September 12, 2024 — 7:14 AM
Location: Tribeca, NYC, Elevator 2, Madison Place
Weather: Gold and smug
Mood Meter: 🟢 Calm (new earbuds, A‑tier)
Sensory Notes: Lobby music 4/10 • Espresso hiss 6/10 • Footsteps 5/10
Coffee of the Day: Iced Brown Sugar Oat Shaken Espresso (Venti)
Playlist: “Espresso” – Sabrina Carpenter (fitting, honestly)
Goal: Survive the first Student Council meeting without narrating my thoughts out loud

I don’t keep diaries.
I keep logs.

Logs are facts with timestamps, not feelings that need tissues. Facts like: at 7:10:13, I pressed the elevator button, and the panel blinked a polite 2. At 7:11:06, the Starbucks app pinged “Order ready: Ryder C.” At 7:11:22, I changed my mind about taking the stairs because my shoes didn’t seem emotionally prepared. These are neutral observations. No drama.

At 7:12:03, the elevator doors opened, and Chloe stepped in holding two drinks and a face like she had committed a very small, harmless crime.

“I accidentally picked up yours,” she said, lifting a cup with my name and the exact amount of condensation that suggests destiny. “If this is theft, it’s caffeine positive.”

“Victimless,” I said, then wanted to edit my mouth.

We did the micro-talk of elevator friends: new term, the vending machine that eats quarters like it’s rehearsing for a competitive sport, whether it’s ethical to clap when the projector finally connects (verdict: yes, but quieter than a golf audience). She stood a respectful, perfect-distance-away from me—close enough to be real, far enough not to buzz my nerves. She smelled faintly like vanilla and paper. Don’t ask how paper smells. It smells like good notes.

The doors slid open in the lobby, and Mr Luis, our doorman, handed us one umbrella. The sky was aggressively blue.

“Insurance,” he said, with the kind of wink that suggests he’s already six chapters ahead of my life.

We didn’t need it. We took it anyway.

This is where the log should end. But the problem with logs is that sometimes the facts arrange themselves like they’re trying to say something bigger, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the morning aligned like a constellation.

We walked toward school, parallel lines, same cadence. My brain did what it does when it’s happy: counts. Twelve steps to the corner. Three cars are idling. One bus sighing. Four pigeons pretending they own the sidewalk. Somewhere between steps eight and nine, I realised my mood meter flicked from 🟡 to 🟢 without me doing any of my usual tricks. No earbuds. No breath-count. Just her.

“Big day?” she asked.

“Student Council,” I said. “Trying not to explain Robert’s Rules like a TED Talk with hostage vibes.”

She laughed—quick, surprised, honest. I wrote that sound down in my head, so later, when the day got noisy, I could replay it.

The Council Room:

Manhattan Prep’s council room is glass-walled and dramatic, like the kind of conference room where people buy small countries. The skyline reflected behind our advisor, Ms Galvez, and I tried not to look like I was about to present a quarterly report on “Why Posters Keep Falling Off Lockers.”

Chloe slid into the seat next to mine and lined up her pens like a squad: gel, ballpoint, highlighter, tidy ruler. Secretary. I knew that before she opened the agenda because you can tell who someone is by the way they handle paper.

“Ready?” she whispered, passing me a copy.

“I was born ready. Then I forgot. Then I reheated the ready in the microwave.”

Another honest laugh. I’m two for two.

Roll call. Budget. Autumn Disco logistics. The Treasurer wanted to spend half the budget on a fog machine that “spits vibes.” My eyebrow went rogue. Chloe’s pencil hovered, then wrote “Follow-up: safer fog?” like it was a legal document.

When she started reading last week’s minutes, the Treasurer interrupted. “We don’t have to do every bullet point. Just the big stuff.”

Chloe didn’t look up. “Transparency requires completeness,” she said. Calm, precise. She underlined a section and kept reading.

He tried again, louder. “I’m saying we can skip the small things.”

I didn’t mean to speak. My mouth staged a rebellion. “If they were small, they wouldn’t affect the big stuff. Cause and effect. That’s kind of how reality works.”

Silence did a lap around the room. Ms Galvez smoothed the air. “We’ll read the minutes. Thank you, Chloe.”

Chloe shot me a sideways look that said thanks without saying it. I nodded like a human who definitely speaks on purpose. I don’t know why defending her felt like clicking a puzzle piece into place, but it did.

