Ping Timeout

The city outside the condo hums in low frequency. Motors idling, horns half-asleep, sunlight still diluted by smog. Katipunan hasn’t fully decided if it’s morning yet.

I haven’t, either.

I’ve been awake since five-something, eyes fixed on the ceiling, replaying one frame on loop: her grin catching the light, that line…

‘Careful, Aiah. You keep smiling at me like that, I might start thinking the experiment’s working.’

And then the wink. God, the wink.

It’s absurd that a single movement of facial muscle can short-circuit a person. I keep telling myself it meant nothing, that it was classic Mikha. Confident, reckless, allergic to quiet. But the moment keeps reloading anyway, like a tab that refuses to close.

I roll out of bed and stretch until the joints in my back click. The air is too warm for comfort, too cool to ignore. Beside the couch, Diane is a human pretzel under my blanket, one arm dangling, hair a halo of disaster. She’s been staying over again, academic stress, she says. I suspect she just likes my coffee maker.

The kettle clicks on with a hiss. I pour water into the mug, the scent of caffeine filling the room. It’s supposed to be grounding. Routine. Familiar. But even the sound of the spoon against ceramic reminds me of her voice light, teasing, impossible to mute.

‘The experiment’s working.’

She said it like it was a joke, but my body didn’t laugh. My pulse took it seriously.

“Hoy,” Diane mumbles from the couch, voice gravelly. “Snob Queen Reboot mode ba yan? Ang aga mo naman.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” I say, stirring.

“Hmm.” She opens one eye, smirks. “Let me guess. May kumindat?”

I freeze. “What?”

“’Yung boses mo kahapon nung paalis tayo parang nag-hang.” She yawns, sits up, squinting. “Hindi ba si Mikha ’yon? Nakindatan ka ba?”

I glare at her over my mug. “You have no proof.”

Diane snorts, fully awake now. “Walang proof, pero namumula ang pisngi mo. Diagnostic complete.”

I turn away, pretending to check my notes scattered on the dining table. “I have work to do.”

“Sure, Dr. Denial.” She flops back onto the couch, blanket over her head. “Don’t burn the coffee while pretending you’re fine.”

The window is half-open, wind stirs the curtains. A jeepney honks somewhere far down the road. I sit at my desk, open my laptop. The startup chime echoes too loud in the small space. A blank document loads, cursor blinking like a heartbeat.

For a moment, I just stare at it.

The variables have reversed.

That was the last thought before I fell asleep. It still feels true.

She’s observing me, yes, but I’ve been doing the same. Memorizing her laugh, the slope of her handwriting, the way she adjusts her wrist tape before every practice. Observation disguised as avoidance. Avoidance disguised as interest.

I take a sip of coffee that tastes bitter, burnt, correct.

Outside, the sun finally breaks through the window blinds, striping the room with light. It catches the silver ring of my spoon, the edge of my mug, the faint reflection of my face on the laptop screen.

My reflection looks… soft. Unfamiliar. Like someone mid-debug.

I close the laptop. It’s too early for system errors.

Diane’s finally gone, muttering about studying for the Philo quiz as she half-jogged out the door, leaving crumbs and chaos in her wake.

The condo is quiet now, too quiet. And even though I have two unread messages from our group chat, my brain keeps returning to that moment by the field. The laugh, the wink, that stupid line still echoing like background noise in my neural cache.

Maybe if I leave early, the morning will reset itself.

The campus hasn’t finished waking up, but the SEC benches already sound like a soft boot sequence of low chatter, the clink of tumblers, the occasional bike bell slicing through morning. The acacia above us shakes loose a few leaves, dappling the concrete with moving shadow. Someone’s blasting a pop song from a portable speaker in the distance, bass thudding like a heartbeat that forgot subtlety.

I tell myself I’m only here for proximity to an outlet and decent Wi-Fi. Not because my feet walked this way on their own, not because last night kept replaying like a loop I didn’t approve: the wink, the line like a knife wrapped in velvet—Careful, Aiah… you keep smiling at me like that, I might start thinking the experiment’s working.

My system did not crash. It merely… stuttered. Briefly.

Diane materializes beside me like a badly timed notification, hair in an aggressive ponytail, iced coffee clutched like it owes her answers. “Snob Queen, status update.”

“Operating,” I say, opening my laptop. “Do not disturb.”

“Rude,” she says, but collapses onto the bench anyway, legs sprawling like she paid rent for this space. Her phone glows at 100% brightness; she lives to blind God.

