Connection Timed Out

The campus isn’t awake yet. It’s the breath before the bell, the second when the loading wheel still spins but nothing’s crashed. Sprinklers click somewhere behind the JGSOM garden, the grass smells rinsed and shy. A delivery truck mutters near the ISO gate, coughing out the last of sleep. Even the birds sound like they’re still negotiating with morning.

I take the covered walk in even steps. Twelve pavers per breath, bag strap mapped to one shoulder, curl tucked behind my ear exactly once so it stops touching my cheek. Routine is a lid. When you screw it on tight enough, nothing sloshes.

I tell myself I’m fine. That Friday’s bench scene belongs to a weekend folder I’ve already archived: elastic, warmth, whisper. I did. A sentence I have not thought about even once. Except that I obviously have, because my chest tightens when I name it, and my feet speed up like distance is an eraser.

Footsteps enter the frame behind me soft at first, then sure. Sneakers, not leather. The rhythm’s familiar. Four quick, two slow. Someone who runs enough to make breathing sound like a metronome.

“Good morning, control group.”

Mikha slides into my periphery like the walkway was waiting for her. Training top half-zipped, Ateneo eagle catching the early light. Hair still damp from a rinse, ends lifting with her jog, a small crescent of darker blue where sweat decided to stay. There’s tape residue at the base of her thumb, a pale ring like an old eclipse. The black elastic sits on her wrist, mine or not mine a small proof glowing under lamplight that hasn’t figured out how to turn itself off yet.

I keep walking. She matches my pace without making a point of it.

“Control group,” I repeat flatly. “That’s what we’re calling me now? How many names have you called me now?”

She grins, eyes still on the path. “Wala lang. Parang bagay sa’yo. Laging composed. Controlled. Parang di marunong mag-react. Bakit may gusto ka bang ibang itawag ko sayo?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” she teases. “Parang gusto mo kasi na may iba akong itawag sa’yo.”

I look at her. She’s still smiling not in that smug way people do when they think they’re clever, but in that easy, I-know-I’m-annoying-and-I-like-it kind of smile.

Before I can answer, she reaches into her duffel and pulls out a small paper cup, steam rising faintly through the lid.

“Day eight,” she says casually, like it’s an inside joke we both agreed on. “Brought you coffee.”

I stop. “Why?”

“Wala lang. You looked like you needed it.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“Eh di reason na lang kasi gusto kong magpasikat.” She shrugs, mock-serious. “Baka pagod ka na kakasungit.”

I blink. “You realize this is unsolicited.”

“Hindi naman ako nagpa-survey, Aiah. Coffee lang ‘yan, hindi commitment.”

“You shouldn’t make a habit out of this.”

“Too late. Project ko ‘to.”

“Project.”

“Mm-hmm.” She sips from her own cup, unbothered. “Hundred days. Sabi nila, pag consistent ka sa isang bagay for a hundred days, nagiging natural.”

“And what are you trying to make natural, exactly?”

“Being nice to you.”

I stare. “That implies you weren’t before.”

“Eh dati kasi takot ako sa’yo.” She laughs lightly, rubbing her nape. “Ngayon, sanay na.”

“That’s… not progress.”

“Para sa akin, anything is progress when it comes to you..”

She offers the cup again, steady. The lid’s the same type from the kiosk. Black roast, no syrup. The first breath off it is bitter and clean. Too specific to be coincidence.

“Come on,” she says. “Just coffee. Di ko nilagyan ng kung ano, promise. I’m not Diane.”

The corners of my mouth betray me. “That’s not a very comforting standard.”

Mikha grins wider. “Wow. Two sentences, no sarcasm filter. Noted. Day Eight: Aiah spoke like a human being to me.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And yet you’re still holding the cup.”

She’s right. The heat sits neatly against my palm, like my hand’s learned its shape already. We walk again. The silence stretches, but it isn’t uncomfortable, just heavier than the morning air.

“Do you always jog this early?” I ask, mostly to distract myself.

“Pag Monday lang,” she says. “Reset day. You know, para ma-feel kong fresh start ulit.”

“Or you just like punishing yourself.”

“Pwede rin,” she admits, chuckling. “Masaya rin kasi ‘yung tahimik pa lahat. Walang ingay, walang tao, walang judgment.”

“That’s debatable.”

She glances at me, playful. “Bakit, ikaw ‘yung judgment.”

“That’s your assumption.”

“Hindi, observation.”

My eyebrow twitches. “Stop observing me.”

