstart. She still didn’t know why their faces stuck with her, maybe because the moment had felt strangely aligned, the kind of timing she never could have planned. They were kind, polite, and unexpectedly funny. And observant. Especially the quiet one, Jack. His silence wasn’t empty; it was watchful in a way that lingered longer than she expected.

She brushed her thoughts away and sat up, running her hands through her hair. Her ADHD mind was already firing in ten directions, assignments, her favorite class later that morning, the storyline she’d been outlining, the quiet excitement humming below her ribs. She wasn’t sure what she was excited about. She only knew that she was.

She dressed quickly, pulling on a soft sweater and jeans, something comfortable enough to write in. She grabbed her backpack, earphones, and keys, then slipped out of the house. The crisp morning air met her in the driveway, clearing whatever fog her mind still held as she started the twenty-minute drive to campus.

The campus buzzed with its usual Monday rhythm as Laya made her way toward her first class. Clusters of students shuffled along the pathways, some wrapped in oversized hoodies and clutching coffees like lifelines, others balancing textbooks while speed-talking about midterms they weren’t ready for. A group lounged on the grass despite the cold, laughing at something on someone’s phone, autumn leaves sticking to the fabric of their sweatpants as if the season itself had claimed them.

The trees lining the walkway were halfway bare now, shedding shades of amber, rust, and gold. Leaves drifted down with every small gust of wind, landing at Laya’s feet and crackling under her steps. The sky overhead was an Oregon blue, washed thin by morning light, streaked with pale gold brushing the tops of the buildings. It was the kind of fall morning that felt tender, like the world was shifting under the surface.

Laya loved mornings like this. They made her feel like anything could happen.
Like the day hadn’t decided its shape yet.

She pushed through the Humanities building doors, weaving past familiar faces and offering quick smiles. Her world felt full today, not crowded, just full.

She slipped into her usual seat by the window, where the light hit her notebook just right.

Her professor started lecturing, but her mind wandered in soft, harmless ways, drifting back to Beth, to the warmth of Sleepy Monk Café, to the two boys who had needed her help. It wasn’t the favor she remembered so much as the way the night unfolded. How she had chosen to stay late with Beth, wiping down counters and talking about life long after the café had closed. How she was exactly where she needed to be when the boys showed up in the dark, stranded and frustrated but still polite. She thought about how she had stepped outside without hesitation, how she knew exactly what to do, how natural it felt to help.

It wasn’t coincidence she kept thinking about, it was the quiet precision of it all. The way certain moments aligned not by accident, but by a nudge she didn’t always understand. Moments that felt arranged, placed gently in her path, waiting for her to step into them.

Her thoughts drifted like gentle currents, brushing against that familiar feeling she got when life placed certain people in her path twice, when moments folded over each other in ways she couldn’t explain. She knew God created these intersections with purpose, weaving timing and encounters together beyond her understanding. She tried not to overthink them. She tried to live them as they came, trusting each one carried meaning even if she couldn’t see the shape of it yet.

She tapped her pen against the page, half-listening, half-drifting.

If the universe wanted two paths to cross, she wondered, would it really let it happen only once?

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HARLAN’S MORNING

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Across campus, Harlan parked his truck in his usual spot and sat there for a long moment before getting out. He hadn’t slept well. The fishing trip with his dad clung to him like damp clothes, heavy, cold, impossible to shake off. He’d lain awake half the night replaying conversations he wished had gone differently.

The silence.
The disappointment.
The questions he didn’t dare ask out loud.

He rubbed a hand over his face and exhaled.
He had class in five minutes. He needed to move.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed across the quad, earbuds in but no music playing, the illusion of distance, nothing more. Campus was loud, louder on Mondays, and the noise outside only amplified the noise inside his mind.

He passed groups of students laughing, complaining about exams, flirting, shouting across the walkway. He tried to focus on his schedule, on soccer practice later, on the assignments buried in his planner.

He tried not to think about the diner.
Or the girl with the steady eyes.
Or the way something in him had jolted when she walked in.

Jack and Damian hadn’t brought it up, not in the car, not back at the dorm, not once. They knew him well enough to give him space, to respect the boundaries he never had to say out loud. If Harlan wanted to talk about the girl from the diner, he would. When he was ready. They never pushed.

But their silence only made it worse.

Because without their questions, without the chance to deflect or laugh it off or let the words spill out before he overthought them, he was left alone with it. Left to turn the memory over in his mind until it sharpened instead of faded. Left to analyze why he noticed her, why she lingered, why someone who wasn’t fawning over him had unsettled him so completely.

And the longer he stayed quiet, the more it messed with him. It distracted him from the things that were supposed to matter: school, practice, keeping a straight line through the shifting tension with his dad. He needed an outlet, a place to set the thoughts down so he could breathe again.

But holding it in meant the thoughts only grew louder.

And that was the part that drove him crazy.

He pushed the door open to his classroom and slipped into the back row. He didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to be noticed. He just wanted to exist quietly.

But when he pulled out his notebook, something tugged at him.
Soft.
Persistent.
Unwelcome.

Her laugh.

He closed his eyes, annoyed at himself.
It’s Monday. Focus.

But focus felt suddenly unfamiliar.

Outside the athletic center, Jack leaned against a brick column, coffee in hand, listening as Damian talked through a new drill idea. They both looked relaxed, but Harlan saw the tension under the surface, they were waiting for him to speak first.

“Morning,” Harlan said.

“Morning,” Jack replied. “Heading to psych?”

“Yeah.”

Jack exchanged a glance with Damian, then said, “We were thinking Top Golf after practice. Break up the routine. You in?”

Normally he would’ve said yes. Routine with them grounded him. But today something in him resisted.