Chesca arrives two seconds later, ribbons swinging, tote bag overfull with washi tape, highlighters, and something suspiciously resembling a ring light. “Good morning, citizens!” she sings, then slides in opposite us. “I bring gossip, humility, and a charger.”

“I need none of those,” I lie, plugging in.

“First of all,” Diane says, ignoring me, “Ateneo Confessions is chaotic today. Someone wrote a sonnet about #16’s calves.”

Chesca wheezes. “Pentameter?”

“Free verse. That’s how you know it’s serious.”

I look at my screen, pretend the calendar squares matter more than the absurdity of the universe. It’s almost working until Chesca gasps like she’s witnessed a crime and flourishes her phone.

“Girlies. Found something.”

“No,” I say without looking. “Whatever it is, no.”

Diane leans in, already nosy. “Spill.”

“Okay, so… remember that class Tumblr Sir Caldona made for the electives list? The one everyone hates but also uses because he gives extra credit for ‘digital discourse’?” She says the last two words with academic scorn.

“Regrettably,” I say.

“So I was scrolling through the reblog chain for the Philosophy reading,” she continues, “and I find a like from a user named… wait for it… ‘fieldnotes-100.’ Cute, right? Very earnest. Very try-hard. I click. Guess who’s on the blog roll?”

Diane’s eyes gleam. “Oh my God.”

“Don’t say it,” I warn.

Chesca ignores me. “Mikha ‘I don’t use social media, I use my legs’ Cruz.” She flips her phone so the screen faces us. “Tumblr girl pala.”

Diane chokes on her coffee. “SHUT UP! Let me see.”

“Chesca,” I say, flat. “We are not hacking people’s diaries.”

“It’s public,” she says primly, like a lawyer who knows the judge is her friend. “She linked it from the class blog. She wants engagement. I am engaging.”

I pin her with a stare calibrated to stop freshmen mid-noise. It does not work on Chesca. Nothing does.

“Look,” she says, softening, “if it’s nothing, we close it. But if it’s about you—”

“It isn’t,” I snap, a beat too fast.

Diane’s eyebrows climb. “Defensive. Interesting.”

Chesca scrolls. “Theme is minimal, white, serif font. Of course. Tag cloud says: #habits, #fieldnotes, #100days, #notes-to-self, #runlog, #academic-delulu.” She snorts. “Yup. Cruz.”

I set my jaw. “Two minutes.”

“Thirty seconds,” she bargains.

“One,” I counter.

“Done.”

She swipes to the top of the feed. The header is a small text: field notes for a silly brain / 100 attempts at documenting attention / 2011. A little constellation icon blinks. A music player in the corner shows a Chris Brown bootleg with zero shame.

The first grid loads. My stomach tightens before I know why.

001/100 sits at the top like a patient trap: a grainy photo of the SEC bulletin board. Light slants across the cork, pushing through thumbtacks and overlapping flyers. In the middle, clearly reflected in the glass, is the back of a girl with her hair tucked behind one ear, posture straight, shoulder bag precise on one side.

Me. I swallow.

The caption is lowercase, like she didn’t want to scare the text: Saw her again. #ifAthenAlways

Diane covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God.”

Chesca inhales like she’s tasting the air. “Mikha’s Tumblr is a documentary.”

“It’s a coincidence,” I say, but the lie tastes thin.

002/100. A field at sunset. The goalposts stitch the sky to the ground. The caption: logged in. #ifAthenAlways

“Logged in?” Diane echoes. “As in… like… she arrived?”

Chesca shrugs. “As in, she’s online. Life online. Her life online.” She taps the note count. 23 notes. Reblogs with tags: #she’s so dramatic // #i love her. One anonymous ask sits unanswered: who’s ‘her’???

My face warms. “Do not click the ask box.”

“Relax,” Diane mutters. “We’re just auditing.”

003/100 is a shot of the track during drills. Mikha’s legs blur mid-stride; her hair’s tied, the neon of a coach’s cone a small triangle in the corner. The caption: still running. The tags: #ifAthenAlways #preseason #pain is a setting #six in/six out #routines are religion.

“Okay,” Diane says, impressed. “Poetic athlete. Hate it here.”

Chesca scrolls. “Wait! 004.”

A paper cup with a brown stain near the lid, the table beneath catching a spill I remember more than seeing. The caption: first coffee. #ifAthenAlways

There’s a soft-focus filter like it’s 2011 and you can only fix your life with Valencia. My breath thins. Diane looks between the screen and my face. “This is when she started giving you coffee, right?”

