The corridors pulsed like veins after lunch — voices rising and falling, shoes echoing against linoleum, lockers slamming like the beat of a giant, unseen heart.
Elija walked slowly. Her head felt too heavy for her neck. Her chest? Too tight.
Each step seemed to echo louder than it should.
Something inside her was off-kilter — and not just in the usual way.
Her stomach clenched. Sharp. Hollow.
"Damn it," she whispered, stopping mid-step.
There was a heat crawling up her spine, and her arms felt like water. Not cold. Not hot. Just... wrong.
Her body knew before her thoughts could catch up.
She slipped into the nearest bathroom and locked herself into a stall. The flickering light above buzzed like a swarm of anxious bees.
She leaned forward, hands on her knees. Her forehead touched the metal door.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Her hands were shaking.
A drop of sweat traced her temple.
"Calm down, Elija… it's just stress," she whispered, barely loud enough to hear herself. "Just spaghetti. Probably possessed spaghetti."
She gave a tiny, breathless laugh — the kind that didn't reach her lungs.
Her reflection, had she dared to look, would've shown something fragile wearing the shape of a girl.
After a few minutes, she stepped out.
The hall was quieter now, washed in the blueish haze of afternoon light.
She kept her gaze low. Focused on her shoes.
Left. Right. Left.
Her mind was still fog, her limbs slow. She didn't quite feel… real.
More like a radio tuned halfway between two stations.
Then —
BUMP.
She walked straight into someone.
The contact jolted through her like a current.
She froze.
There was a scent — not perfume, not sweat. Something older. Like rain on parchment. Like secrets tucked between the pages of a forgotten book.
Two hands steadied her by the shoulders. Firm, but not forceful. Careful.
A voice followed.
"Careful," the stranger said — low and smooth, but edged.
Like velvet that could cut you, if you weren't paying attention.
Elija looked up. Just for a second.
And everything stopped.
The woman standing before her wasn't familiar — and yet, something in her felt inevitable.
Tall. Black coat. A white scarf curled like winter smoke around her neck.
Black hair — wavy, heavy.
And her eyes…
Her eyes weren't just eyes. They were doors.
Deep ones. Locked ones. The kind you didn't look into unless you were ready to be seen.
Elija lowered her gaze, heart slamming against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, cheeks burning.
She stepped back and fled without waiting for a reply.
—
The math classroom was cold.
Laura hadn't arrived yet. A few students slumped in their chairs, still digesting both pasta and boredom.
Elija slid into her usual seat, third from the window.
She was shaking. Not on the outside — not anymore. But something in her chest trembled.
Who was that?
Not just a teacher.
Not just a woman.
That moment had felt like something opening.
And she had no idea what was on the other side.
Laura entered the classroom like always — a little disheveled, but with a strange kind of energy. The kind that somehow made math feel less like numbers and more like controlled chaos.
"Turn to page 157," she said, her voice calm, not too loud — familiar. "Square roots and logarithms. And yes — you'll need this in life. Someday. Probably when you're trying to solve an emotional crisis using math."
The class chuckled. A soft ripple of laughter, more from habit than humor. A ritual.
But Elija didn't laugh.
Her fingers were frozen above her notebook, eyes not really seeing the page. The air in the classroom felt heavier than usual. Or maybe she just hadn't rejoined it yet.
The scent was still there — rain and paper.
The voice — Careful.
The touch — brief, but etched somewhere under her skin.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
"Elija?" Laura's voice was suddenly closer.
She looked up, startled.
"You okay?" the teacher asked, leaning slightly toward her.
"Yeah… just a little dizzy," she murmured. Quiet. Almost automatic.
Laura held her gaze for a second longer than necessary — not pushy, just present. Then nodded and moved on.
But Elija knew. She knew Laura saw more than she said. And being seen — really seen — was almost more uncomfortable than being invisible.
The class rolled on.
Laura clapped her hands, gesturing toward the board with her usual, restless flair.
"Alright, let's do problem five. I need a volunteer at the board. Elija?"
Her name hit like a drop of ink in clear water.
She froze. Her breath caught without her permission.
"Maybe… not today," she said, barely audible.
Laura's eyes paused on her again. But then she nodded, calling on someone else without protest.
The numbers on the page meant nothing. They danced around, symbols in a foreign language she didn't have the energy to translate.
Square roots. Logarithms. Equations that once held meaning were now just floating marks.
