The crush in the crowded Hallway

"I was wandering through the crowded hallways of my high school, trying to find a classroom where I was supposed to take a test on a book I'd never read. Out of nowhere, my crush from tenth grade—someone I haven't thought about in years—was sitting on a bench right outside the gym doors, wearing that faded blue denim jacket he always had back then. He looked up and smiled at me like no time had passed at all, and my heart instantly did this heavy, twisting drop. I walked over to sit next to him, wanting so badly to tell him everything that's happened since, but my voice just came out as a quiet whisper that got swallowed up by the noise around us. Before I could even reach out to touch his arm, the hallway suddenly turned into the empty, sunlit kitchen of an old beach house I've never been to. I was sitting alone at the table holding two cups of lukewarm coffee, feeling this overwhelming, lingering ache of missing someone who felt so real just a second ago."