Being a subject to utter humiliation all my life, one might think why I haven't been used to it by now.

Well, let me tell you one thing: when you are used to something, it doesn't guarantee that you might not be shocked by it the next time it happens.

Some might say that they still prefer to be prepared than being suddenly hit by such incidents.

But the point is, you can prepare only when you know that there is going to be a storm.

In my case, I was blindsided, or rather, I should say, I might have missed the warning signs in my stupidity.

Forrest and I met on an uneventful day. He is a park ranger by profession, and while he was on duty in the central park, he found a wounded fox cub. He rescued it and rushed it to our forest animal rehabilitation center.

On that day, Natalia was on standby and was doing all the paperwork and check-up of that little wounded baby fox.

Although I was present that day, attending to another patient-a hawk that had somehow injured its wings and now couldn't fly-I generally care for mammals, and their re-wilding is my specialty.

But that day, our bird rehabilitator was not present, so I filled in for him and tried to provide basic care to the hawk.

As I did the first aid and was out to check on other patients, I ran into him and wanted to ask about the reason behind his presence.

But due to my nature and fear of being around people, I did what any smart and self-aware introvert would do-I just stayed mum, staring at him like he was an outcast, and his sole existence in this center was a question that needed to be answered first.

You can't blame me for it, as we don't encounter many humans here every day, unlike animals.

Generally, park rangers just leave them in our care after rescuing them and doing the paperwork. Some of them occasionally visit to check on them, but most don't bother themselves to do this.

But Forrest was something else. Not only was he patiently waiting for any news of the fox cub, but he was also noting down the needs of other animals in our rehabilitation center.

How did I figure this out? Well, he was asking the person at the reception-a mid-50s woman named Fiona.

She is not a chatty person at all, not that any of my colleagues are talkative either, at least not with me. Which makes working here easy and comfortable, as everybody minds their own business. But surely they have those moments, where they show their overly sweet but venomous traits.

As I was retreating back to my own table to avoid being called out as a creepy lady, I accidentally knocked out a paperweight on the table near me, and the sound produced caused everyone around to look at me.

That was when his eyes met mine.

The moment our eyes locked, I think

I felt quite enamored by his heterochromic eyes-two different yet vibrant shades of irises hooked me, keeping me looking at his eyes.

His left iris is green, and the right one is gray. One thing I can still say is that his eyes were the only reason I ever felt intrigued by him, not due to their color but due to how expressive yet stoic they were.

Our staring competition would have continued for a long time if Natalia hadn't called out to him to catch his attention.

That sudden voice caused both of us to quit our predicament and focus on her.

"Mr.?" Natalia asked, wanting to know his name so she could address him.

"Sterling!" he replied.

"Oh... So I want to inform you that the fox cub you've taken here is now okay, but he needs to be put under our observation due to his injuries.

He is required to stay with us for more than three months, as he had badly injured his legs and tail. So, we will keep a watch on him and take care of him from here and will free him to the wild after Ms. Hayes here helps him with re-wilding.

Now, if you have any questions, you can ask me." She ended her diagnosis after pointing at me.

You might ask why this backstory is relevant, but even though this encounter wasn't something worth mentioning, the person Forrest is worth more than being mentioned, and I would have never guessed how important he would be to me in the future.