Beyond the window, pale sunlight spilled into the room. It landed on her notebook like a spotlight, too bright. She covered it with her hand — not to protect her eyes, but something deeper. That spot in her chest where tiredness had made a home.
She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Tried to focus. Failed.
Because her mind wasn't here.
It was still in the corridor.
Still caught in the voice.
The scent.
The eyes she couldn't quite meet.
The woman.
Who was she?
—
Lorena sat a few rows behind. Every so often she turned her head, gave a quick smile. Small. Quiet. But real — like a lantern left on in a dark room.
A kind of unspoken support. A friendship without demands. Without pressure.
Just… being.
Elija held onto that. Let it be her anchor until the bell rang.
And then — the bell.
It cut through the class like a sigh through still air. A small relief that felt bigger than it should.
"You've got homework," Laura said, already scribbling on the board. "Page 160, problems three through seven. And yes — try solving them on your own. Calculators won't help when you're solving life."
Lorena was at her side by the door.
"Hey. Earth to Elija," she whispered, nudging her gently with her shoulder.
Elija blinked. As if waking from a dream.
A smile tugged at her lips.
"You could've given me one more minute of daydreaming," she murmured back.
As they walked out, Elija glanced once more at the board.
Not for the numbers. Not for the formulas.
But for something else.
Maybe — maybe somewhere in the lines and figures, an answer waited.
Not to the equation.
But to the presence still echoing in her chest.
The woman whose eyes still burned in her mind like a forgotten name on the edge of memory.
The hallway reeked of damp cleaning chemicals and cheap teenage perfume — that sweet, acrid scent that made your head spin if you breathed too deeply. But no one really noticed it anymore. It was just another layer in the scentscape of school life, like old textbooks or forgotten lunch.
Doors slammed. Footsteps echoed. Laughter crackled in sharp bursts. Voices tangled in short, fast conversations — some joking, some stressed, some already forgetting what class was next.
Everyone seemed to be rushing.
Except for them.
Elija and Lorena walked slowly. Not lazily — just differently. Like time moved at a gentler pace around them, untouched by the chaos.
They clutched their textbooks against their chests — not because it was practical, but because sometimes it felt like holding something between yourself and the world made you feel slightly less exposed. A thin armor made of paper and plastic covers.
"I'm telling you," Lorena leaned in, her eyes gleaming with theatrical annoyance, "if Laura hands me one more square-rooted piece of crap, I swear..."
She paused, letting the tension build, then whispered dramatically:
"I'm jumping out the window."
Elija raised an eyebrow, finally glancing at her — and for the first time that morning, she actually smiled.
Not the polite kind.
Not the "I'm fine" kind.
But the real kind — the one that comes from deep inside, untouched by fear or effort.
"Our class is on the ground floor," she replied, her voice dry, deadpan.
Lorena didn't miss a beat. "Then I'll jump and land. Symbolically. A protest dive."
She widened her eyes, mimicking a reporter: "'Local student throws self from first-floor window. Survives. Demands freedom from logarithms.'"
"You'd still fall on your face," Elija muttered.
"Rude," Lorena grinned, gently poking her in the shoulder. Not hard. Just enough. The kind of nudge only given between people who know each other longer than a single lifetime — or at least, that's how it sometimes felt.
For a moment, they walked in silence.
The autumn light filtered through the high windows — that soft, pale kind of sunshine that looked like it belonged in a film. It didn't warm you, not really, but it glowed in that quiet, sad-beautiful way that made even cracked tiles and scratched lockers look like part of something sacred.
"Still," Lorena added, her voice softer now, "if I did fall… you'd be the first one to run over."
There was something behind the words. Not a joke. Not quite.
Elija didn't answer right away. She looked forward — not because she didn't know what to say, but because sometimes silence was more honest than words.
Then, finally:
"With a camera," she said. "I'd film the whole thing. Put the Titanic soundtrack over it. Slow motion."
Lorena burst out laughing. Real, head-tilting laughter. It echoed down the hallway, loud enough that a couple of students turned their heads to look — but neither of them cared.
It was the kind of laugh that didn't need permission.
It rose from somewhere deeper. A place untouched by math, or homework, or fear. It left behind a little echo of warmth, a ripple that lingered inside your chest long after the sound faded.
Elija glanced sideways at Lorena.
There were so many things she didn't know how to say.
Things pressing from the inside — heavy, wordless truths.
But standing next to Lorena — feeling her presence, her ridiculous jokes, her quiet way of noticing things without making them loud — everything felt a little easier.
As if they were carrying something together.
As if she wasn't completely alone in it.