He’s The Campus Sun But Only A Monster For Me Chapter 01

He’s The Campus Sun But Only A Monster For Me Chapter 01

My name is Beatrice Bliss.

It rolls off the tongue soft and sweet, like candy wrapped in three layers of paper.

My grandma said she picked it after flipping through every page of the dictionary.

Beatrice means beauty. Bliss means joy.

Together, they mean double beauty and double joy.

At twenty-three, I thought I’d lived up to the second half well enough.

The first half?

It must have all gone to Lucas Gray.

It was the summer we were six.

The sunlight poured thick and sweet like melted honey.

I lay under the old oak tree, chewing on a sprig of lavender.

The bitter juice burst on my tongue, fading into a faint, sweet aftertaste.

The cicadas hummed so loud they made my head fuzzy.

I hummed an old nursery rhyme my grandma taught me.

A shadow fell over me, blocking the sun seeping through the leaves.

“What are you eating?”

That was the first time I met Lucas Gray.

The six-year-old boy wore a white t-shirt.

His face was smooth as a freshly peeled egg, his eyes dark and bright.

When he smiled, a sharp little canine tooth peeked out on his left side.

He looked like a doll stepped right out of a magazine.

He knelt down and tilted his head at me.

Sunlight gilded the edges of his hair.

I blinked and pulled the lavender from my mouth, holding it out to him.

“Grass.”

He froze for a second, then took it.

After two seconds of hesitation, he copied me and bit down.

The bitter taste made his nose wrinkle.

But he smiled anyway, eyes crinkling.

That little tooth glinted in the bright sun, almost unreal.

“It’s bitter,” he said, but he didn’t spit it out.

I sat up and studied the pretty boy in front of me.

He knelt there with a little dirt on his knees, his white shirt still clean.

He didn’t look like the kind of kid who ran wild outside all day.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Lucas Gray. I just moved in next door.”

He pointed to a house not far away, its roof peeking through the thick oak leaves.

“I saw you lying on the grass from my window, so I came to play.”

I glanced where he pointed, then looked back.

He was still staring at me.

His gaze was direct and unapologetic, like standing straight under the sun.

It made me uneasy.

I looked down and plucked at the grass by my feet.

“Why are you sleeping alone?” he asked, his voice was clear and young.

“I’m listening to the wind.”

“Listening to the wind?”

He lay down too, flinching when the grass pricked his neck.

“What’s so great about the wind?”

I didn’t answer.

I just lifted my chin toward the top of the tree.

He went quiet.

A moment later, he whispered, “I hear it. It sounds like someone singing.”

“It’s the tree talking,” I murmured, serious as I could be.

“Grandma says every tree has a soul. When the wind comes, they chat.”

Lucas’s eyes went wide.

His dark, bright eyes reflected the golden sunlight and my face.

“You’re so smart. You know so much.”

I blinked, flustered, and touched my nose.

No other kid had ever called me smart.

The others said I was weird, that I talked to myself, that I kept to myself.

But Lucas said it like he truly meant it, like I’d just told him some great secret.

I found out later that day was his birthday.

Six-year-old Lucas Gray didn’t have a birthday party like the other kids.

No cake, no candles.

He climbed over the low fence between our houses,

found a strange girl lying in the grass listening to the wind,

took a bite of bitter lavender,

and made his first real friend.