BEFORE GOODBYE

She noticed him in early spring — not because he was the loudest in the room, but because he wasn’t. He had that quiet kind of presence, the kind that you only feel once it’s gone. Her name was Aira. She sat two rows behind him in history class and never had the courage to say more than a nervous “hi” when their eyes met in the hallway. But she watched — the way he laughed with his friends, how he scribbled in the margins of his notebook when he thought no one was looking, how his hoodie sleeves always covered his hands like he was hiding from the cold or the world. It wasn’t love, not yet. It was something softer, quieter — the beginning of something. Something real. They started talking one day over a shared book in the library. Nothing dramatic — just a small moment, like a pebble dropped into a still lake. Ripples. For a while, he let her in. Messages at night. Walks after school. He never said much, but when he did, it was honest. He told her she made the world feel less heavy. But one day, he stopped replying