She took the seat that had always seemed made for her. Her eyes were clearer than he remembered, as if some small cloud had passed. "I had to go home," she said. "Family. Things to set right. I'm sorry."

I kept your desk, it read.

"You're back," he said. There was less question in his voice this time, more like an observation about a changed weather.

One afternoon, rain tattooed the windows. The classroom emptied, but they stayed. He brought out a packet of cookies he’d forgotten he had and offered one. After a beat, she accepted it like someone who’d weighed the ethics of indulgence and decided it was permissible.

Days became a steady ache. He checked the window like a habit, like a superstition. The notes he had left remained, unanswered, small islands of intent. His friends asked about her and he shrugged until his shoulders hurt. The class moved on: quizzes, group projects, the routine churn. He kept her desk as if preservation might coax her back.

"Why do you look like you walk on your toes when you’re thinking?" he asked, smiling.

Once, when the corridor smelled of new paint, he asked her a dangerous, silly question: "What's the one thing you'd break just to see what happens?"

"Stay for a minute," he offered. The words sounded like more than they were—a small experiment in brave civility.