The gym buzzed with that stiff, Monday Assembly energy. Sunlight cut through the tall windows, turning the rows of students into polished lines, all standing straight and still. Up at the podium, Ethan looked like discipline itself—back straight, hands locked behind him—while the flag ceremony went on. Sarah, though, sat slouched in a folding chair across the room, her battered paperback propped on her knees. She didn't bother to hide her relaxed attitude. It was her way of pushing back against Ethan's unbending style. For ten years, the two of them had kept up this quiet routine—his stoicism, her soft resistance—a kind of unspoken dance.
A microphone screeched.
The sound cracked through the room, sharp as a gunshot. Students jerked in their seats. The headmaster lost his footing and flailed his arms, trying to steady himself. Ethan's jaw clenched. He moved in to fix the equipment without even thinking about it—years of handling chaos had wired it into him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Sarah jumping, her book hitting the floor with a dull thud. Their eyes locked for a split second, then slid away. The old tension between them lingered, heavy and silent, just like the fading ring of that awful noise.
It was then that woman appeared.
She slipped into the gym through a side door, standing out in a place where everyone else just blended in. Ethan forgot how to breathe for a second. He'd called her that morning, barely holding it together about his big proposal today. And now, she was actually here—a mathematician from Kyoto, moving with this quiet confidence. Sunlight flashed off her left hand as she pushed up her sleeve. The platinum band on her finger gleamed, simple and unmistakable.
Sarah saw it.
Ethan never really settled down. Sure, he'd date here and there, but his heart always stayed locked up. This time felt different. She saw it, plain as day—a future set in stone, or steel, or whatever lasts. Her chest clenched. The paperback in her lap—The Catcher in the Rye—felt pointless now, just a flimsy disguise. She couldn't hold it together with that memory pressing down: Ethan's laughter in the autumn sun, his fingers grazing hers as he handed over his copy of Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples.
The ceremony resumed. Ethan's voice, firm and clipped, recited the pledge. Sarah forced her posture upright, masking the tremor in her hands. They had once shared a reflex to straighten at the sight of the flag, a joke between them about "muscle memory for patriotism." Now, the ritual felt hollow.
Afterward, in the echoing silence of the emptying gym, Ethan approached. "Sarah—"
She started picking up her books, her smile tight. "Congratulations," she said, nodding at the woman in the doorway, who just watched her, curious but distant. The words felt bitter in her mouth.
It all happened fast, and there was no going back. Later that night, Sarah cleared out her desk—she'd made up her mind. The next morning, Ethan spotted her box by the door. Inside, a note: Some lines you cross, some you leave behind.
Those next few months, the gym kept its sharp edges and secret spaces. Ethan still stood tall at every flag ceremony, never letting anyone see him slip. Yet, every now and then, the sunlight would pour in and he'd spot something—someone clutching a battered paperback, or a flash of auburn hair darting past. And right then, his chest tightened, heavy with that old, stubborn question: what if he'd chosen differently? What if they both had?
Regret, he learned, was a silent pledge to a future that would never be.
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To be continued.