“Eh paano kung gusto ko?”

Her tone is teasing, but the way she says it low, almost careful lands closer to honesty than she probably meant.

We reach the point where the path splits, SEC on one side, the field on the other. She slows, hands gripping the strap of her bag. Up close, I notice the scar through her eyebrow, the small scratch on her jaw that wasn’t there last week. I shouldn’t be noticing any of this.

“I should go stretch,” she says. “Coach might think tinatamad ako.”

“You probably are.”

“Lagi naman,” she replies with a grin that breaks into a quiet laugh. “Pero ikaw? You’re off to terrorize another professor?”

“I’m not terrifying.”

“Right,” she says, entirely sincere, though her grin gives her away. “Keep telling yourself that.”

The silence between us hums again, not tense, not awkward, just charged enough that I can hear her breathing. Six in, six out. I match it without realizing, and hate that it feels like rhythm.

She taps the lid of the cup with a fingertip. “Day Eight,” she says lightly. “Hypothesis: bitter suits you.”

“Stop keeping track.”

“I can’t. Ganyan talaga pag gusto mong tandaan.”

I want to say something sharp. Instead, I say nothing at all.

She takes a step back, glancing down at my cup, then at her wrist, at the black elastic, still there. She notices me looking and grins. “Don’t worry. Hindi ko pa tinatanggal. Lucky charm na yata ‘to.”

“Luck’s a myth.”

“Then I’ll keep proving it wrong.”

She pivots toward the field, jogs a few steps, then turns again. From her bag, she pulls a tiny ziplock with two orange foam earplugs and sets it gently on the bench beside us.

“For when things get too loud,” she says, softer now. “I remembered you don’t like noise.”

I don’t respond. She doesn’t wait for one.

“Mikha,” I call, and her name comes out quieter than I planned. “You’re not going to get what you want.”

She smiles small, sure. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“You said no,” she says. “So I’ll stop pushing. Pero I’ll still be here. Yun lang naman.”

It’s not a plea. Just a promise said like a fact.

“Happy Monday,” she adds.

“Statistically improbable.”

“Challenge debatable.”

And then she jogs off, falling into that smooth pace that makes the air seem to move with her. The sound of her sneakers fades, but not completely.

I stare at the coffee in my hand, the earplugs on the bench, the sun rising like it knows something I don’t. Bitter. Dark. Correct.

“Variables don’t do mornings,” I tell no one. I take another sip anyway.

I tell myself she’s just a persistent blockmate. That these small gestures are harmless, distractions in the noise of an ordinary week. But as I walk away, the earplugs press lightly in my pocket, and I can feel the warmth of the cup long after it’s empty.

Maybe it isn’t the coffee that bothers me. Maybe it’s the fact that, no matter how early the morning, she always manages to find me before I can rebuild my silence. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what frightens me the most.

The day unspools the way Mondays do. Slow, exacting, pretending to be ordinary. By the time I reach CTC 103, the air-conditioning’s set to arctic repentance. Fluorescent light spills over rows of half-awake students, notebooks open in defense formation. My seat at the third row, window side is always the same. Routine. Distance. Predictability in spatial form.

Outside, the soccer field is a green pulse through the glass. Somewhere out there, Mikha’s probably still running drills, mapping her own version of discipline. I look away before the thought finishes becoming a picture.

Dr. Joaquin Mercado strides in five minutes late, the kind of professor who fills a room by accident. Mid-forties, salt-and-pepper hair, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. Theatrical in the right measure one hand already raised as if Aristotle himself demanded applause.

“Good morning, class! Today, we wrestle with freedom.” He draws the word across the whiteboard in large looping strokes: DESIRE / HABIT / FREEDOM.

The marker squeaks like protest. He turns, smiling. “Question: Are we truly free if our desires are trained by habit?”

A low murmur fills the room. Sleepy voices test phrases like “Aristotle’s virtue ethics,” “Aquinas’ will,” “21-day myth,” “dopamine cycles.” Someone near the back Googles under the table, someone else yawns loud enough to count as participation.

Dr. Mercado paces the aisle like a conductor. “So, if habit shapes desire, and desire directs choice… what happens to freedom?”

He scans the room, clearly hunting for a volunteer. Eyes land on me.

“Ms. Ledesma.”

A few heads turn. Even now, that surname tends to straighten posture.

I sit up. “Habit reduces cognitive friction,” I say, tone even. “It optimizes decision time. It doesn’t prove freedom.”

He tilts his head, delighted. “Then what proves it, Ms. Ledesma?”

