I’ve seen it before. Every day. Every single time.
Today, I don’t ignore it.
“Why do you do that?” My gaze stays on the gap between our chairs, on the distance he creates without drawing attention to it.
He looks up, caught off guard, his brow pulling together. “Do what?”
I tilt my head slightly toward his chair. “That. You always move it away from mine before you sit. You’ve done it since the beginning.”
His gaze follows mine. He looks at the gap, at the line of space he’s created, then down at his hands resting in his lap.
For a second, I think he’s going to let it pass. Let the moment move on.
He doesn’t.
“You flinch.”
The words come out low, almost hesitant.
They hit harder than I expected. Everything in me locks up. My chest tightens. My body stills, every instinct pulling inward at once.
He doesn’t look at me when he continues, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s subtle. Easy to miss.” He pauses. “But it’s there. Whenever someone gets a little too close. You catch it, try to stop it… but it still happens.”
My fingers curl into my palms before I can stop them, nails pressing into skin.
I’ve spent years smoothing that reaction away, burying it, teaching myself how to hide it. I thought I had succeeded. I thought it belonged to me alone, something no one else could read.
He finally lifts his eyes, just for a second, enough to meet mine. “I didn’t want to be another reason for it.”
I don’t say anything. Because I don’t know what to say. Because I’m still stuck on the fact that he saw it at all.
The words stay where they fell, between us, unpicked, unexamined. But the space between our chairs feels different now.
The second shock comes in class two days later.
By now, everything about this place runs on habit. Same seat. Same notebook. Same distance from everyone else. I come in, sit down, listen, write, and leave the moment it’s over.
A year of that.
No deviations. No surprises.
Until now.
I am slipping my notebook into my bag, my fingers moving through the ritual with a mindless, mechanical rhythm. I’m already halfway to the exit in my mind, bracing for the cool air of the hallway, when I hear a voice.
“Nora?”
It takes me a second to register it. I don’t usually hear my name here.
I look up.
Familiar faces, though I’ve never spoken to them beyond the occasional glance. Same row most evenings. The one with the yellow nose ring, a tiny, sun-bright stud. The tall one who’s always borrowing pens. Another with an open, easy expression.
“Hey,” the girl with the yellow nose ring says, offering a quick smile. “So—this is kind of random.”
I pause, my hand still resting on my bag, waiting for the rest.
“We’re going to watch a movie on Saturday,” she continues, glancing briefly at the others before looking back at me. “One of our friends booked an extra ticket by mistake. We thought maybe you’d want to come?”
