The school bell rang like it always did — a long, tired clang echoing through corridors filled with sneakers squeaking and students half-rushing, half-dragging their bags behind them.
But something was off.
Not in the hallway, not in the classrooms, not in the air even — but in me.
Every sound felt amplified. Every laugh, too loud. Every word, delayed. I walked to my class like a passenger in my own body, watching from inside as things replayed the way I remembered, but slightly... blurred around the edges.
Like the timeline was stretching, trying to decide whether to obey the past or let me rewrite it.
Arjun met me by the tap near the canteen. He looked different today — not in clothes or haircut, but in the way he spoke. Calmer. Less guarded.
"Guess what," he said, filling his bottle.
"You actually did your homework?"
"Nope. But Sia's transferring schools. Her parents are moving next week."
I froze.
That hadn't happened before. Not in the original past.
"She's what?" I asked.
"Yeah. Didn't you know? She told me just now. Said she wanted to say goodbye before things got busy."
That wasn't right.
Back then, Sia had stayed. She had been there for what came after. The fight with Arjun, the collapse of my family, the fallout — she had been the one thread I had held on to.
And now, the thread was slipping early.
I skipped class.
For the first time in this second life, I broke away from the script and walked straight to the library. I found her in the reading corner, head bent over a worn copy of Fahrenheit 451, the exact one I had loaned her years ago. She looked up, surprised.
"Hey," she said softly.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She closed the book.
"I didn't think you'd care."
That hurt. But it wasn't her fault. The old me had built that wall.
I sat beside her, not speaking.
After a long pause, she whispered, "You're different now."
"How so?"
"You look at people like you're afraid they'll vanish."
I didn't know how to respond.
So I asked instead, "Do you want to leave?"
She looked away, out the window, where rain was beginning again — soft this time, like a whisper.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But if I stay… I want things to be better than before."
That was the opening. The one I never got in my first life.
"Then let's try," I said. "Let's fix what broke."
She gave me a quiet smile. "Okay."
As the bell rang again in the distance, I realized something.
It wasn't the loudest moments that changed everything.
It was the ones in between — the silences between bells.
Where people said things that mattered.
Where fate slipped up and let you grab hold.
This time, I wasn't letting go.