“When you act against trained impulse,” I answer, before I can stop the thought, “and still mean it.”

A brief hush. The class stirs half-impressed, half-confused. Mercado laughs, a low, genuine sound. “A rebel definition! Aristotle would call that akrasia, weakness of will turned purposeful. Beautiful. Dangerous.”

He gestures grandly. “So freedom might live in the moment we disobey ourselves?”

I allow a faint nod. “Maybe it’s the moment you don’t default.”

Across the room, motion catches my eye. Mikha Cruz, Block A’s resident noise has somehow materialized near the back, still in uniform, hair tied, a faint smear of dirt on her wrist where tape used to be. She must’ve sprinted straight from the field. Her elbows rest on her desk, eyes half-bright, half-amused. Listening. Our gazes meet for less than a breath before I look back at the board.

Dr. Mercado spins into analogy mode, talking about Aristotle, dopamine, and modern self-help books pretending to be philosophy. The class wakes up, riding his enthusiasm. Even the joke-prone row behind me perks up.

“Sir,” one of them calls out, grinning, “so parang crush, sir, habit lang din ’yon, no? Pwedeng ma-train, ma-untrain?”

The room laughs.

Mercado chuckles. “An interesting question! What can you say, Ms. Ledesma since you seem fond of precision?”

The class turns. I feel twenty pairs of eyes waiting. I open my mouth, meaning to deflect, to stay clinical. But what comes out isn’t calculated.

“Crush isn’t habit,” I hear myself say. “It’s a signal. Not an error.”

Silence.

Then, a few scattered giggles, muffled by shock. Someone whispers, “Uy, may pinagdaanan si Aiah ah.”

Mercado just beams. “And there we have it, a confession dressed as theory!”

My pulse stutters. I lower my gaze, pretend to take notes, grip my pen tighter than necessary. A flicker of laughter ripples through the class, light but sticky. I breathe slowly, let it pass.

From the next row, Diane leans over just enough for me to hear. “A, you good? Kasi kung signal ’yan, mukhang full bars ka na.”

A few nearby classmates snort. I press my lips together, eyes still on my notes, pretending not to hear but the corner of my mouth betrays a twitch. When I glance up again, Mikha’s still watching. Not mocking. Just… there. One brow slightly raised, the corner of her mouth caught between curiosity and something quieter, almost proud.

I look away.

Mercado resumes, segueing into Aquinas and habit as second nature, while I realign my breathing, recalibrate tone, posture, logic. The discussion rolls on freedom, choice, will, the thousand ways we pretend control isn’t an illusion. But my hands betray me, they tremble when I underline freedom in my notes.

Class ends on a soft scramble of chairs and zippers, Dr. Mercado’s voice still echoing something about habit as “second nature.” My notes are neat, margins precise, but my pulse hasn’t caught up.

Diane’s already halfway to the door, waving her phone. “I’ll catch up later, A! Meeting with Chesca for an org report!”

I nod, grateful for the excuse to walk alone.

The hallway smells faintly of chalk and air-conditioning. Each step feels like recalibration. Inhale, exhale, delete temporary files. But by the time I reach ISO, the illusion of stillness dissolves into noise.

The canteen hums with late-morning chaos. Trays clattering, rice scoops hitting metal, garlic oil hanging heavy in the air. Someone’s laughter punctures the din, and for a second, I envy how easy it sounds to belong here.

I fall in line, tray balanced, trying to look like part of the algorithm. Choose, pay, sit, eat, leave. Efficient. Forgettable. When I reach the counter, Aling Nena spots me instantly. Late 50s, small but commanding, gold necklace catching every fluorescent light. She runs the counter like a general with a ladle.

“Aiah,” she says, softening her voice. “Anak, anong gusto mo?”

The endearment catches me off guard. “Just the liempo, Aling Nena.”

She eyes me with practiced suspicion, lips twitching like she already knows the lie. “Teka anak, ano bang paborito mong ulam?”

I hesitate. The answer lives somewhere between taste and memory too sharp, too warm.

“Caldereta. But only… a certain way.”

I don’t explain. She doesn’t ask. Her smile tilts, motherly and knowing. She scoops a perfect mound of plain rice, adds steamed vegetables, then spoons a small portion of caldereta sauce not enough to count, just enough to test.

“Pag sinabi mong sakto, yun na yun. Pag hindi, ulitin natin hanggat sakto na para sayo ha?” She winks, sliding the plate forward like a secret.

