Mountains Between Us

He let his gaze drop when she passed beneath the window, pretending to study the cracked paint at the corner of the frame. His throat felt too small for the air. He hadn’t spoken to her. Not really. Not since he’d become aware of her, which was unfair, because awareness wasn’t harmless when it kept returning. He could feel it, the way the damp wall held him steady while his mind tried to drift toward her like a leaf pulled by current.

The corridor smelled of wet stone and yesterday’s soap. Somewhere down the hall, a ceiling fan clicked, clicking like a nervous metronome. Khendrup listened to it until it blended with the scrape of shoes from passing students and the distant thud of a door shutting. He stayed where he was until the flow of people thinned and the quad looked emptier again.

Then, as if the mist had decided to stop hiding things, Astha turned and looked up - directly toward the window Khendrup leaned beside.

His body went rigid before his mind could decide what to do. Her eyes found him with unnerving precision, clear even through the haze. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Khendrup felt the damp wall against his back and the cold air on his lips, felt the way his pulse knocked against his ribs like it wanted out.

Astha smiled, small but definite, the kind of smile that didn’t ask permission. She lifted her hand - not a wave exactly, more like a casual acknowledgment - and then she walked on.

Khendrup remained where he was until his legs remembered they could carry him. He pushed away from the wall and started toward the cafeteria, moving slowly, as though speed might draw attention to the fact that his thoughts had already followed her.

At lunch, the cafeteria was a pocket of heat inside the fogged campus - steam rising from steel trays, the scent of steamed momos and fried onions threading through everything. Noise pressed from every direction: laughter, clinking spoons, the shuffling of chairs against tiled floors. Khendrup slipped into the stream of students like he always did, keeping his shoulders narrow, his face neutral, his eyes down.

He found a seat near the window where the quad could still be glimpsed through glass that had been wiped too quickly. Rain had threatened earlier; now the air carried dampness and the faint mineral smell of wet earth. Khendrup set his tray down and stared at it as if the food might offer answers.

He tried to choose his expression the way he chose his meals - carefully, without drawing too much attention. He ate a momo, chewed, swallowed, and realized he hadn’t tasted anything beyond the spice that warmed his tongue and faded too quickly.

A shadow fell across his table.

Khendrup looked up.

Astha stood there with her tray balanced in one hand and her umbrella - closed, dripping slightly - held against her side with the other. Water beaded on the umbrella spokes like tiny reflections of the cafeteria lights. Her hair looked darker where the mist had touched it earlier, and when she moved, the smell of rain seemed to follow.

“Is this seat taken?” she asked.

Her voice was steady, not teasing. Yet the question carried a gentle insistence, like she already knew the answer and was giving him a chance to choose otherwise.

Khendrup opened his mouth and found his voice waiting behind a locked door. “No,” he managed, and even to his own ears it sounded too flat. He shifted to make space.

Astha sat without rushing, her movements precise and unforced. She angled her tray slightly toward him as though they were sharing something by proximity alone. The cafeteria noise continued, but it rearranged itself around them - less like sound and more like a wall he could lean against.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Steam fogged the air between their faces. Khendrup’s fingers tightened around his spoon, then loosened. He could feel the heat of the room on his skin, could feel Astha’s presence without touching her, the way your body knows when someone stands too close.

Finally, Astha lifted her eyes to his. “You came out of the corridor,” she said, the way someone might comment on weather.

Khendrup blinked. “I… was going to lunch.”

“That’s not what I asked,” she replied, and her mouth curved, not quite a smile. “You usually disappear before I even notice you.”

He should have denied it. He should have laughed off the observation, made it light. Instead, he felt the truth sit in his throat like a stone. “I don’t… like crowds,” he said.

Astha’s gaze softened a fraction, but her expression stayed alert, as if she could sense his guardedness without knowing its shape. “Then you must hate this place.”

“I can handle it.”

“Can you?” She tilted her head. “Or do you just pretend you can?”

The question landed sharper than she meant it to. Khendrup stared at his tray again, suddenly aware of the way his silence filled spaces between words until it became a kind of answer.