“It’s just… coffee,” I say, which is almost nothing like the truth.

Chesca’s finger hovers. “Hold.”

005/100. The photo’s low light near the tambayan, the bench edge sharp, and on it is a black elastic band. Mine. Not mine. The caption: compiling. Tag: #first move? lol #no note #fine i’m the note #ifAthenAlways

The laugh that escapes Diane is a small explosion. “GIRL. She wrote ‘first move’ like she’s recording a chess game.”

“Not funny,” I mutter, staring at the band like it could roll back time.

“Very funny,” Chesca says, already wiping a tear. “And romantic. Which I will deny if you tell anyone I said that.”

The scroll continues.

006/100. A blurry shot of a hand reaching for a cup. The warmth is almost visible. The caption: said thank you #ifAthenAlways.  It makes something soft punch me from the inside.

007/100. The library. A table. Two sets of notes. In the far edge, my hand, knuckles white against a highlighter. Her caption: learning a new language. Tags: #don’t speak ‘snob’ yet #but she underlined the thing i underlined #mirroring.exe #ifAthenAlways. A reblogger added: this is intimacy actually.

Diane whistles under her breath. “Wow”

“It’s stupid,” I say.

“It’s a little hot,” Chesca says.

“Shut up,” I say, unable to tear my eyes away.

008/100 loads with the ache of a bell I half-expected. A photo of a runner wearing a taped 16 on her jersey, mid-stride. In the blurred foreground: the outline of a girl on the bleachers, fingers lifted like she’s counting breaths. The caption: before you knew. Tag: #archive #found this in a box lol #i’m not crazy (maybe a little) #ifAthenAlways.

I grip the edge of my laptop. The world tilts not much, not enough to be visible but enough for my inner ear to protest. My mouth is dry.

Diane goes still in the loud way she has when she’s trying not to spook me. “Aiah,” she says softly. “Breathe.”

I do. It’s working.

Chesca, bless her, reads the room and keeps the tone light. “Okay, next before you combust.”

009/100. A photo of a wave, blurred fingers waggling into the frame, my silhouette somewhere near the edge. Caption: she waved at me. Tag: #progress bar at 9%  #ifAthenAlways.

My cheeks betray me. Heat blooms and refuses to fade.

The scroll hits the next thumbnail, a half-lit capture from a few afternoons ago. 010 / 100: signal detected.

The photo’s all shadow and almost-light: the moment before the laugh. Me looking away, mid-blink, posture tense but softening, sunlight cutting across my cheek. The caption below it reads in tiny lowercase: system latency. but she’s warming up. Tags: #progressbar, #fieldtest, #ifAthenAlways.

It’s the calm before a storm I didn’t know was visible to anyone but me.

Diane leans forward, eyes narrowing. “You see what she’s doing? She’s literally logging you like system uptime.”

Chesca snorts. “And the latency part…classic Mikha. Girl flirts in diagnostics.”

I should laugh. I don’t. Because what kind of person notices latency in another human being? Who looks at guardedness and translates it to loading speed?

Then I see the next one.

And then, there it is. 011/100. The bench. The light. Me, mid-laugh, not careful, mouth open, eyes soft, unguarded in a way I don’t let myself be in public. The caption: The Snob Queen blushed, smiled, and laughed. Tags: #progress, #habit>heart, #ifAthenAlways

The words sit on the screen like they know exactly what they’re doing.

My throat tightens. Because it’s not just a post. It’s evidence. A timestamped confession buried under layers of faux-academic irony and Tumblr filters. Every entry catalogued like I’m an equation she’s solving in secret.

Diane whistles low, breaking the quiet. “Well, damn. Even her captions flirt in code.”

Chesca’s eyes are wide, flicking between me and the screen. “Girl… she’s documenting you.”

“She’s documenting habits,” I say, too fast. “Behavioral patterns. It’s data collection.”

“Data collection?” Diane repeats, half laughing. “Aiah, that’s not data, that’s a love letter written in variable syntax!”

Chesca gasps, pressing a hand to her chest in mock offense. “Wait! Snob Queen? She just confirmed it’s really you!”

I open my mouth to argue, to downplay, to find the right academic excuse but the sight of the tag under the photo stops me cold.

#ifAthenAlways

I scroll back up. It’s there on every single post.

001/100 — #ifAthenAlways
002/100 — #ifAthenAlways
003/100 — #ifAthenAlways
All the way down the list, the same tag hidden beneath jokes and lowercase observations.

If A, then always.

