Chapter1 “When We First Fell”
The first time Aiden saw Raven, the world felt too quiet.
It was after school, the sky washed in soft orange, the kind of evening where everything looked like a painted memory. Aiden was sitting under the old jacaranda tree, sketchbook on his lap, trying to capture the sunset before it disappeared.
He didn’t notice the footsteps until a shadow fell over his page.
“You draw sunsets?” a deep voice asked—calm, low, almost bored.
Aiden looked up… and his breath tripped.
The boy standing over him looked like trouble wrapped in black. Black hair, black jacket, black eyes that watched him like they almost saw through him. He looked older, sharper, stronger—someone who didn’t belong in a quiet schoolyard.
Aiden’s fingers tightened around his pencil.
“Um… I draw everything,” he whispered.
The boy’s lips curved slightly. Not a smile—more like an accident.
“Show me.”
It wasn’t a question.
Aiden hesitated, but something in the boy’s gaze pulled honesty straight out of him. He turned his sketchbook around.
Raven bent down, close enough for Aiden to feel his breath on his cheek.
Close enough to make his heartbeat rush and stumble.
“It’s good,” Raven murmured.
Two simple words, but they hit Aiden deeper than any compliment he’d ever received.
He didn’t even know the boy’s name yet, but his chest felt warm—too warm, dangerously warm.
“You… draw?” Aiden asked.
“No.” Raven straightened, eyes still fixed on him. “But I wanted to see yours.”
Aiden blinked. Wanted? Why?
Before he could speak again, Raven reached out and gently touched the corner of the page with one gloved fingertip.
“You missed a bit of light here,” he said quietly. “But maybe you did it on purpose.”
Aiden swallowed. “I—I can fix it.”
Raven shook his head. “No. It’s beautiful like that.”
Aiden’s cheeks flushed at the unexpected softness in his tone.
“What’s your name?” he asked softly.
“Raven.”
A pause.
“And you?”
“Aiden.”
Raven repeated it like tasting something sweet for the first time.
“Aiden.”
And in that moment—under the soft orange sky, with jacaranda petals falling around them—something fragile but powerful began between them.
Aiden didn’t know yet that Raven’s life was shadowed with danger.
Raven didn’t know yet that Aiden would become the one person he couldn’t let go.
All they knew was that the world suddenly felt different.
Brighter.
Warmer.
Alive.
That was the night they fell.
And the night destiny quietly decided they would be torn apart…
Only to meet again when the world gave them a second chance.
