Chapter 1 – The First Time I Saw Her

I don't remember the exact day, but I remember the moment. The way time seemed to slow down, just for a second, when my eyes first met hers.

Zanita.

I don't think she even noticed me that day. She was just there—living in her own world, smiling at something I couldn't hear, her eyes carrying a kind of light I had never seen before. Those eyes. I didn't know that someone's gaze could hold so much warmth and mystery at the same time.

I wasn't looking for love. I wasn't searching for something that would change me. But there she was, existing like she had been placed there just to shake something in me.

Maybe I should have said something right then. Maybe I should have walked up to her, asked her name, and started a conversation like it was the most natural thing in the world. But I didn't.

I just watched, memorizing the moment without realizing why.

Looking back now, I wonder if things would have been different if I had spoken to her that day. If I had known that this girl—this stranger with the beautiful eyes—would one day become a memory I'd never let go of.

But fate is strange. And love, even stranger.

This was just the beginning.