“I can’t,” he said. “I’ve got a paper due. Human Sexuality. I need to get it done.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow but didn’t push. “Library after? You know my dad doesn’t mind if we work at the house.”

“Not tonight.”

Damian blinked. “The library?”

Harlan nodded once.

Jack didn’t argue. He understood Harlan’s routines well enough to know a break in the pattern meant something else was happening, something heavier than school or soccer.

“If you need help, text me,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Harlan replied. “Thanks.”

Practice was brutal, just like Jack predicted. Yet Harlan executed every drill with precision, too much precision. The kind that came from holding something in.

Afterward, Jack tossed Damian the keys. “We’ll take my car. Yours can stay here.”

Damian nodded. “If you change your mind—just show up.”

Harlan gave a small nod back. A thanks. A promise. A boundary.

Jack clapped his shoulder once, a solid, grounding touch that said everything words didn’t.

Then they left, and Harlan turned toward campus.

Toward the library.

The library’s quiet hit him immediately, the soft hum of computers, the muffled shuffling of pages, the instinctive hush people adopted as soon as they walked inside. It wasn’t his usual environment. He didn’t like being boxed in. He liked open spaces, noise he could control, movement.

But today the stillness felt necessary.

He didn’t check for available study rooms. He didn’t ask the front desk. His feet moved without instruction, carrying him up the stairs toward the glass-walled rooms.

Most were empty.

Except one.

He saw her before he realized what he was looking at.

The girl from the mixer.
The girl from the diner.
The girl he kept trying not to think about.

She sat barefoot in her chair, legs crossed, headphones around her neck, hair falling over her shoulder as she leaned over her notebook. The table was a chaos of open textbooks, sticky notes, pens, and highlighted pages, her mind laid out in color. A whiteboard behind her was covered in scrawled ideas, arrows, and half-formed thoughts.

She looked like motion and meaning at the same time. A storm with structure.

He walked past the room before the shock even settled.
Then he stopped.
Stood still.
Turned back.

His hand hovered at the door for half a breath. He almost left, control was safer than uncertainty.

He didn’t.

He knocked once and opened the door an inch.

Her head lifted instantly.

“Can I study in here with you?” he asked, voice lower than he meant.

Recognition flickered across her face, lighting something warm behind her expression. “Oh,” she breathed. “Hi.” She glanced around at the chaos, startled she even had to consider the question. “Yeah—yeah, of course. Come in.”

Laya made space on the table, gathering pens, clearing a section for him. She couldn’t quite believe she’d said yes. She guarded her space fiercely. Most boys tried to break boundaries. Most treated her kindness like an open door.

But with him… there was no threat. No push. No posturing. Just quiet presence.

Her intuition softened. She trusted that above all.

Harlan placed his notebook on the table, movements steady, deliberate. He didn’t fidget. Didn’t force conversation. He simply took in the room, her system, her chaos, with a calm that made her strangely self-aware. People usually stared at her scattered organization like it overwhelmed them. He looked at it with curiosity instead.

She broke the silence first. She always did.

“So, what are you studying?”

“Psych paper,” he said. “Human Sexuality.”

“Funny,” she replied. “I took my Abnormal Psych test this morning. I’m getting ahead on the next chapter.”

His eyes met hers, steady, observant, quietly attentive. He didn’t look away. He didn’t pretend not to study her expression. He simply watched in a way that felt intentional.

Then, without warning, he asked, “How have we never met before? We’ve been here two years. School’s big, but not that big.”

The question surprised her, not flirtatious, not probing. Just direct. Honest.

“Well,” she said, tapping her pen, “that’s not quite true.”

His brow lifted. “It’s not.”

“I’ve heard of you,” she admitted. “You’re the captain of the soccer team. Hard not to hear your name.”

His reaction wasn’t pride, it was discomfort. Like recognition felt undeserved.

“So, if you heard of me,” he said, “why didn’t we meet?”

“Hearing about someone isn’t the same as wanting to know them.”

He stilled. Her words hit him deeper than she expected. Something tightened in his jaw, then released like he was checking himself.

She continued, gentle but honest. “I’m not here for guys. I’m here for a degree. Relationships require attention. They pull focus. And my goals are things only I can build. There’s time for everything else later—maybe.”

He held her gaze, quiet but intent. Her certainty didn’t intimidate him. It grounded him.

“I feel the same,” he said. “Yeah. I really do.”

“You do?”

He nodded once. “Goals first. Everything else later.”

The pause that followed wasn’t awkward, it was full. Mutual recognition. Shared discipline. Shared loneliness, maybe, though neither named it.

“Good,” she said. “People our age chase validation more than direction. You actually have your own.”

A flicker of something, gratitude, maybe, crossed his face.

“Thanks,” he said softly. “That means something.”

“So,” she said, flipping a page, “is Human Sexuality interesting or just a requirement?”

“It’s informative.”

She laughed under her breath. “Informative. That’s one way to avoid elaborating.”

A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “I don’t avoid elaborating. I just don’t talk unless I have something worth saying.”

“Right,” she teased. “ISTP energy.”

His attention sharpened. “You know MBTI.”

“I know everything,” she joked. “ENFP. Classic intuitive hurricane.”

She settled back into her seat, restless, bright, alive in every movement.

He took her in quietly, her energy so opposite his that it should’ve clashed, but instead something about it settled him.

“Alright,” she said. “Study away. I’ve got a chapter to finish.”

He opened his laptop but didn’t start typing. Not right away. He let the silence fill the room.

She didn’t rush to fill it.
He didn’t retreat from it.

For the first time in a long time, silence between two people felt easy.

Not attraction.
Not possibility.
Just recognition.

Two ambitious, guarded people who didn’t have to explain themselves.

And that alone made the room feel different.