At first glance, it’s simple programming logic:
If a condition is met, execute indefinitely.
But in her syntax, it’s… me.

If Aiah, then always.

It hits like a quiet, delayed heartbeat.

My stomach flips. My pulse stutters in protest. I grip the edge of the laptop to stop my hand from shaking.

“She’s consistent,” Diane says, leaning closer. “Look, even her nerd tags are romantic. Who flirts with an if-statement?”

“Mikha Cruz,” Chesca answers without missing a beat. “The same girl who gives you coffee, holds your sunlight, and turns your laugh into documentation.”

Diane slaps her arm. “Stop being poetic! I’m trying to process it!”

Chesca grins. “You’re just jealous no one’s writing code about your face.”

“Excuse me, people like my face,” Diane retorts, indignant. “They just don’t compile it into system logs!”

I press my lips together, pretending not to smile.

“You’re smiling,” Chesca accuses instantly.

“I’m not.”

“You are,” Diane says. “Small. Left corner. That’s a .jpg of denial right there.”

I sigh. “It’s… absurd. She’s turning people into algorithms.”

Diane shrugs. “At least she’s consistent. Me, I just archive my bad decisions on Twitter drafts.”

Chesca’s still scrolling, eyes glinting with mischief. “There’s a quote here. Reblogged from some existential blog: ‘Freedom is acting against trained impulse.’” She tilts her phone toward me. “Didn’t you say that in class last week?”

The words punch through me like recognition disguised as irony. “Yes,” I admit. “It was part of my answer for Dr. Mercado’s lecture.”

“Then she’s quoting you,” Diane says, equal parts amused and horrified. “She’s Tumblr-quoting you!”

“I think I’m going to faint,” I mutter, rubbing my temple.

“She’s documenting, quoting, tagging, and wait look!” Chesca scrolls to the comments.
Anonymous asks: ‘Is she real?’
Her answer, under the familiar handle fieldnotes-100: Real enough to ruin my data integrity.
Tag: #ifAthenAlways.

Diane collapses backward on the bench, wheezing. “SHE’S SO DOWN BAD.”

Chesca fans herself. “She’s in love and pretending it’s for science. Peak delulu behavior.”

“Stop reading,” I say, voice sharper than I intend.

They both glance at me, laughter fading when they see my face.

I exhale. “It’s…personal.”

Diane softens. “You’re right.” She closes the laptop halfway, enough to dim the glow. “Sorry, A.”

Chesca bites her lip, guilt flickering for a second. “It’s just… wow. That’s a lot of feelings for someone who hides it behind Excel jokes.”

I nod mutely. Because she’s right. Mikha Cruz is a contradiction that walks and breathes and leaves 100 posts in her wake to prove she feels things she can’t say out loud.

The thought shouldn’t sting. But it does because part of me wants to read every line, to see what version of me lives there, the one unguarded enough to laugh without consequence.

Diane elbows me gently. “Hey. Don’t spiral.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can hear your brain buffering.”

I huff out a laugh. “I just…don’t understand her logic. Why make an experiment out of me?”

“Because maybe that’s how she understands the world,” Chesca says simply. “Some people write poems. Mikha writes code.”

“Or Tumblr posts,” Diane adds.

The air shifts again. Less loud, less mocking. Just quiet. The kind of silence that leaves you alone with realization.

I look back at the laptop, scrolling once more through the thumbnails.
001 through 011.
Each image is a small record of observation. Each caption is a breadcrumb.

And beneath them, always, the same invisible signature: #ifAthenAlways.

The field around us hums faintly with students passing, sneakers squeaking, someone laughing too loud near the JGSOM steps. A paper cup rolls across the pavement, catches wind, bumps against my shoe.

Diane stands, stretching. “Okay, I’m grabbing lunch before you two combust.”

Chesca pockets her phone. “Same. If she posts 012, tag me. I want front-row tickets to this slow-burn.”

“Goodbye,” I say dryly.

They leave still giggling, their noise dissolving into the distance.

When it’s finally quiet, I stay. Laptop open, cursor blinking on the screen like it’s daring me to move.

I scroll back to the latest post again. 011/100.
The Snob Queen blushed, smiled, and laughed.
My picture. My face. My guard gone.

Below it, the tag glows faintly blue: #ifAthenAlways.

I whisper the words under my breath, barely audible.

“If A, then always…”

A programming statement. A rule. But for her, it’s a promise. I close the laptop slowly, the reflection catching the faintest tint of color in my cheeks.

Every photo is a variable. Every caption, an observation. And somehow, I’m the constant.

