Chapter 4: Cracks in the Light
After that ride… everything changed.
He started to show up a little earlier to class.
Sometimes with a soft smile on his lips.
He still sat near the window, still quiet — but not in a sad way. More like someone who had found a reason to wait. A reason to stay.
She sat beside him now.
Sometimes they talked — just about small things. Paper planes. Favourite snacks. The way the sky looked before rain. And sometimes they didn't talk at all, but the silence between them wasn't empty anymore. It was warm. Safe.
He even laughed once.
It caught both of them off guard.
And she laughed too — like someone who had been holding her breath for too long.
But not everything stays perfect.
Not when time is borrowed.
She started coughing.
Just a little at first. Light, like dust in the throat.
He noticed it, but she always brushed it off.
"Just tired," she'd say.
But the coughs got heavier. Sharper.
Her hands began to tremble when she wrote.
Her skin — paler than before.
One afternoon, as they sat on the same hill, watching the sky change colors, he finally asked:
"What's wrong?"
She was quiet for a long time.
Then she said something that didn't make sense to him — not at first.
"I'm not supposed to be here."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
She smiled softly, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I think I died. Maybe. I don't know. I remember pain. A hospital. And then... this."
He stared at her. Confused. Scared.
"Are you joking?"
"I wish I was."
He stood up, heart racing. "Stop. Don't say things like that."
She looked at him — and her eyes were wet now, glassy like morning fog.
"I don't know why I'm here," she whispered. "Maybe to help you. Maybe to feel life one last time. I just… didn't want to go without saving someone who needed saving."
His breath caught.
She walked to him, placed her hand over his chest.
"I see the boy who forgot how to dream. And I remember myself."
Tears pricked his eyes.
This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not when he had just started to feel alive again. Not when she had become his sun, his wind, his everything he didn't know he was waiting for.
"I don't want you to go," he said, voice breaking.
She smiled again — sad this time. The kind of smile that says I don't want to either.
That night, she disappeared from school.
No calls. No messages. Just… gone.
He searched everywhere. Her favorite places. The hill. The library. The back bench. The street where they first rode together.
Nothing.
And the silence hit harder than ever before.
It was different this time. Not the kind of silence you choose — the kind that chooses you. The kind that screams in your ears when the world moves on like nothing happened.
He sat on the hill alone, holding the paper crane she gave him, falling apart at the edges now.
And he remembered.
The girl who ran toward the wind.
The girl who told stories like they were prayers.
The girl who watched him when no one else did.
The girl who touched the sky before fading like smoke.
He looked up, and the sky was wide — a canvas of sadness and soft light.
Tears fell, but he didn't wipe them.
Because for the first time… he wasn't crying out of pain.
He was crying out of love.
Out of loss.
Out of having lived.
Even if just for a moment.