I murmur thanks, move toward the exit, tray balanced, posture rehearsed. The smell of garlic and beef follows me like nostalgia.

Just as I reach the doorway, motion shifts the air.

“Hi Nay Nena!”

Mikha Cruz.

Her voice threads through the crowd before her body does. She breezes in, hair slightly frizzy from the field, uniform untucked at the back, still carrying that after-practice glow that makes people turn their heads without realizing they have.

Aling Nena lights up. “Ayan na naman ang paborito kong anak sa Block A! Gutom na naman ‘to sigurado.”

“Always, ‘Nay,” Mikha laughs, setting her duffel by her foot. “Pa-sisig po ulit. Dagdagan niyo na baka kailangan ko ng extra motivation mamaya.”

“Eto na nga, para sa iyo special lagi,” Nena replies, piling meat onto her plate with exaggerated generosity.

Their exchange is warm, easy, two people fluent in familiarity. I slowed down just enough to see it, the way Mikha leans on the counter, teasing. The way Aling Nena swats her hand when she tries to grab an extra spoon. It’s a rhythm, the kind that comes from repetition, belonging, unspoken affection. I wonder how long it takes to earn that kind of ease.

Mikha’s laugh carries. Bright, unguarded before her gaze catches mine at the doorway. It’s not deliberate. Just one of those accidental collisions between attention and memory.

Her eyes drop to my plate. The corner of her mouth curves not in mockery, not even surprise. Just recognition.

Caldereta.

She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t have to.

The pause lasts one breath, maybe two. Then she nods, polite but lingering, before turning back to Aling Nena with a grin I can still feel from across the room.

I walk out, pretending I didn’t just forget how to breathe. Outside, the light hits too bright on the tiles. I find an empty bench, sit, and stare at the small patch of sauce bleeding into my rice.

It’s ridiculous, how taste can resurrect ghosts faster than memory ever could. I told her I liked caldereta once, the homemade kind, not the cafeteria version. She remembered. I forgot that remembering is what she’s always been good at.

Maybe that’s why she belongs everywhere she goes. And why I still feel like a visitor, even in the places that used to be mine.

The air outside the ISO cafeteria is thick with leftover noon heat. I balance the tray on the return rack, slide it into place, and step back like I’m leaving evidence behind. By the time I cut through the JGSOM courtyard, the noise thins. No more clatter, no more laughter, just the whir of fans somewhere above. My shoes click against the tiled path, steady, rehearsed. Routine again. Always routine.

Rizal Library looms ahead, its glass panes swallowing sunlight into soft grids. Inside, the air-conditioning hums like static that forgot how to fade. The temperature drop feels like penance.

I tell myself I’m only here for reference reading Sports Psychology follow-up for Mercado’s class, one of the many things I can control. The elevator dings softly, my reflection blinks back at me in the mirrored doors. Composed, expression neutral, proof that nothing’s wrong.

When the doors open, the smell greets me first. Paper, toner, faint dust that clings to breath.

I move through the aisles slowly. Third floor. Psychology section. The hum here isn’t mechanical anymore, it’s alive in a quieter way, pages whispering, sneakers scuffing, someone’s throat clearing three shelves away.

I trail my fingers lightly across spines until I find it: “Applied Sports Psychology: Focus and Flow.” The same author as the one Mikha borrowed last week.

My thumb hooks under the cover and slides it free. Something slips out. A thin, folded sheet. Aged a little, edges soft, the kind of paper that’s been handled more than once.

I crouch to catch it before it hits the floor. The front reads Ateneo High School Varsity Invitational: 2010.

My breath stalls.

The ink’s faded to a faint gray-blue, roster columns smudged where a name was erased or rewritten. I scan automatically, my eyes moving faster than my mind:

Cruz, M. (16)

The number makes something twitch in my chest. The same “16” that’s printed on the navy jersey that still flashes across my memory in fragments. Sun, field, laughter, something sharp and gold at the edges.

Underneath the roster, faint pencil marks run along the margin: a quick scrawl of letters and lines, half an outline, half muscle memory. There’s a tiny “C.” written near a passing drill diagram.

I blink.

My fingers hesitate above the page. The graphite’s faded, but the gesture is familiar. Someone thinking through movement, someone who lives inside pattern and precision.

And just like that, it flickers. Bleachers. Heat. A younger voice calling someone’s name. A figure sprinting across a track, ponytail flying, the world still small enough to fit inside that single, heart-stopping frame.

The image arrives incomplete, like a file that refuses to download past ninety-five percent.

