The Roommate I Never Noticed

I never paid much attention to the way the hallway lights flickered after midnight, but that night, they seemed louder than usual—buzzing softly, casting uneven shadows over the peeling paint outside our dorm room. The whole floor was unusually quiet, the kind of quiet that only comes during exam season when everyone either crashes early or pulls an all-nighter in the library. I had just returned from a late study session, juggling a half-spilled coffee and my laptop bag, when I realized our door was cracked open. Not wide, but enough for a thin sliver of warm light to leak out. Rayan never left the door open. Ever. I nudged it gently with my elbow, half expecting music or the sound of him snoring, but instead I found him sitting cross-legged on the floor beside his desk. His hair was messy, his hoodie looked two sizes too big, and there was a stack of old photographs spread out around him like scattered memories. He didn’t look up when I entered. He was too focused on a particular picture, the edges worn and faded. “You alright?” I asked softly, placing my bag on my bed. Rayan flinched and quickly hid the photo behind him—as if I’d caught him doing something embarrassing. “Oh—uh, yeah,” he said, forcing a smile. “Just… cleaning.” “At midnight?” He nodded. “Best time. No distractions.” I sat on my bed, eyeing the photos he was trying to shove into a shoebox. “Those don’t look like trash.” “No,” he mumbled, fingers brushing over the lid. “They’re… old.” I didn’t push. With Rayan, you couldn’t. We’d lived together for almost a year, and he still managed to feel like someone I only passed on the way to class. Quiet. Soft-spoken. Distant. The kind of person who blended into the background until you realized you’d grown used to his presence. But something about him tonight felt different—raw, unshielded. The rain started soon after, tapping lightly against our single narrow window. Rayan glanced toward it as if the sound grounded him. “It’s going to be loud later,” he said quietly. “Storm’s moving in.” “You like storms?” He shrugged. “They make everything else feel small.” That was a surprisingly poetic thing for him to say. I leaned back on my palms, watching him pull his knees up to his chest. “You’ve been weird lately,” I said with a small grin. “Not in a bad way. Just… more here.” He blinked at me, confused. “I live here.” “You know what I mean.” He looked down, fiddling with the loose strings on his hoodie. “Yeah. I guess I’ve been… thinking.” “About?” A long pause stretched between us. Long enough for the room to feel too still. “My life before college.” His voice barely carried. “Things I didn’t deal with.” He didn’t elaborate. I didn’t ask. Instead, I slid off my bed and sat across from him on the floor. The shoebox sat between us, old and fragile. “You can talk about it,” I said. “Or we can ignore everything and complain about our cafeteria’s horrible pasta again.” That earned a small laugh. A real one this time. He opened the box slowly, like he was afraid it would bite. Inside were more photos—snapshots of birthdays, school functions, blurry selfies, family gatherings. He pulled out one picture, hesitated, then handed it to me. “This was me when I was sixteen,” he said. I studied the image. A younger Rayan, smiling stiffly at a camera beside a girl who looked a little older. Sister maybe. “You were cute.” He groaned. “Don’t say that.” “It’s not an insult.” “You say it like I’m not cute now,” he muttered under his breath. I raised an eyebrow. That was… bold for him. Unexpected. Kind of charming. “You are,” I said softly. His eyes flickered up at me, surprised. Then they darted away again. Another clap of thunder rolled outside, louder this time. The lights flickered. Rayan hugged his knees a little tighter. “You scared?” I asked. “No,” he said too quickly. “Just… thinking.” I nudged him gently with my knee. “You’ve been doing a lot of that.” He exhaled slowly. “Can I tell you something without you making it weird?” “Probably,” I said. “Depends on what you’re about to say.” He hesitated again, and for a moment I thought he’d change the subject. But then he looked at me—really looked at me—with a softness I’d never seen. “I used to think I didn’t matter,” he said. “Like I was easy to overlook. In school, in my family… in every place I went.” My chest tightened. “But when I moved here,” he continued, voice quiet but steady, “I realized people don’t always ignore me. Some people just… don’t know what to look for.” “And what about me?” I asked. He smiled faintly. “You noticed. Maybe not at first, but you did.” I swallowed, the room suddenly too warm. “I didn’t think you’d want to be noticed,” I admitted. “You always seemed like you preferred being invisible.” “That’s what I let people think.” “And with me?” He lifted his eyes