I wish I could say I planned it.
That I had some grand idea, some reason for staying behind after school, but the truth is—I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts again.
The classroom was quiet. She was at her desk, scribbling something in her planner, her back turned to me. Everyone else had left. The hallway echoed with the fading sound of footsteps, laughter, lockers slamming shut. Life going on.
I was still there. Still stuck in this moment.
She didn't notice me at first. I sat in the far corner, staring at the back of her head like I'd done a thousand times before, wondering how something so familiar could still feel like a dream I wasn't supposed to have.
Then I saw it.
Her bag was open, slumped against the leg of her desk. A book poked out from inside. It wasn't a textbook. It was mine.
Not my name, not my handwriting—but the exact same book I'd lent a classmate weeks ago. A novel we'd talked about once, barely, in passing. I remember the girl asking if she could borrow it. I didn't think much of it.
But now it was in her bag.
She turned around just as my eyes locked on it. She caught me staring.
"Oh," she said, realizing. "You've read this one?"
I nodded slowly, heart thudding.
"It's lovely," she added, fingers brushing the book's spine. "The way it captures quiet grief… I don't know. It stuck with me."
Quiet grief.
I wanted to laugh. Or cry.
"That's my copy," I said without thinking. My voice cracked slightly.
She blinked. "Oh. Really? I didn't realize."
She paused, then smiled softly. "Well, thank you for letting me borrow it, then. Even unintentionally."
I nodded again, but something was breaking in me. I could feel it.
Because the truth is—I wanted her to know me. To read me. To see beyond the quiet student in the corner. That book… that book was a part of me. And it was the closest thing I'd ever given her.
And she didn't even know.
"You liked it?" I asked, because I needed to hear it.
"I did," she said, looking right at me. "It made me think of someone, actually."
My throat tightened. "Who?"
She gave a small smile. "Someone I used to know. A long time ago."
I didn't ask more. I couldn't. My stomach felt hollow.
Because in that moment, I realized something.
She has a life. A real one. Full of stories, and memories, and people who mattered before I ever walked into her classroom. People who left marks on her heart I'll never be close to.
And I'm not part of that story. I never was.
I'm just a line in the margin of her book.
I walked home that day in silence. The sky was turning gold, soft and empty. Everything looked beautiful, and that just made it worse.
I sat at my desk, opened my notebook, and wrote without thinking:
"You read my favorite book, and it reminded you of someone else."
"That's the most poetic kind of heartbreak I can imagine."
"I don't blame you. But God, I wish it was me