Ayra stared at the pen long after the lecture hall emptied.
"Borrowed time."
The words glowed faintly in her head like they were written in fire instead of ink.
She didn't know what Cairo meant. She didn't want to know.
But she slipped the pen into her bag anyway.
Her fingers lingered on it longer than they should have.
The air outside was hot, the sun unkind, and her cramps hadn't completely faded since the weekend incident. But she walked in silence, steady and slow.
Zayn was somewhere behind her — she could feel it — but they didn't talk. Not even a brush of breath.
Not anymore.
By the time she got to the gate, a soft breeze swirled past, rustling her sleeve. A voice followed it.
"Hey."
She paused. Turned halfway.
It wasn't Zayn.
It was Cairo.
Leaning lazily against the school's outer wall like he had no place to be. One hand in his pocket. The other holding… her notebook.
Her eyes narrowed. She hadn't even noticed it missing.
"You forgot this," he said, holding it up with a half-smirk.
"Or maybe you left it on purpose. For me."
Ayra stepped forward, snatched it without a word.
"No 'thank you'?"
"No 'you're welcome' either," she said, flipping it open just to be sure nothing was torn out.
But there was something added.
A new page.
Just one sentence written in the top corner:
"You're interesting. Don't ruin it."
Her throat tightened, but she closed the book and looked him in the eye for the first time.
"What are you doing here?" she asked quietly.
"Observing."
"Observing what?"
"You," he said.
So simply. So recklessly.
She turned to walk away — because what else could she do? But he called out again:
"Ayra."
She stopped.
No one ever said her name like that — like a whisper and a dare at once.
"I'm not as good as I look," he added.
She didn't turn. Didn't smile.
But her pulse did.
That night, as the wind pressed against her window and sleep flirted with her eyelids, Ayra opened her notebook again.
She stared at the sentence for a while…
Then wrote underneath it:
"Neither am I."