The hallway buzzed with the usual morning noise—lockers slamming, students talking over each other, footsteps echoing against the tiled floor. But I barely noticed any of it.
I was walking slowly, my notebook held loosely against my chest, my mind somewhere far away from Briston High.
Feelings…
The poem kept reshaping itself inside my head. Maybe the opening line should be stronger.
"Sitting, staring at the skies…"
No… maybe gazing sounded better than staring.
Or maybe—
"Earth to Sharon!"
A voice snapped me out of my thoughts so abruptly that I nearly dropped my notebook. I blinked and turned.
Standing in front of me were the two people who had mastered the art of interrupting my thoughts. Amanda and Chris.
Amanda folded her arms dramatically. "Wow. She lives."
Chris chuckled. "We were starting to think you had entered another dimension."
I sighed.
"Sorry," I said, adjusting my bag. "I was thinking."
"That much was obvious," Amanda replied, rolling her eyes.
Out of all the hundreds of students in Briston High, these two were the only friends I had. Not because people hated me or anything like that. I just… wasn't the social type.
My daily routine was painfully predictable.
Classroom.
Library.
Cafeteria.
Sometimes a teacher's office if I needed help with an assignment.
Then straight home.
The cycle repeated itself almost every day.
Amanda and Chris often joked that if someone wanted to find me, they should just check those four places. Even they rarely got to spend much time with me outside school hours.
"Speaking of thinking," Chris said with a mischievous grin, "we need to talk about your little performance the other day."
I blinked.
"My… performance?"
Amanda clapped slowly, exaggerating every movement.
"Oh, yes," she said. "The legendary poetry presentation."
Chris nodded dramatically.
"Truly historic."
Amanda placed a hand on her chest and sighed. "I mean, who would have thought?"
Chris continued the mock speech.
"Sharon, the 'all-by-herself' princess, finally speaking in front of a crowd."
Amanda added, "Even if it was a small one."
I narrowed my eyes at them.
"You two are very annoying."
"Correction," Amanda said proudly. "We're supportive."
"Supportive with sarcasm," Chris added.
They both laughed.
We started walking toward our classroom together. Or rather, I walked normally while those two walked like characters in a romantic movie.
Amanda's hand slipped into Chris's. Chris leaned closer to whisper something that made her giggle.
I groaned.
"Can you two behave like normal human beings for five minutes?"
Amanda gasped dramatically.
"Did you hear that, Chris? The single lady is irritated."
Chris nodded sympathetically.
"Tragic."
Amanda turned to me with a teasing smile.
"Sharon, darling, you've never had a boyfriend. So of course you wouldn't understand."
I froze.
That sentence landed like a direct attack.
"…Wow," I muttered.
She grinned. I looked away.
The worst part was—
She wasn't wrong.
My love life has always been… nonexistent. While other girls talked about crushes, dates, and late-night calls with their boyfriends, my evenings were spent writing poems and stories in Google Docs.
Romance existed in my writing. Not in my real life.
I sighed.
"Let's just get to class," I said.
Amanda nudged Chris playfully.
"Look what you did. You wounded the princess."
"Oh please," I replied, trying not to smile.
The three of us reached the classroom door. But the moment we stepped inside—We stopped.
The entire room looked... different.
Desks had been rearranged into a wide semicircle instead of their usual straight rows. A small wooden podium stood at the front. And near the board stood Mrs. Matilda, speaking with a tall unfamiliar man dressed in a formal suit.
The class buzzed with whispers.
Amanda leaned closer to me.
"Uh… what's going on?"
Chris squinted.
"That guy definitely isn't a teacher."
Mrs. Matilda noticed us then. And to my surprise—
She smiled directly at me. Not just a normal smile.
The kind of smile that meant something important was about to happen.
My stomach tightened. Because suddenly I had a strange feeling… That whatever this was—It somehow involved me.