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Chapter 3 - CHAPTER 3: FIRST WORDS

The next few days passed slower than usual.

Amira found herself thinking about the journal more than anything else. In math class. On the bus ride home. Even while brushing her teeth. She wasn't sure why. It wasn't just curiosity.It was the way the words made her feel.Seen. Even if the person seeing her didn't know who she was.

When the notebook was returned again the following Monday, her heart beat a little faster.

She opened it quietly, under her desk, while the class buzzed with chatter. The new entry was messier this time, like it had been written late at night.

"You asked if I mind quiet. I don't.

It's kind of peaceful, actually. Sometimes I turn my music off and just sit in my room with nothing. It makes me feel like the world has stopped, and I don't have to pretend for a while.

I don't usually tell people that.

Anyway, I don't really know what to write. So here's a random thought: if you could disappear for a day and be anyone, who would you be? And why?"

Amira read it twice. Then a third time. Something about that question made her chest ache.

She flipped to a new page and answered:

"I think I'd be a bird. Maybe a small one, like a sparrow. Not because I want to fly far away, but because I'd like to know what it feels like to be weightless. Free from pressure, expectations… the need to be seen or unseen.

But if you're asking about people—maybe I'd like to be someone loud, just for a day. Someone who speaks their mind without fear. Like… the kind of person who laughs out loud in class and doesn't care if anyone stares.

Do you ever wish you were someone else, even just for a little while?"

She didn't know what to expect from him next. But she knew something had shifted. What started as just an assignment was already becoming something more.

A safe place. A secret space.

A connection—without faces, without pressure.

Just words. Honest and soft and strange.

And Amira liked it that way.

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