I was on a plane once—three days after Thanksgiving.

I sat beside a classmate.

She was journaling about a lover. A lover I knew.

“I am utterly in love with {insert name here}.”

As she transcribed his name, adrenaline ran through my body.

He was my pen pal. My friend from across the room, a classmate with an aptitude for deep Facebook chats.

He was witty, odd—smart and Larry David funny. His brain was what entrenched her heart.

She was beautiful.

Her looks would always surpass his.

My eyes wandered to her paper, where she deposited her deepest secrets.

Insight no one was ever meant to have.

I was friends with the boy bound in her leather notebook.

I wanted to tell him about her unrequited love. I could have been the key to their algorithm.

But who was I to mess with destiny?

She moved on, he’s perpetually single.

But in that moment, beneath the clouds of the Florida Georgia line, love was rampant in the pages of a college student’s spiral.

And I held her secret as he held her heart.

Author: Cammie Wolff

Image: Author’s own.

Editor: Nicole Cameron