The clicking of footsteps resounded in the hallway — the only inkling of sound. My grip on my papers tightened; those footsteps held familiarity.

Too much familiarity. 

The path our eyes took crossed, fixating onto each other for a moment before shooting halfway around the world the next. A barely audible, low grinding sound reached my ears. His nerves were getting to him, that was a given. The steady beat on the cement turned to shuffles as our paces picked up.

The mere presence of each other was taboo.

Forgetting myself, with a slip of my hand, papers came flying down in a disorganized heap, accompanied by a rustle that could rival a forest. Oh, how wonderful. I just had to, didn't I?

My knees buckled to the ground while my arms hurriedly swept my scattered pile of notes. In the midst of my embarrassment, a foreign object came into my peripheral vision — an arm had shot out to help me. Unmistakably, it was yours.

I knew. 

I knew you had crouched down on instinct, always quicker to help than to think it through. For the first time in a while, a smile threatened to tug at my lips. It was something I liked most about you.

It still is. 

Your slender fingers handed over my possessions, rendering me self-conscious with the all-too-familiar warmth. No sooner had the minuscule amount of contact been made did you jerk your hand away, as if mere contact managed to singe your skin. Strings tugged at my heart, writhing it into a dead knot. 

My head lifted, my eyes meeting your own deep abysses of brown.

They once held so many emotions all at once they practically spilled out; eager to share whatever, whenever. Now they were everything in the world, yet, nothing, all the same. For there was a barrier, that surrounded you and shielded your gentle eyes. There was an odd rigidness to you that had never before existed around me. That ever-so-sweet curve of your lips was no longer present, a painful reminder that it had never been reserved for me. That's when the icy-cold bite of realisation hit me:

You weren't by my side anymore, and would never be.

I felt helpless — for the first time in years. So I stood there, staring at your disappearing silhouette, trapped in a broken fragment of time where we weren't merely strangers.