Before the rain stops, my heartbeat is too loud.

A sudden torrential downpour trapped Julian Cross and Evelyn Hart in the empty old school library. She was the quietest girl in the class, intelligent and possessed of a slyness that wasn’t easily noticed. He was the kind of boy who always liked to test the boundaries, yet had a soft and tender heart beneath. The rain outside the windows shut the world away. In that space filled with the dust and the smell of old books, a subtle tension began to simmer. To break the silence, he suggested a “game of courage.” What was meant to be a joke quietly unraveled its own rules amid the touch of fingertips and unwavering stares—and both found themselves falling, real and deep.