We adjourned with a to-do list eleven items long. Chloe stacked her papers with a motion that felt satisfying enough to cure seasonal depression. I tucked the “fog machine” into the No column with extreme prejudice.

“Hey,” she said at the door, “thank you. I hate when people think minutes don’t matter.”

“Minutes are the receipts of truth,” I said, and then considered running out of the city.

She smiled like I hadn’t just said something too intense. “Coffee after last period? I want your opinion on the disco theme.”

“Yes,” I said, too quickly. “Scientifically, yes.”

We drifted apart into the hallway drizzle of students, and I remembered the umbrella. Still in our hands. Still unnecessary. Still ours.

Business, Geography, Psychology:

We share three classes. It’s like some admin with a soft spot for symmetry put our names into a spreadsheet and smiled.

Business: We debated whether brand loyalty is love or math. I said math; she said both, and her argument was so clean I decided brands can hug you if you let them. She passed me a sticky note:

You were right about transparency. People only trust what they can see. — C.

Geography: Map projections and how the world lies to fit into rectangles. I watched her annotate without mercy. If neat handwriting were a weapon, she’d be illegal in five states.

Psychology: We did a unit on attention and overload. The room buzzed: clicking pens, a heater with asthma, someone chewing gum like they were auditioning for percussion. My shoulders went tight. I took one earplug out of my pocket and rolled it between my fingers. Then Chloe did something small and everything.

She slid her water across the table to where I could reach it without looking like I was making a move. Just a gentle nudge.

“You good?” she mouthed.

I nodded. In my head, I added a line to the log: Kindness, unprompted, lowers noise by 30%.

Roblox, Rooftop, Reality:

School emptied the way it always does: too slow, then all at once. I headed home through late-afternoon light that made the city look Photoshopped. At the building, Janelle at concierge, gave me a small stack of packages, two from a gaming site and one from a place that thinks I’m an adult who needs “linen napkins.”

Elevator. Door slide. Third-floor stop. Chloe got in, hair up now, backpack slightly heavier with the universe.

“Package tower,” she said, nodding to my stack.

“Seasonal adjustment,” I said. “I realised my keyboard didn’t match my will to live.”

She grinned. “Relatable.”

We stepped off on my floor first—hers is two down, but she always rides the loop, so we don’t have to say bye in the middle of a conversation. We did that dance where you both lean toward the conversation and away from being weird about leaning toward conversations.

“Tonight,” she said. “Coffee menu brainstorm. Also… do you play Roblox or are you too cool?”

“I am aggressively not too cool,” I said. “Obbys and chaos. My username is  ‘SkylineApex’ because I was thirteen and thought that made me a secret agent.”

Her eyes pinged. “Add me. ‘NoteQueenChloe’—do not judge.”

“Judgment suspended indefinitely.”

An hour later, we were online, our voices low through headsets, both trying to parkour over a lava pit like that’s what homework meant now. She kept rescuing me with perfectly timed jumps.

“Is this a metaphor?” I asked.

“For what?” she said.

“You saving me while I make bad choices.”

She snorted. “Only if the fog machine passes.”

We built a tiny glass house in Minecraft right after, a skybox suspended above the world, with two chairs facing an imaginary skyline because the real one was behind my real window, and somehow both felt important.

“Your city view must be insane,” she said.

“It’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“Okay, it’s ridiculous,” I admitted. “Empire State in the morning. Sunsets that make you forgive everyone briefly.”

“You’re allowed to love things out loud,” she said.

I put that line in my pocket. Just in case.

The Lobby Bench:

At 9:11 PM, my mom tapped on the gaming room door. “Hydration,” she said, passing in a glass of water and a smile you can sit in. She looked at the monitor—Chloe’s little avatar bouncing around the obby map with a flower crown.

“Hi, Mrs Collins,” Chloe said, because of course she did; she’s the kind of person who greets parents like they invented electricity.

“Hi, Chloe,” Mum said, and then to me: “Don’t forget your noise floor.”

“I’m good,” I said, and I was. The kind of good where you forget to check if you’re good.

At 9:37 PM, I took the elevator down to the lobby because sometimes you have to live in a moment to keep it later. The lobby bench is wide enough for two people and one umbrella, which is exactly how we left it this morning: together, unnecessary, ours.