Outside, someone whistles the tune Mikha always hums before practice. The sound drifts closer, then fades, leaving only the warmth in my chest and the quiet pulse of realization. 

Maybe she’s not running an experiment. Maybe she’s writing a story in disguise.

The air inside is cool, faintly chalk-scented, filled with the soft tap of pens and muted yawns. Dr. Mercado’s already there, writing on the board: Virtue as Habit.

A familiar scraping of chairs follows as everyone settles. Mikha Cruz slips in just before the bell, hair still damp from morning drills, uniform shirt half-tucked, lanyard swinging. She gives me that quick, harmless nod. The kind that says, ‘I see you, but I won’t make it obvious’.

My chest tightens before I can stop it.

Focus, Aiah.

Dr. Mercado adjusts his glasses. “Let’s start with this question. Is virtue built through habit or intention? Anyone?”

A hand shoots up from the far right. Josh. Always Josh. The kind of guy who mistakes humor for intellect.

“I think virtue’s like gym muscle, sir,” he says. “You just keep flexing it until you look good in front of people.”

Laughter ripples but I don’t. I glance up from my notes, pen pausing midline. “That’s not virtue. That’s performance.”

The laughter fades faster than it arrived.

Josh chuckles nervously. “Chill, Aiah, it’s just a metaphor.”

“Then maybe use one that makes sense,” I say evenly. “Habit without moral reflection is mimicry, not ethics.”

The room stills. Someone whispers from the back, “Snob Queen na naman.”

Another muffled snicker follows, quickly silenced when Dr. Mercado clears his throat.

“Miss Ledesma makes a good point,” he says. “Intention grounds habit in virtue.”

I nod once, and return to my notebook. The rest of the discussion passes in faint static, words blurring together. Aristotle, practical wisdom, moderation. But in the corner of my eye, I see Mikha, quiet as always, not laughing, not whispering. Just watching.

Not with judgment but with… understanding.

When class ends, everyone floods out in clusters, chatter picking up again. Relief, gossip, noise. I linger to return a borrowed book. When I turn, she’s there. Mikha Cruz, leaning lightly against the doorframe, backpack slung over one shoulder, expression calm.

“I don’t like people who talk too much without meaning it,” I say, half as an apology, half as explanation.

She hums softly, thoughtful. “Copy,” she says. “I’ll talk less.”

There’s no tease, no smirk. Just quiet sincerity. And maybe that’s why it catches me off guard.

I blink. “That’s not what I meant.”

She shrugs, unbothered. “Still noted.”

Then she pushes off the doorframe and walks ahead, sunlight trailing across her hair as she steps into the corridor.

The next day, true to her word, she’s different.

Quieter. Still present and smiling at Diane’s jokes, helping a freshman carry a folder tower, nodding politely when our eyes meet but there’s restraint in the way she moves now. Less chatter. More awareness.

It’s subtle, but I feel it. Like she heard something I didn’t mean to say and decided to rewrite herself around it.

I never asked her to change. And yet… she did.

And that…more than any photo, post, or tag unsettles me the most. Because somewhere between the silence and the shift, I realize I’ve stopped seeing her as a variable.

She’s starting to look a lot like the constant.

By evening, the quiet follows me back to the condo, not heavy, just resting. The city hum seeps through the window. Faint traffic, laughter from downstairs, the clinking of utensils from the neighboring unit.

Diane’s already here, sprawled across the couch like a crash-landed alien, her laptop open and a bag of chips balanced precariously on her stomach. The glow from her screen flashes across her face as she cackles, mouth half-full.

“Hoy, Aiah,” she wheezes, pointing at the monitor. “You have to see this.”

I’m halfway through rinsing my cup in the sink, eyebrow raised. “If it’s another meme about our block’s midterm stress—”

“Nope.” She grins like she’s about to detonate something. “It’s about you.”

I sigh, already regretting existing. “I’m scared.”

“You should be.” Diane dramatically flips her laptop around. “Exhibit A.”

On the screen is a group chat. “Team Coffee Addicts v3.0” and right in the middle, Mikha’s message, timestamped two hours ago:

“FYI guys, Mikha Cruz v1.2: Less talkative, more observant. Testing compatibility with Snob Queen OS.”

Beneath it: an explosion of laughing emojis, crying emojis, and one ominous comment from Meg:

“Update patch looks promising. 9.5/10 stability.”

I groan, covering my face. “Why are people like this?”

“Because they have free will and Wi-Fi,” Diane says between snorts. “Also, Snob Queen OS?! Girl, she coded you.”

