At sixteen, Cordelia Hart had already mastered the art of hiding.

The mask was her shield. It wasn’t unusual in those days—plenty of students wore them when colds went around, or when the smog clung to the city like a heavy blanket. But Cordelia wore hers always. At first it had been because of an infection that left her parents fretting, and then because she realized that behind it, people didn’t look too closely. The mask blurred her edges, made her less noticeable. She preferred it that way.

Or at least, she thought she did.

Every evening after school, she trudged up the narrow staircase to Bright Minds Academy, the most sought-after tuition center in the city. Her parents insisted she attend, certain it would give her the academic polish she needed for college admissions. Cordelia never argued—she liked learning, even if the long hours left her drained.

What she didn’t expect was Adrian Anderson.

He was there in the front row from the very first day, his confidence filling the classroom before he even opened his mouth. He leaned back in his chair as though it were a throne, tossed out answers before the teachers had finished asking, and laughed in a way that made others glance over just to share in the sound. He wasn’t arrogant exactly—just effortlessly sure of himself, the kind of boy who carried light with him.

Cordelia, two rows behind, found herself watching him more often than she admitted. When he cracked a joke and the teacher rolled her eyes with reluctant fondness, Cordelia’s lips twitched under her mask. When he scribbled notes furiously, brows furrowed in concentration, she admired the intensity. And sometimes—only sometimes—he would turn slightly, and she thought she caught his gaze flickering her way.

Her heart would stutter at those moments, and she’d bury herself deeper in her notebook.

It was foolish, she knew. She was just the quiet girl in the mask, her voice muffled, her expressions hidden. But in the safety of her imagination, she let herself believe Adrian might notice her. Really notice her.

Weeks passed, and the tuition class became its own small universe. Thirty students packed into a room, the hum of ceiling fans, the scribble of pens on paper. Cordelia’s world was numbers, essays, formulas—and the boy whose laugh cut through all of it.

Her mask gave her courage, oddly enough. It was easier to speak up when her face was hidden. During discussions, her voice would ring out from behind the fabric, surprising even herself. The teachers praised her arguments; some classmates nodded along. Cordelia began to feel a quiet pride: maybe she wasn’t invisible after all.

Then came the mock debate exercise.

The teacher, eager to sharpen their reasoning skills, split the class into teams. Cordelia’s palms dampened instantly, but she forced herself to join in. Her team prepared hastily, whispering strategies, scribbling points. When her turn came, she stood at the front of the room, tugged her mask down just enough to speak clearly, and launched into her argument.

Her voice wavered at first, but soon steadied. She was making sense—more than that, she was making impact. Even Adrian, leaning against the wall on the opposing team, tilted his head slightly, as though listening.

By the time she returned to her seat, Cordelia’s heart was hammering—but with exhilaration, not fear. She’d done it. She’d spoken with clarity, with conviction. She dared a small smile under her mask.

And then, during the break, it happened.

The room buzzed with chatter as students stretched, swapping notes and jokes. Cordelia lingered near her desk, sipping water, when Maya—her only real friend in the class—nudged her.

“You should take off your mask, at least once,” Maya whispered. “You looked so confident out there. Why keep hiding?”

Cordelia hesitated. She’d worn the mask so long it felt like part of her face. But something inside her stirred. Adrian had looked at her while she was speaking. What if… what if he could see her, the real her, and not just the shadow behind the mask?

Her fingers trembled as she tugged it down. The cool air brushed her cheeks. For the first time in months, her full face was bare in that room. She tucked the mask into her pocket, her heart racing with both fear and a strange, giddy hope.

And then Adrian walked by.

He slowed, eyes flicking over her—just for a second. Cordelia braced herself, every nerve sparking, waiting for… what? A smile? A compliment? Something small but kind, something that would make her leap inside?

Instead, he smirked faintly, and with the casual cruelty of a boy who never thought his words might matter, he said,

“Oh. You look… kind of ugly without it.”

The words fell like stones into silence.

Cordelia’s stomach dropped. Heat rushed to her face, burning hotter than she thought possible. She froze, unable to move, unable to breathe. Ugly.

Ugly.

The sound echoed, bouncing off the walls of her mind, sharper than any insult she’d ever known. Because it was him. Because she had dared, just for once, to be seen—and this was the result.

Maya’s eyes widened, her mouth parting as if to protest, but Adrian had already turned away, laughing with a classmate about something else. As if his remark had meant nothing at all. As if he hadn’t just shattered something delicate inside her.

Cordelia tugged her mask back up so quickly her nails scratched her skin. She pressed the fabric tight against her face, as though it could erase what had just happened.

The rest of the class blurred. The teacher’s voice, the scrape of chairs, the shuffle of notebooks—all of it faded under the heavy weight of that word. Ugly.

When she reached home that evening, she locked herself in the bathroom and stared into the mirror.