Then it’s gone.

The paper trembles slightly in my hands, the way objects do when the weight they carry isn’t physical. I refold it with surgical care and slip it back into the book exactly where I found it. My pulse doesn’t slow until the cover slides flush against the shelf again.

I take one step back. Two. The air feels colder than it should. I tell myself it's a coincidence. That the world is full of Cruzes and number sixteens. That memory is a trick, one that confuses ache for accuracy.

Still, my hands stay empty and careful, like they’ve just held something living. I walk away too carefully, as if the floor might remember where I paused. The hum of the aircon follows me down the aisle. Somewhere behind, sunlight filters through the window grids, laying rectangles of warmth across the floor. Bright enough to look like invitations, fragile enough to break if I turn back.

I don’t.

By the time I step out of the library, the sun has shifted into that hour where everything looks rehearsed. The light is slow and deliberate, the shadows long enough to trip over. The campus feels half-asleep, half-awake. Whistles echo faintly from the field, bouncing off concrete walls,  the breeze lifts a few stray flyers near the benches, making them flutter like nervous confessions.

I find a spot outside JGSOM, on the low wall facing the courtyard. My notes are open on my lap, but I’m not really reading. I trace the margins instead with small circles, underlines that don’t need to exist. The air smells faintly of grass and coffee.

Footsteps approach. Not hurried. Not uncertain. Familiar.

“Mikha.”

She stops a few feet away, shifting her bag strap from one shoulder to the other. Her hair’s loose now, ends curling where sweat dried earlier. There’s a kind of calm to her I don’t trust, like someone who’s decided something and is just waiting for the world to catch up.

“Can I have two minutes?” she asks.

I should say no. I should tell her I have a meeting, a class, and a report. Anything. But instead, I close my notebook and nod once.

She exhales like she’s been holding that breath all day.

“Aiah,” she begins, plain and steady, no preamble. “I like you.”

The words land without ornament, without strategy. Just a fact laid gently on the table. I blink, once. Twice. The air thickens, but her gaze doesn’t waver.

“I can’t,” I say finally. My voice is quieter than I expect, the kind that doesn’t echo even when it should.

Her shoulders drop slightly, not in defeat, but in understanding. “You don’t have to like me back,” she says. “I just didn’t want to hide behind a ‘study.’ The hundred days is a joke. And not.”

Something in my chest flickers at that. The small, reckless truth hiding inside humor.

“I don’t do experiments,” I tell her. “Or… being watched.”

Her smile softens, fragile at the edges. “Then I’ll stop saying it.”

“What?”

“The liking,” she says, eyes steady on mine. “I’ll stop saying it. Not the liking itself.”

It’s disarming, the way she can separate feeling from performance, name it without demanding anything in return. The air between us hums low, uncertain, but kind. I look away first, toward the acacia trees swaying gently above the walkway. A flock of starlings shifts from one branch to another, wings catching the light like scattered data packets.

She doesn’t move, just stands there, waiting for a signal that won’t come. And maybe that’s what hurts quietly that she isn’t begging, only staying present.

At the far end of the courtyard, Diane appears. She’s holding a cup of milk tea, scanning the area. Her eyes find us, pause, then mercifully look away. She doesn’t approach. Just smiles faintly, like she knows this isn’t hers to interrupt.

The breeze picks up again. My notes threaten to scatter. I pin them with my hand.

When I look back up, Mikha’s gaze hasn’t shifted. There’s warmth in it, but not insistence. Just a steady kind of waiting that feels almost impossible to meet.

“I should go,” I say.

She nods once. “Okay.”

Her tone holds no disappointment, only quiet acceptance that feels more dangerous than any argument could be.She takes a step back, sunlight catching the edge of her wrist where the black elastic still sits like a secret she refuses to return.

“Day eight,” she says softly, almost to herself. “Observation: honesty burns cleaner than hope.”

I want to tell her she’s too young to sound like that. That it’s unfair to speak so gently when what she’s giving me is already loss in disguise. But I don’t.

She waves once, casual, almost like it’s just another day, then turns toward the direction of the field, where the last echo of a whistle cuts through the wind.

I watch her go.

And for a second, before I can stop it, I think…if this were any other story, any other life, maybe I would have said yes. But not this one. And I don’t know if I ever will.

Practice resumes before the sky fully commits to evening. The light has gone syrup-soft. Half gold, half apology. The field hums again with whistles, cleats, and the quick percussion of drills. I tell myself I’m only here because Diane texted she’d be late. That I’m just waiting. That I’m not looking for anything in particular.