“I’m uninstalling myself,” I mutter, heading back to the sink.

“Too late,” she calls. “You’re open-source now!”

I shake my head, pretending to ignore her, but the corner of my mouth betrays me twitching upward despite myself. There’s something about it. The absurdity, the humor, the sheer audacity of that girl that unspools the day’s tension like a soft reset.

Diane scrolls again, reading aloud through laughter. “Liam even replied, ‘Make sure you add auto-save for feelings.’”

“Blocked,” I say automatically, though my voice sounds too light to be convincing.

Diane grins, watching me with that knowing tilt of her head. “You like this version, don’t you?”

I grab my mug, pour water to drown out the question. “It’s just… funny.”

“Right,” she says, stretching the word into a smirk. “Funny.”

I roll my eyes, take another sip, but she’s already too pleased with herself to press further. She sprawls back down, chips rustling, the hum of a sitcom playing faintly from her laptop speakers. The light from the window paints the kitchen counter gold. Steam curls from the kettle as I rinse the last of the soap off my cup.

Somewhere between the quiet and the warmth, I feel that odd calm again, the same one that always follows her name.

I dry my hands, reach for my planner on the counter, and open it to the next blank page. The pen hesitates midair before moving, letters flowing on instinct:

I don’t like noise. But silence with her doesn’t feel empty.

The ink dries slowly, faintly glossy under the light.

In the living room, Diane laughs at something else entirely, her noise blending with the faint hum of traffic and a song leaking from next door. But under all that, a quiet realization hums steady beneath my ribs.

Some silences echo. This one feels like peace.

For the next few days, the chat quiets.

No new updates. No witty posts. No “Snob Queen OS v1.3” patch notes from Mikha.

The group chat still buzzes, of course. Diane forwarding memes, Liam dropping half-baked jokes but the usual ping from her is missing. It shouldn’t matter. I tell myself that repeatedly, like a mantra I half-believe.

Still, every time my phone lights up, my chest does that quick, ridiculous stutter. Every time it isn’t her, I pretend not to notice.

By Wednesday, the silence begins to feel intentional. Not avoidance, just absence. A pause written in binary.

Diane notices before I admit it.

“Uy,” she says around a mouthful of fries, “Cruz is quiet lately. Nag-hibernate?”

“She’s probably busy,” I reply, eyes on my notes.

“Busy with what? Making more OS updates?” She grins. “Or maybe nag-debug siya ng puso niya.”

I throw her a look. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re blushing,” she counters.

I’m not. Except maybe I am. Just a little.

The quiet stretches through Thursday. The city hum feels heavier when the person who always filled it with laughter decides to mute. The truth is, it’s been easier to study lately. No interruptions, no teasing but the silence has its own gravity. Like a space left intentionally blank so you’ll notice what used to fill it.

At night, I scroll through my planner, pretending to review. Instead, my mind replays the same line. ‘Copy, I’ll talk less.’

It’s ridiculous how those words stuck. Like a song that loops under your skin even after the music stops. I don’t write about it.  I just underlined the date. Once. Twice.

By Friday, the sky mirrors the mood. Gray, undecided, heavy with promise. After my last class, the air already smells like rain. The path toward the covered walk glistens faintly, wet from the afternoon drizzle. I tell Diane I’m heading home, but I linger. My bag’s heavier than usual, I pretend it’s because of the books. Students hurry past, laughing under shared umbrellas. The field beyond is empty now, goalposts slick and glinting. The bleachers echo faintly, catching the last of the light.

I check my phone. Still no message.
No “hey, Snob Queen.”
No “ready for v1.3.”
Not even a random meme of a dog labeled “Aiah.exe has stopped working.”

Nothing.

I tell myself it’s fine. That maybe I was starting to depend too much on her noise to keep me balanced. That maybe this is what recalibration feels like.

Still, I find myself walking toward the field anyway.

The drizzle starts like a rumor. Soft, uncertain, as if the sky’s testing boundaries before it commits. The field glows in that pre-dusk honey that makes everything look briefly kinder. Floodlights haven’t clicked on yet, but the world’s already shifting to sepia. From under the covered walk, I watch the last cluster of players trot slow laps while the coach shouts something that sounds more like encouragement than threat. Cleats thud. Whistles rest. The air smells of liniment and wet grass, and somewhere behind the bleachers a radio hums a love song from five years ago that refuses to die.

My notes should have my full attention. Bullet points aligned, margins disciplined, highlighter poised like a metronome. Instead, my focus migrates. To the far sideline. To her.

