I had heard it.
Yesterday. In this same room. She stood up and said it herself.
I don't know why it lands differently now.
✦
The chalk dust from yesterday was still on the board eraser. The teacher hadn't cleaned it. Small detail. Nobody notices small details except the people with nothing better to do.
I had my pen out before the bell finished.
Rahim arrived four minutes after me. Dropped his bag. Dropped into his seat. Looked at me — then at the front of the room — then at the seat near the window.
Front-right.
He said nothing.
He was smiling, though.
I noted that.
✦
The attendance sheet was face-up on the teacher's desk today.
I could see the column of names from where I sat. Small print. Two rows. Alphabetical.
I did not walk over to look at it.
I thought about it.
I did not.
Rahim watched me not do it.
"There's an attendance sheet," he said.
"I know."
"Names on it."
"I know."
He leaned back, arms behind his head.
"Her name is Ayla."
I stopped writing.
I had heard it. Yesterday. She said it herself.
I don't know why it lands differently when someone else says it.
"I know," I said.
"Do you?" He tilted his head slightly. "Because you just stopped writing."
I started writing again.
He smiled at the ceiling.
✦
Ayla.
I said it once. Just inside my head.
Like pressing something to see if it's still tender.
It was.
✦
Third period. The teacher stepped out.
The room got louder immediately — chairs shifting, someone's phone, laughter from the front row.
Ayla turned to talk to the girl beside her.
I watched the window.
The window. Not her.
Her cup of tea sat at the corner of her desk.
She reached for it without looking — picked it up with both hands. Both. Thumbs forward. Like it might tip.
I wrote it in the margin of my notebook.
She holds her cup with both hands.
Then I looked at it.
Crossed it out.
Rahim glanced over from his seat.
"What did you write?"
"Nothing."
He went back to his notes.
I looked at the crossed-out words.
Did not feel better about it.
✦
It happened near the end of the period.
Her notebook slid off the edge of her desk. She didn't notice — she was laughing, head turned, one hand over her mouth. It hit the floor between the rows.
Rahim looked at me.
I looked at the notebook.
Don't.
I stood up. Walked over. Picked it up. Set it back on her desk.
She turned around.
A moment — then something shifted in her expression. Slow recognition.
"Oh —" She tilted her head. "Wait. You're the bridge guy."
The bridge guy.
"...Yes."
"I thought I recognized you in class yesterday. You're really quiet — I almost wasn't sure."
The corner of her desk had a small ring from her cup. Still slightly wet.
She smiled. The real kind. No performance behind it.
"Thanks for picking that up. I didn't even feel it go."
Three seconds.
"It's fine."
I walked back to my seat.
She called me the bridge guy.
I have a name.
She doesn't know it.
We are even, then.
Except I know hers. So we are not even at all.
Rahim said nothing until I sat down.
Then — quietly, to the ceiling:
"You walked all the way over there."
"She dropped something."
"Mm."
"Anyone would have."
"Mm."
He was still smiling at the ceiling.
That was, somehow, worse.
✦
Lunch.
Corner bench. Rahim eating. My notebook closed beside my tray.
Across the canteen Ayla sat with three others. Laughing. The center of something she didn't seem to notice she was the center of.
She talks with her whole body — shoulders, head, hands.
When someone else talks she actually listens. Her eyes don't move.
"You're doing it again," Rahim said.
"Eating."
"The other thing."
I looked down at my tray.
He didn't push it. Just kept eating.
That was worse too.
✦
After school.
The sky was still grey and holding. Monsoon patience — the kind where rain doesn't fall, it just waits above you.
I took the long route. Past the tea stall on Juno Street. Past the wall with the half-erased marker writing.
The road sloped down before the school hill.
The Rain Bridge was ahead.
I stopped at the entrance.
The ledge was dry. Empty.
Yesterday she stood three feet to my left.
The stone doesn't show that.
Stone doesn't keep records.
I stood there for a moment.
Then I kept walking.
✦
Home. My desk. Lamp on.
I opened the notebook. Wrote the date at the top. Small, the way I always do.
Below it:
[ Day 2. She called me the bridge guy. She doesn't know my name. ]
I looked at that for a moment.
Then I turned to the P-001 page. The two lines from yesterday:
You stepped into the rain
like you'd done it before.
I added two lines underneath. Small.
Like you'd always meant to.
Shoes wet.
Not caring.
I put the pen down.
That last part is just what I saw.
I don't know what to do with what I saw.
I closed the notebook.
✦
One thing I didn't see —
After I walked back to my seat, after she said thanks for picking that up —
She looked at the notebook I'd returned.
Set it back on the desk.
Not at the edge this time.
In the center.
Carefully.
Like something that could be dropped again.