Mikha runs the warm-up line, hair tied back tight this time, sleeves rolled. She doesn’t look toward the bleachers. Not once. Promise kept.

I hate that I notice. I hate that I count.

Her rhythm is precise. Inhale four, exhale six, the same breathing cadence she always keeps. There’s new tape around her wrist, brighter than before, cutting a small diagonal under sunlight. Every time she calls a play, her teammates lean in without question. The whole formation orbits her voice.

It’s annoyingly magnetic, the kind of gravity that pulls without trying.

I flip my notebook open for show, eyes pretending to trace words. Instead, they find her again. Tracking her laugh, the tilt of her head when she listens, the exact second she tucks a stray strand behind her ear.

Then a striker trips mid-sprint. Grass stain, twisted knee, sharp yelp. The moment fractures.

Mikha’s there instantly, crouched low, grin slipping into place like muscle memory. “Hoy Lim, okay ka lang? Or gusto mo na lang akong saktan para equal?”

It’s dumb. Completely dumb.

And I laugh. Out loud. Sharp. Involuntary. Too bright for the hour.

Heads turn. Someone near me snorts, another looks confused. I slap a hand over my mouth, stunned at the sound that escaped.

Because for the first time all day, the laugh felt uncalculated. Real.

Mikha glances up at the noise, eyes squinting into the light. She doesn’t smile exactly—but the corner of her mouth twitches like she heard what she needed to.

Beside me, Diane freezes mid-sip of her milk tea. “Wait—wait. Did you just—?”

Chesca gasps like she’s witnessing a miracle. “OH MY GOD. She laughed. She actually laughed! Someone call Campus Security, confirm this wasn’t an auditory hallucination!”

“Girl, this is history!” Diane whispers loudly, clutching her chest. “Aiah Ledesma, The Snob Queen, just laughed! Sa field pa talaga!”

Chesca fans herself with her notebook, grinning ear to ear. “I swear, I’m putting this on my paper: ‘The day Aiah experienced joy.’”

“Document it!” Diane hisses, mock-panicked. “Call the Ateneo archives!”

I roll my eyes, but it’s too late, the heat already creeps up my neck. “Both of you, shut up,” I mutter, turning away.

They dissolve into muffled giggles, whispering like kids who’ve just seen their teacher smile. I stare back down at my notes, pretending to write, but the pen shakes. So much for control.

By the time the sun disappears behind JGSOM, the world’s tuned itself to indigo. The lamps flicker on one by one, humming halos over the tambayan benches. Crickets test their mics in the grass.

Diane and Chesca are already scrolling through their phones, laughter echoing low.

“Girl, look,” Diane says, shoving her screen toward Chesca. “#Mikhaiah is now a meme format.”

Chesca wheezes. “Oh my God, the caption: ‘She said no but the dataset disagreed.’ Who makes these things?!”

I try to roll my eyes, but something inside me stirs with half amusement, half guilt.

Then footsteps again.

Mikha Cruz.

Her hair’s still damp from the rinse, uniform replaced by a campus hoodie. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t meet my eyes. Just drops a sealed water bottle beside me and turns to leave.

Presence, not pressure. Persistence, reframed.

I should let her go. Let the silence win for once. But my voice betrays me low, unsteady, not quite mine.

“What’s with the hundred, really?”

She stops. Looks over her shoulder, that familiar half-smile backlit by the streetlamp.

“According to science,” she says, “habits form.”

I stand, not sure why. “According to me?”

Her answer is softer this time. “According to you… you get to say no. I’ll still walk the next ninety-two.”

Then she leaves, steps fading into the corridor’s echo, her silhouette swallowed by the soft blue of early night.

I think that’s it. But my phone buzzes.

Unknown number.  One attachment.

A grainy photo loads slowly. High School fun run, the kind with plastic banners and uneven lines. In the background, a runner wearing 16. In the blurred foreground, a girl on the bleachers, fingers lifted as if counting something unseen.

Caption: #008/100  Before You Knew

My breath misfires.

Hands tremble, only slightly. I type: Who are you?

No reply.

I look up instinctively.

At the far end of the walkway, Mikha hasn’t left. She’s waiting near the turn, talking to a teammate or maybe not talking at all. She doesn’t check her phone.

The lamp above her hums. The night holds its breath.

Freedom, I remember Dr. Mercado saying, is acting against trained impulse.

I should walk away.

I don’t.