Mikha’s in a thin hoodie, hood half-up, hair escaping in damp curls at the nape. Her socks are rolled an inch above the ankle; there’s tape at her left wrist again, edge lifting like a secret. She’s talking to a teammate, laughing at something I can’t hear. She does that runner’s shake-out. Shoulders, arms, legs, breath then tips her head back as the first real droplets find her skin.

Drizzle turns to rain.

I pull my bag closer to protect my laptop and tell myself the decision to stay is purely practical. The covered walk is dry, the bench is steady, and the Wi-Fi won’t survive the library migration today. It has nothing to do with the field, or the sound of her voice skimming the air, or the way my pulse recalibrates whenever she’s within a hundred meters.

Practice breaks. Coats, towels, jokes thrown like balls. People disperse under the new rain. And then she notices me like she always does, too easily, as if I’ve issued a signal I didn’t mean to. She lifts two fingers in greeting, not a wave, more like a ‘be there in a second’. I don’t move. I pretend to underline something that doesn’t need emphasis, and my pen, traitor that it is, draws an ampersand where a period should be.

She jogs over, footfalls soft on wet concrete, and slows just short of the bench, that respectful halt like she won’t sit until invited. A few errant droplets cling to her lashes. Hood askew now, she looks both younger and more dangerous for it.

“You’ll get cold,” she says, breathing a little fogged from the change in temperature. “Covered walk’s drafty.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

She glances at the rain, at my open laptop, at the thinness of my patience masquerading as composure. Then she steps forward, flips her umbrella open with a smooth flick, and leans it not over me, but just enough to create a slanted roof that shields the edge of my things, her arm holding the angle. The move is absurdly precise. Absurdly considerate. Absurdly… her.

“You should take that with you,” I say, nodding at the umbrella. “You’re the one who’ll get soaked.”

“I’ll survive.” Her mouth curves. “I’ve got a home-court advantage.”

“I didn’t realize the weather chose teams.”

“It does,” she says, eyes bright. “It always chooses the stubborn.”

“Then you’ll be fine.”

She laughs quietly, the way people laugh in sacred spaces and lowers herself to the opposite end of the bench. A respectful distance. Not far enough to feel like retreating. Her knee points out toward the field, mine toward my bag, and between those two angles hangs the kind of silence that doesn’t feel empty.

We listen to the rain find its rhythm. To the gutter tick. To a whistle’s faint, final surrender. Her breathing settles into six and six, the runner’s cadence; without permission, my chest syncs to four and six, the anxious student’s edit.

“Long day?” she asks.

“Yes.” The word is too small for the tangle it’s meant to hold: the class, the faculty email, the way someone’s throwaway joke lodged under my ribs, the certainty that I am always one misstep away from being misread.

She studies me carefully, like she’s reading not just sentences but the blank spaces between them. It should annoy me. It doesn’t. Not tonight.

“Want to tell me about it?” she asks.

“No.”

“Okay.” She says it so simply it doesn’t feel like a door shutting. More like a room making space for another chair.

Thunder mumbles somewhere far enough to be interesting, not dangerous. The rain thickens, soft needles sewing the light to the ground. My umbrella would be useless in this slant, but hers holds firm, the canopy a small, stubborn geometry against the weather.

“Everyone has… expectations,” I say, before I decide to say nothing at all. “To be consistent. To be right. To never make it messy for other people.”

“Consistency is overrated,” she answers, smiling at the rain. “We’re not spreadsheets.”

“You would say that.”

She pivots a little, chin propped on her fist, eyes cut gently my way. There it is again. The look that makes time check its mirrors. It’s not a stare, not exactly. It’s attention with gravity. If I stand too close to it, my bearings shift.

“You don’t have to be what they expect, Aiah.”

“I’m not performing for them. I’m…” I search for the word and hate how naked it sounds when I find it. “Containing.”

The corner of her mouth lifts. Not mocking. Fond. “You can be a hurricane and still build houses, you know.”

“A hurricane destroys houses.”

“Not if you aim it right.” She shrugs lightly. “Pressure builds power. You’re just… strategic about where you release it.”

I study the line of her jaw, the clean afternoon scrape where sweat has cooled, the drip collecting at the edge of her hood before it leaps into oblivion. Her hands are steady on the umbrella handle with knuckles nicked, thumb smudged with graphite from someone else’s notes she must’ve marked in practice. The black elastic sits familiar on her wrist. Mine, not mine. Blink and it’s a bracelet. Think too long and it’s a declaration.