“I just don’t have much to say,” he said, and this time the confession slipped out faster than he expected. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a speech. It was simply the only thing he could offer without risking more.

Astha looked at him as if she were measuring the size of his fear. Her eyes didn’t pity him. They didn’t widen in surprise either. They held steady, curious.

“Perfect,” she said. “I have enough words for both of us.”

Khendrup almost smiled. Almost. The almost stayed stuck, because something in his chest didn’t trust warmth. He swallowed another bite of momo and tried to keep his tone even. “That sounds exhausting.”

“It’s not exhausting,” she said, and then she leaned forward slightly, lowering her voice as though the cafeteria needed protecting from her honesty. “It’s… relief.”

Khendrup’s spoon clinked against the plate when he shifted. A small sound, but it felt loud in his head. He kept his eyes on her tray instead of on her face. If he looked too long, he might give away the way her presence rearranged his thoughts.

Astha reached for her glass of water, took a sip, and then set it down carefully. “Do you always let the quiet win?” she asked.

He flinched, not outwardly, but inwardly. The question wasn’t just about conversation. It was about habit. It was about survival. It was about the years he’d learned to stay small so nothing could break him.

“It’s safer,” he replied.

Astha’s eyebrows lifted, and for a moment her expression turned bright with anger that didn’t belong to her - anger at the idea, at the way safety could become a cage. “Safe is boring,” she said. “Tell me one thing you love about this place.”

Khendrup stared at the steam rising from the food. The cafeteria smelled of spice and onions, of soap and damp wool. He could hear someone laughing too loudly at a joke across the room. He could hear the ceiling fan clicking. Everything had a rhythm except the part of him that wanted to answer.

He forced the words out slowly. “The way the clouds swallow the campus at noon.”

Astha’s face changed as if he’d lit a small candle. “See?” she said, and her tone turned playful. “You do speak.”

Khendrup’s mouth tightened. “I said one thing.”

“You’ll have to work harder to keep me from digging,” she countered, and this time her smile reached her eyes. The expression made him feel exposed, like she’d seen through his silence and found something tender underneath.

For a while, they ate. Astha talked about the quad - how the stone paths looked like veins under fog, how the old building echoed differently when rain was coming. Khendrup answered in short pieces, sometimes with jokes he didn’t fully feel, sometimes with nothing at all. But the silence between them no longer felt like a wall. It felt like a shared breath.

He noticed, too, that Astha didn’t demand more. She simply stayed close enough that his restraint became a choice rather than a default.

When their trays were nearly empty, Astha glanced toward the quad through the window. The mist outside had shifted, thinning in strips. “You’re in second year, right?” she asked.

“Third semester,” Khendrup corrected automatically, then immediately regretted it, because it sounded like he was counting grades instead of offering himself.

Astha didn’t tease him for the precision. “Third semester,” she repeated, and her gaze lingered. “I’m third semester too.”

He paused. “I thought you were - ” He stopped himself. He didn’t know what he thought. He only knew he’d been wrong about something.

Astha’s eyes narrowed slightly, amused. “What did you think?”

Khendrup felt heat rise up his neck. The cafeteria was warm, but the feeling wasn’t from the air. “That you’d already… figured out how to talk to people.”

Astha laughed, quick and bright. “Oh, you mean I’m loud enough to be obvious?”

“No,” he said, too fast. Then he tried to correct himself. “I mean you don’t seem afraid.”

The word seemed to hang between them. Afraid. It wasn’t a question. It was an observation wrapped in something softer.

Astha’s laugh faded into something quieter. She looked down at her hands, at the way her fingers rested on the edge of the table. Rainlight flickered across her knuckles.

“I am afraid,” she said.

Khendrup’s stomach tightened. He watched her face, searching for the angle of humor, the hint that this was a performance. There wasn’t one.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked.

Astha looked back up, and her expression carried a careful steadiness, like she’d chosen her words with effort. “That if I get too close to someone,” she said, “they’ll leave and I won’t know where to put the hurt.”

Khendrup’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. The words struck too near to him. Leaving. Hurt. He understood the shape of both, though he’d never given them names out loud.