I sat. The city hummed at a polite volume. Mr Luis nodded once, like the kind of person who respects a bench session.

I opened the Notes app. The log became… not a log.

Elevator Rule #1: If someone you like hands you your own coffee with an apology, accept the apology and the universe in the same motion.
Elevator Rule #2: Some silences are a language you both speak.
Elevator Rule #3: You can be calm and excited at the same time. That feeling is called hope. (Probably. Needs peer review.)

Footsteps. Chloe. Hoodie. Hair down again, like the day needed a second draft. She held up two cups.

“I made a dangerous decision,” she said. “Hot chocolate at night.”

“I support danger in controlled environments.”

She sat. We split the contraband. For a while, the city did its thing, and we did ours. No rush. No speech. Just existing with backup.

“Can I ask you something?” she said finally.

“Statistically, yes.”

“You do that breathing thing sometimes. Four in, six out?”

I looked at the cup. “Yeah. Noise gets loud. The breathing makes a window.”

“Okay,” she said, softly. “If we ever go to a loud thing—like a disco with, say, a reasonable fog machine—do you want me to ask if you need air, or do you want to tell me?”

The question landed like a warm blanket exactly when a person realises they’re cold.

“I’ll tell you,” I said. “But ask anyway. Just in case my brain is busy interrogating a disco ball.”

“Deal.”

We bumped cups like we’d signed a treaty.

The Ask I Didn’t Make (Yet)

Walking back to the elevator, I pictured a thousand micro-asks: Do you want to meet in the lobby at 7:09 so we accidentally practice walking in sync? Do you want to help me fix the Autumn Disco playlist, so nobody plays a seven-minute remix that ruins lives? Do you want to come see the rooftop garden because the fairy lights look like they believe in second chances?

All of them became a single, bigger ask I didn’t make. Not yet. My chest did that careful drumbeat that means soon.

The elevator doors opened. We went in. The panel glowed. Her floor lit first, then mine above it. Two lights. One humming box of air.

“Good day,” she said.

“Top five,” I said.

“Ambitious.”

“I’m in a growth mindset.”

She grinned and stepped out at her floor. The doors slid shut. The elevator rose two stories like the inside of a breath.

Night Log (not a diary) — 10:48 PM

• The disco budget cannot be sacrificed on the altar of Fog Machine of Doom.
• Chloe’s minutes > everything. Transparency builds trust.
• People who pass water without making a whole scene should be protected at all costs.
• The lobby bench is better at therapy than most apps.
• I am extremely not too cool for Roblox. Confirmed by lava.
• New hypothesis: liking someone doesn’t have to feel like freefall. It can feel like standing on a rooftop with a good railing and better company.

P.S: If I ask her to the Autumn Disco, I will use normal words. No spreadsheets. No breathless poetry. Just: Do you want to go with me? I think we’d have fun. (Then remember how to inhale.)

P.S.S: Tell Dad to stop turning GTA corners into flight school. (He’s not wrong. He’s just… Dad.)

P.S.S.S: Tomorrow is Thursday. Statistically, the day our mobile orders get swapped “by accident.” If the universe keeps doing that, I won’t complain.

11:03 PM — Texts

11:03: Chloe: today was fun :)

11:05: Ryder: top five day. Maybe top four if we disqualify the fog machine on moral grounds

11:05: Chloe: agree. also… would you help me pick the disco theme tomorrow?

11:06: Ryder: absolutely. strong opinions on playlists and low-lying smoke hazards

11:07: Chloe: meet in lobby 7:09? i’ll bring the serious pens

11:10:  Ryder: i’ll bring the unserious optimism

11: 12: Chloe: lol goodnight, VP

11:13: Ryder: night, Secretary

I put my phone face down on the nightstand and watched the city through the glass wall. The Empire State blinked like we were passing notes. Somewhere below, Mr Luis was probably putting the umbrella back in its stand, ready to be “insurance” again.

Logs are facts with timestamps.
Here’s a fact: I like her.
Here’s another: I’m not scared of that.
One more, just because today got away with it: I think she likes me back.

I don’t keep diaries.
But if I did, I’d write this:

Some mornings feel like a beginning.
And sometimes the beginning is an elevator door sliding open
and someone handing you your own coffee
and your own name
like a gift.