Things didn't go back to normal.
They went… quieter.
Not distant.
Not broken.
Just different enough that Aira noticed it everywhere.
Reyhan still walked with her sometimes.
Still asked if she'd eaten.
Still smiled when she spoke.
But the ease was gone.
The kind of ease that didn't think before existing.
And that was okay.
Because pretending nothing had shifted would've been worse.
They sat together during lunch, not too close, not too far.
Sia watched them for a while, then muttered,
"You two look like people who survived something."
Aira smiled faintly.
"That accurate?"
Reyhan exhaled softly.
"Unfortunately."
No bitterness.
Just truth.
Later, while walking toward class, Reyhan spoke quietly.
"I keep thinking we'll wake up one day and things will feel the same again."
Aira nodded.
"And then I remember… they're not supposed to."
He looked at her.
"I don't want us to reset," she continued.
"I want us to move forward. Even if it's slower."
Reyhan stopped walking.
"That scares me," he admitted.
"Because forward means responsibility."
"And back means pretending," Aira replied.
That landed.
They stood there for a moment, students passing around them.
"I don't want to lose what we had," Reyhan said.
"We didn't lose it," Aira replied gently.
"We learned from it."
He studied her face, like he was seeing her more clearly now.
"You're different," he said.
"So are you," she replied.
And somehow… that didn't hurt.
After school, Aira walked home alone for the first time in days.
Not because Reyhan didn't offer.
Because she wanted to feel her own steps again.
She didn't feel lonely.
She felt steady.
That night, she wrote something in her notebook.
Not a rule.
Just a sentence.
Some things don't go back. They go deeper.
She closed the notebook.
And for the first time, she didn't wish for yesterday.
She trusted tomorrow instead.
RULE #62: Don't expect things to go back.
Because growth doesn't rewind—
it reshapes.