He wanted to say something kind. He wanted to say something true. He wanted - dangerously - to promise that he wouldn’t be the person who walked away.

But promises were heavy. He’d learned that weight could pull you apart.

“I’m… good at leaving,” he said instead, and hated himself instantly for how cold it sounded.

Astha didn’t flinch. She only studied him, her gaze unblinking. “No,” she said softly. “You’re good at disappearing. There’s a difference.”

The cafeteria noise swelled around them, but their table felt separate, like the steam had formed a bubble. Khendrup felt the dampness in the corridor return in memory - the way he’d leaned against stone, the way he’d watched her like she was something he wasn’t allowed to touch.

He looked at Astha’s umbrella, still beaded with water. “You came from outside,” he said, as if he could change direction by talking about weather.

Astha’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”

“Why?”

She blinked, then understood the question underneath. Why did she keep coming? Why did she keep sitting with him when he offered so little?

Astha leaned closer over the table, not invading, just making the space between them smaller. “Because you looked at me,” she said. “And then you looked away like you were ashamed of it.”

Khendrup’s breath caught. He hadn’t meant to do that. He hadn’t meant for her to notice the exact moment he’d tried to protect himself.

“I wasn’t ashamed,” he said.

Astha’s eyes held his. “Then what were you?”

Khendrup could have lied. He could have built another wall out of words. Instead, he felt the honesty press at his ribs like a bruise.

“I didn’t want to want anything,” he admitted. The sentence tasted bitter and raw. “Wanting makes… space.”

Astha’s expression went tender, almost reverent. “And you don’t like space?”

“I don’t like what fills it,” Khendrup said.

For a moment, Astha said nothing. The click of the fan sounded louder again. Somewhere, someone dropped a spoon; it rang out and then settled. The sound made Khendrup remember he was surrounded by people, yet the question between him and Astha remained intimate and sharp.

Then Astha sat back, as if she’d decided not to push too hard. “Okay,” she said. “Then don’t want. Just… meet me again.”

Khendrup stared at her, caught between relief and panic. Meet again. A simple request dressed in hope. He’d wanted connection, hadn’t he? The desire had been there since she walked into the quad like sunlight. Yet now that she asked for something concrete, his guardedness surged.

“Why?” he asked, because he needed to understand the cost before he paid it.

Astha’s smile returned, but it wasn’t triumphant. It was careful. “Because you answered me,” she said. “And because you looked at me like you were trying to remember how to be alive.”

Khendrup’s throat tightened. He wanted to argue that he was alive. He wanted to tell her she was seeing ghosts where there were only habits. But the truth was uglier and more hopeful than either excuse.

He nodded once. “Tomorrow,” he said, the word falling out like a decision he couldn’t take back.

Astha’s shoulders relaxed as if he’d untied something inside her. She lifted her tray and stood, her umbrella catching the light. “Tomorrow,” she agreed.

As she walked away, the cafeteria noise rushed back into place. Khendrup remained seated, staring at his empty plate until his eyes blurred. The steam had thinned, leaving the air cooler on his skin. He felt the lingering warmth of her words like heat trapped under stone.

When he finally stood, the quad outside the window looked almost normal - mist still present, but not thick enough to erase everything. Khendrup stepped out of the cafeteria into the corridor again, and the damp chill wrapped around him like familiar clothing. Yet his body didn’t settle into its old stillness.

He kept thinking about her fear - hurts that had nowhere to go when someone left. He kept thinking about the way she’d looked at him, not as a quiet boy to be avoided, but as someone worth knowing.

And as he walked back toward the quad, mist swirling around the stone under his feet, another thought arrived quietly behind the first one, unwanted and unavoidable:

If meeting her again meant opening space, what if he didn’t know how to fill it - or how to survive losing it?

He stopped beneath the arch where the corridor opened onto the quad. The air smelled of wet leaves and distant rain. Somewhere above, a bell rang - thin, persistent - calling students back to classes.

Khendrup leaned against the stone and let the cold steady him, even as his mind chased the warmth of her smile. Tomorrow. A second meeting. A fragile thread.

He held it in his palm like something bright and breakable, wondering what it would cost him - and whether he’d be strong enough to pay.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.