“People make things complicated,” I say, because it’s safer than saying ‘You make things simple, and that terrifies me.’

She leans back, not away. “Some people do.”

“I don’t like it,” I add, and it comes out quieter than intended confession more than complaint.

Her reply lands like a promise set down gently between us. “Then I’ll try not to.”

No dramatics. No grand pivot. Just an adjustment, like breath under a new cadence.

We fall quiet. The covered walk breathes with us. Over the field, the floodlights decide the night is here and blink to life one by one, their halos spooling gold through the rain. Each pool of light feels like an answer to a question I haven’t put into words.

She shifts the umbrella again to spare my bag from a sneaky sideways gust. I edge my laptop another inch from the rain line. The air between us hums with unsent emails and unsaid sentences. I know if I look directly at her, I’ll lose my place in whatever outline I pretend I’m still following.

So I look. Because apparently I’m reckless now.

Her gaze is waiting for me. Not piercing. Just present like she’s willing to stand in the center of a problem until it tells the truth. The intensity of it isn’t loud; it’s patient. It asks for nothing and somehow receives everything.

My pulse answers with treason. The rain, traitor to no one, keeps time.

“I’m not… good at this,” I say. “At variables. At…” I gesture vaguely at the umbrella, the field, the distance we keep carefully measured and then ignore. “At anything that can’t be sorted.”

“I know,” she says softly.

The absurd relief of it threatens to knock me off the bench. “That doesn’t make me easier.”

“Not looking for easy.” She breathes in like she’s about to dive. When she speaks, it’s gentle, no hook, no net. “If you ever figure out what you want, Aiah…”

She stops, like she’s weighing whether the end of the sentence is allowed to exist yet. And then she gives it shape anyway, simple as a hand offered.

“I might just give you whatever you want.”

The words land where the sternum hides softness. Not flashy. Not a performative vow. A quiet if/then written in weather-resistant ink.

My chest tightens, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, alive. The rain softens then strengthens again, the kind of inconsistency that feels like truth rather than mistake. A moth headbutts the floodlight. Somewhere, a car horn insists on being part of this scene and is denied.

“What if I don’t know yet?” I ask, which is as close to I’m scared as my mouth will allow.

“Then I’ll wait,” she says, like she’s consulted a schedule only she knows. “And in the meantime… I’ll try not to make things complicated.”

There’s a steadiness to it that feels almost holy. Like the bench understands and agrees. Like the rain approves, baptizing the edges of our small, lit rectangle with applause.

She doesn’t reach for my hand. She doesn’t inch closer. She doesn’t turn the offer into a demand. She just holds the umbrella at that same stubborn angle, protecting what’s mine while letting herself get wet. And in that ordinary act, something in my ribs takes a breath it hasn’t been allowed in a long time.

I look at her, really look. Raindrops caught in the baby hairs at her temple. The slick dark of her lashes. The curve of a smile that’s too tender to be a joke. The black elastic warms against her pulse. All the details I’ve been cataloging like a scholar forced to admit the subject is not just a subject. She’s a thesis I keep pretending I’m not writing.

My heartbeat syncs to the rain steady, unfamiliar, alive.

I don’t reply. I can’t. Not without breaking something I don’t want to fix.

Maybe she hears the answer anyway in the way my shoulders loosen, in the way my pen still goes and stays that way without guilt. Or maybe she just decides this is enough for tonight a line drawn, an if-statement committed.

She pushes to her feet, the umbrella still slanted to guard my little universe. The motion brings her closer for a breath of citrus, rain, field then back again. She tips the canopy toward me until I have to lift a hand to take it, and when I do our fingers don’t touch because she’s too careful with my edges to force contact I’m not ready to name.

“See you tomorrow, Snob Queen,” she says, grinning reappearing like sunlight ignoring a forecast.

It’s playful. It’s respectful. It’s a bridge she builds and then leaves intact behind her as she steps into the rain.

She backs away a pace, then another, hood slipping, hair catching silver threads of water. She lifts a hand in a small salute. Then she turns, shoulders relaxed, gait easy, and lets the weather have her. In seconds the drizzle traced lines down her sleeves, darkened the hem of her hoodie, kissed the tape at her wrist shiny. She doesn’t hurry. She has nowhere to run from. Maybe that’s what undoes me.

I sat under the umbrella she left, the handle warm where she held it, my bag dry, my notes abandoned, my breath deep for the first time all day.

For someone so loud, she knew exactly when to leave me speechless.