Rain fell that afternoon without warning.
The sky, which had been dull since noon, finally gave in, pouring water onto the tin roofs of the village. The smell of wet earth slipped through the half-open classroom windows, mixing with the faint scent of chalk.
The lesson was almost over.
The teacher was still speaking at the front, her voice sinking beneath the sound of rain. Some students had stopped paying attention. A few drew in the margins of their notebooks. Others stared outside, their thoughts already elsewhere.
I closed my notebook slowly.
In the corner of the page was a list of foreign words uneven, incomplete. I knew most of them were still wrong. But that no longer frightened me.
What weighed on my chest was something else.
I felt… alone.
Not because I had no friends.
Not because anyone pushed me away.
But because I was no longer standing in the same place as before and that distance was unsettling.
When the bell rang, I packed my bag like usual. My friend walked beside me, his steps slightly faster than normal.
"You heading home first?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Oh."
Just one word. Short.
But there was space inside it.
We walked a few steps in silence as the rain continued to fall. At a small intersection, he stopped.
"Do you still think of me as a friend?" he asked suddenly.
The question came without warning.
I stopped too.
"What do you mean?"
He looked down and nudged a small stone with the tip of his shoe. "Lately, you feel like you're somewhere else. I talk, you listen, but it's like you're not really here."
His words weren't harsh.
They weren't accusing.
And that was exactly why they hurt.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
How could I explain that my head was filled with a future I couldn't talk about? That my silence wasn't distance but restraint?
"I'm just thinking about a lot of things," I said finally.
"That's not really an answer," he replied, lifting his head.
"But… it's okay."
We parted there.
The rain made the distance feel longer than it was.
At home, the air felt different too.
My father came back later than usual, his clothes damp, his face worn down by the day. He sat at the table without speaking, staring at the surface as if something was missing.
My mother set the food down carefully.
"What's wrong?" she asked him.
"Nothing," he answered shortly.
He ate in silence, his spoon pausing midair.
"Dad," I said at last, "if… if someone changes, is that wrong?"
The question lingered between us.
My father looked at me for a long moment. He wasn't angry. He wasn't surprised.
"Life makes people change," he said quietly.
"What matters is whether you remember why you're changing."
It wasn't an answer.
But it made the weight in my chest heavier.
That night, I sat alone in my room. The radio stayed off.
My notebook lay open, but I didn't write anything.
For the first time since the routine had formed, I hesitated.
If I keep going like this…
will I move farther away from them?
In my first life, I never changed and I regretted it.
In my second life, I was changing and I was afraid of losing something.
I closed my eyes.
There were no quick answers. No easy solutions.
Only one small decision I made that night.
Tomorrow, I would speak first.
To my friend.
Or to my parents.
Because I finally understood something bitter, but necessary
Growing alone is not a victory.
And I didn't want to repeat a different mistake,
with the same kind of regret.