again, and something in them held me still. “With you… I was hoping you’d try harder.” The words hit like a soft punch. Honest. Vulnerable. Completely unexpected. Rayan wasn’t invisible. I just hadn’t known where to look. Thunder rumbled again, closer now. The rain picked up, tapping against the window like impatient fingers. The warm glow from our desk lamp softened the edges of the room, making everything feel smaller, closer. He shifted slightly, his shoulder brushing mine. The contact was light, but my pulse stuttered all the same. “What changed?” I asked quietly. “You,” he said without hesitation. “You talk to me like I matter. Even on days when I’m quiet. Even when I don’t have anything useful to say.” He laughed shyly. “It kind of scared me.” “I’m not exactly intimidating.” “Not in a bad way,” he said. “More like… I wasn’t used to being seen.” I took the photo box and set it aside so he didn’t have to keep holding it like a shield. “You don’t have to pretend around me,” I said. “Not tonight. Not ever.” Rayan pushed a hand through his hair, the soft strands falling right back over his forehead. “Do you ever think about how weird it is? Sharing a room with someone you barely know and somehow getting used to their breathing, their habits, their presence?” “All the time.” “And?” “And,” I admitted, “I think I stopped seeing you as just a roommate a while ago.” A slow, warm flush crept up his neck. “Since when?” I laughed softly. “Maybe the night you fell asleep on my textbook while I was trying to study.” “That doesn’t count.” “Or when you make coffee in the mornings and leave an extra cup near my desk even though you pretend it’s ‘extra’ for no reason.” “That also doesn’t count.” I leaned in a little, watching him grow more flustered by the second. “Or maybe I started noticing when you’d look at me like you wanted to say something but didn’t.” He froze. Outside, lightning flashed. Inside, something shifted. “I didn’t think you’d see that,” he whispered. “I saw everything,” I said. “Just didn’t know what it meant.” “And now?” “Now,” I said softly, “I think you should tell me what you were trying to say all those times.” Rayan’s breathing faltered, but he didn’t look away. “I like being around you,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “More than I should. More than makes sense. I tried to ignore it, but then you’d say something stupid or smile at me, and it just—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “I can’t pretend anymore.” I felt something warm bloom in my chest. Something slow and steady. “Good,” I said simply. He blinked. “Good?” “Yeah. Because I like you too.” The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was full—thick with shared understanding and unspoken thoughts that no longer needed to hide. Rayan shifted closer, the soft brush of his arm against mine sending a quiet spark through me. Neither of us moved away. The storm continued outside, the steady rain creating a rhythm that synced with the soft, nervous breaths between us. He rested his head lightly against my shoulder. “Is this okay?” he murmured. “Yeah,” I said. “Stay.” He did. He let out a slow breath, almost relieved. We sat like that for a long while, the shoebox forgotten, the photos scattered around us like pieces of the past no longer weighing so heavily. At one point, he tilted his face up slightly. “I didn’t think I mattered to anyone.” “You matter to me,” I said, without hesitation. His eyes softened. “I’m glad you noticed me.” “I think I was always meant to.” He smiled—quiet, genuine, a little shy. The kind of smile that didn’t need anything more to feel perfect. The storm eventually eased, the thunder rolling away into the distance. The room felt warmer, calmer. Rayan’s breathing slowed as he relaxed fully against me. “We’re going to be weird tomorrow, aren’t we?” he asked sleepily. “Probably.” He groaned softly. “Great.” “But we’ll figure it out,” I added. “Slowly.” He nodded against my shoulder. “Slow sounds nice.” It did. Slow felt right. No rushing, no dramatic confession in the rain, no whirlwind romance. Just two people finally noticing what had been there all along. I brushed my thumb lightly over the back of his hand. “Get some sleep. We can deal with everything else in the morning.” He laced his fingers with mine—tentative, warm, honest. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For what?” “For seeing me.” I squeezed his hand gently. “Always.” The rain softened to a faint drizzle, and the room settled into a comfortable hush. Rayan closed his eyes, leaning against me as if this was where he was meant to be all along. And for the first time since we moved in together, the dorm room didn’t feel cramped or chaotic. It felt right. Peaceful. Like belonging. Like the beginning of something we were both finally brave enough to notice.