There she was: Cordelia Hart. Ordinary brown eyes. Unruly hair that refused to lie flat. A nose she’d always thought was too sharp, lips too thin. She pressed her palms to the sink, trying to find something—anything—redeemable. But all she saw was the echo of his smirk, the word hanging like a label across her reflection.

“Ugly,” she whispered.

And for the first time, she believed it.

Later that night, she opened her journal, the leather-bound one she used for secrets too heavy to say aloud. Her handwriting was jagged as she wrote:

I should never have taken the mask off. I thought maybe—just maybe—he would see me. But he did, and now I wish he hadn’t. I was stupid to hope. I won’t make that mistake again.

The ink smudged where a tear fell, but she didn’t wipe it away. She filled three more pages with words she would never speak, sealing the pain into the book the way she sealed her face behind the mask.

From that day on, Cordelia swore she would never again offer someone the power to hurt her so deeply. She would be witty, guarded, untouchable. No one would see her vulnerability, not ever again.

But wounds have long memories. And though she tried to bury that moment, though years would pass and life would change, Adrian Anderson’s careless words remained lodged inside her, shaping her in ways neither of them could have predicted.

What Cordelia didn’t know then was that fate wasn’t finished with her story. The boy who had once called her ugly would one day sit across from her again—not in a classroom, but on a blind date that neither of them had expected. And the equation of their lives, once broken, would begin to change.

At twenty-six, Cordelia Hart was the kind of woman who seemed untouchable.

Her colleagues at the publishing house admired her precision, her calm, the way she could dissect a manuscript without flinching. At family gatherings, relatives praised her independence, her good job, her quiet elegance. To strangers, she was composed, self-possessed, the picture of someone who had life neatly balanced.

None of them knew how carefully she’d built those walls.

The mask was long gone, but something invisible had replaced it. Cordelia’s armor was silence when she didn’t trust her words, wit when she needed to deflect, and an almost clinical detachment when conversations brushed too close to her heart. The girl who once scribbled in journals about wanting to be noticed had taught herself instead how to disappear in plain sight.

Yet sometimes, late at night, when she curled up with a novel and let herself drift into fictional romances, a quiet ache stirred. She still wondered: what does it feel like to be truly seen—and wanted—for who you are?

Her mother, however, had grown impatient with such questions left unanswered.

“Cordelia, you’re not getting any younger,” Mrs. Hart said one Sunday morning, setting a steaming plate of idlis in front of her daughter. “It’s time you considered settling down. There’s a boy your aunt knows—good family, stable career. Why not meet him once?”

Cordelia sipped her coffee, hoping the bitterness would mask the twist in her chest. “A blind date? That’s not really my style.”

“Meeting someone over dinner is hardly blind,” her mother countered briskly. “Besides, it’s just one evening. What harm could it do?”

Plenty, Cordelia thought. But saying no felt like admitting she was afraid. And she hated the thought of her mother looking at her with disappointment, the same way Cordelia often looked at her own reflection.

“Fine,” she said finally, setting her cup down. “One dinner.”

It was a decision she regretted almost immediately, but the wheels were already in motion.

---

The restaurant her aunt had chosen was elegant but not intimidating—soft lighting, polished wood, the faint hum of jazz in the background. Cordelia arrived a few minutes early, as she always did, her dress simple yet carefully chosen. She checked her reflection in her phone screen one last time, smoothing a stray strand of hair.

When the host approached, leading her toward the reserved table, Cordelia rehearsed polite smiles in her head. She was ready for awkward small talk, for forced laughter, for the kind of stilted evening she could later file away as “an experiment that failed.”

She was not ready for him.

Adrian Anderson stood as she approached, buttoning his blazer with the same easy confidence she remembered from a decade ago.

For a moment, the air left her lungs. It was like being sixteen again—rows of desks, the hum of ceiling fans, and that careless smirk slicing into her self-worth. The word ugly thundered in her ears.

Her grip on her purse tightened. This had to be a mistake.

“Cordelia?” His voice was deeper now, smoother, but unmistakably his. His eyes flicked over her face—not cruelly, not mockingly, just with recognition. “I can’t believe it. It’s been… years.”

She forced her lips into a smile, the kind that looked polite but never reached her eyes. “Adrian. What an… unexpected surprise.”

Unexpected was an understatement. Fate, it seemed, had a wicked sense of humor.

They sat, the clink of cutlery around them filling the silence that stretched between their polite words. Cordelia kept her posture perfect, her voice measured, every defense honed over years rising to the surface. But beneath it all, her pulse hammered with the collision of past and present.

He had hurt her once. He had made her vow never to unmask herself again. And now, of all people, he was the one fate had chosen to place across the table, under warm restaurant lights, as though nothing had ever happened.

Cordelia lifted her glass, steady hands betraying none of the storm inside. “Well then,” she said softly, meeting his gaze. “Shall we see what this evening has in store?”

