The classroom smelled of chalk dust and damp notebooks. Cyrah sat by the window, watching rain trace uneven lines down the glass as thunder rolled faintly in the distance. Outside, the flag was being lowered, surrendering to the wind. Inside, the bell had already rung—but no one moved.
Everyone was waiting.
"Quiz Bee qualifiers will be posted tomorrow," Sir Alden said, stacking his papers with deliberate care. "Prepare yourselves."
That word—prepare—had followed Cyrah for most of her life. Prepare for competitions. Prepare for expectations. Prepare for a future already drawn for her, like a blueprint she never asked to design.
She packed her bag neatly, as if order could quiet the noise in her mind.
Cyrah had always been the math girl.
The one teachers called on when the room fell silent. The one classmates expected to win. At home, trophies lined her shelf, their gold surfaces dulling over time—fading faster than the pride they once brought.
Her parents spoke of her future with certainty, as if it were already decided. Success was assumed. Excellence was expected.
But lately, numbers blurred—not because she failed to understand them, but because she was tired of being understood only through them.
The library became her refuge.
Not because it was quiet—but because no one asked her who she was there. Between tall shelves of unused textbooks and donated novels, Cyrah discovered something unsettling and freeing: anonymity.
One afternoon, she noticed someone else occupying her corner.
He was not studying.
He was drawing.
The boy sat cross-legged on the floor, a sketchbook balanced on his knee, his pencil moving with calm confidence. Dust drifted through the open windows, settling on his dark sleeves.
"You know you're in the engineering section," Cyrah said before she realized she had spoken.
He looked up, surprised, then smiled. "I know. I like the diagrams."
She frowned. "Why?"
"They're honest," he replied. "They show what holds something up—and what makes it collapse."
She did not know why that answer stayed with her.
His name was Jiro.
He transferred mid-year, too late to be labeled, too quiet to be questioned. People assumed he was careless because he laughed easily and never joined competitions.
But Cyrah noticed details.
How he stayed after class to clean the board properly.
How he listened when others spoke, even when pretending not to.
How his sketches were filled with unfinished bridges and staircases that led nowhere.
One day, she asked him, "Why don't you join competitions?"
Jiro shrugged. "I used to. I got tired of winning things I didn't actually want."
That night, Cyrah stared at her trophies.
She realized none of them had ever asked what she wanted either.
The qualifier results were posted on a Monday.
Her name was first—as always.
Applause followed her down the hallway like an echo she could not escape. Teachers smiled approvingly. Classmates congratulated her. Someone muttered, "That was expected."
She smiled back, practiced and automatic.
But later, alone in the library, her hands trembled.
"What if I don't go?" she whispered to the shelves.
Jiro looked up from his sketchbook. "Then don't."
"It's not that simple."
He closed the book gently. "It never is. But simple doesn't mean wrong."
She let out a bitter laugh. "You make it sound easy."
"No," he said quietly. "I make it sound survivable."
The night before the competition, rain flooded the streets. Cyrah sat at her desk, formula sheets untouched. Instead, she opened a blank notebook.
On the first page, she wrote:
What do I want—without trophies, titles, or applause?
The answer came slowly. Uncomfortably.
To build things.
To design.
To choose.
Not to win—
but to create.
She did not show up the next day.
Shock spread quickly.
Some said she was ill. Others claimed pressure had finally broken her. Sir Alden looked disappointed. Her parents were silent in a way that hurt more than anger.
Cyrah walked to the library instead.
Jiro was there, as if he had expected her.
She sat beside him and said, "I didn't go."
He did not ask for an explanation.
He simply handed her a pencil.
"Draw," he said. "Between the lines they already drew for you."
She did.
For the first time, the lines did not feel like cages.
They felt like choices.
END