Adrian’s smile—genuine, unguarded—was not the smirk she remembered. And that, more than anything, unsettled her.

Because for the first time in years, Cordelia felt the faintest crack in her armor.

The waiter had just taken their orders when silence settled over the table again.

Cordelia smoothed her napkin, tracing the embroidery along its edge. She hated silence—at least, this kind. It wasn’t comfortable or companionable; it was taut, full of unspoken history.

Adrian broke it first.

“So… publishing, right? That’s what I heard from your aunt. You’re an editor?”

Cordelia inclined her head. “Assistant editor. Mostly I wrestle with manuscripts that need more saving than the writers care to admit.”

His lips twitched. “Sounds brutal.”

“It’s honest.” She allowed herself the smallest smile. “What about you? Architecture, if I remember correctly?”

“Still at it,” Adrian confirmed, leaning back. “Designing spaces, arguing with clients who think they’re visionaries because they once rearranged their living room. The usual.”

Cordelia raised a brow. “So you crush dreams for a living?”

“Only the badly proportioned ones.”

Despite herself, Cordelia laughed—quiet, quick, but real. She caught the flicker of satisfaction in his eyes, and her defenses snapped back up. He wasn’t supposed to make her laugh. Not after what he’d said years ago.

She sipped her water, letting the coolness ground her.

Adrian leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You’ve changed, Cordelia.”

The words made her stomach knot. “Everyone changes.”

“No, I mean… you’re sharper now. More…” He hesitated, searching for the word. “Composed. Back then, you always kept to yourself.”

Her fingers tightened on the glass stem. Back then. Did he even remember? Or was the memory of that cruel remark so insignificant to him that it hadn’t scarred him the way it had scarred her?

“And you,” she said lightly, masking the tremor in her chest, “still think you can read people like blueprints.”

He grinned. “Occupational hazard.”

Their food arrived, rescuing her from the weight of his gaze. Cordelia busied herself with cutting her risotto, chewing carefully, anything to avoid the unspoken history pressing at the edges of her thoughts.

But Adrian wasn’t finished. “Do you ever think about those tuition classes?”

Cordelia’s fork stilled mid-air.

He chuckled, oblivious to her stiff posture. “Those endless debates, the late-night cramming… We thought we were conquering the world.”

She forced a polite laugh. “Teenage arrogance.”

His expression softened. “You were good, though. I remember. Always precise, always making me think harder.”

Cordelia’s throat tightened. He remembered that? But not… the other thing?

The contrast was unbearable. Here was Adrian, casually pulling at threads of their shared past, unaware of the wound he’d left stitched into her. She could have told him. She could have said, Yes, I remember too. I remember when you called me ugly, when you taught me that showing myself was a mistake.

But she swallowed the words. Not yet.

Instead, she lifted her chin. “Funny. I don’t remember you ever taking me seriously back then.”

His brows lifted slightly. “I didn’t?”

“You were always surrounded by people, always the center of attention.” Her tone was steady, but her heart raced. “Some of us stayed invisible.”

Adrian’s smile faded. He studied her for a moment, and in his eyes she saw something different—something quieter. “If I missed seeing you then… that was my loss.”

Cordelia blinked, thrown off balance. For a heartbeat, it felt as though he was peering through her defenses, brushing dangerously close to the truth.

She stabbed another bite of risotto, retreating into sarcasm. “Well, maybe architecture suits you. You’re very good at building things… and tearing them down.”

Adrian didn’t flinch. He only smiled faintly, almost ruefully, as though he understood more than she wanted him to.

The conversation drifted to safer ground after that—books they’d read, cities they hoped to visit, the absurdities of extended families. Cordelia kept her laughter measured, her comments clever, but beneath it all was a current she couldn’t control. He wasn’t the boy she remembered. His arrogance was tempered now, replaced with warmth that unsettled her more than cruelty ever had.

When the bill came, Adrian reached for it without hesitation. Cordelia protested automatically, but he waved her off.

“Consider it a truce,” he said with a grin. “One dinner on me, no debates about fairness.”

She rolled her eyes but let him have his way. Outside, the night air was cool, the city lights painting the pavement in soft gold. Cordelia hugged her shawl tighter around herself, already preparing the neat goodbye she’d deliver.

But Adrian walked beside her, hands in his pockets, not rushing, not filling the silence with chatter. Just… present.

At the corner where their paths would split, he paused. “It was good seeing you again, Cordelia. Really good.”

She met his eyes, her heart betraying her with an unsteady rhythm. For a moment, she saw not the careless boy of sixteen but the man standing before her—steady, genuine, impossibly disarming.

“Goodnight, Adrian,” she said softly, then turned away before the crack in her armor widened any further.

But as she walked home, the echo of his words followed her.

You’ve changed, Cordelia.

And she wondered, not for the first time, if change was enough to rewrite the past.