Joya stepped onto the street and felt the morning breathing around her. The rain from last evening had changed the face of Rangamati. Water rested on the road like thin mirrors, reflecting pieces of sky and moving rickshaws. She liked these mornings, calm yet thoughtful, the kind that allowed memories to walk freely.
Sudom's question from yesterday followed her again.
Inside the classroom the wooden desks smelled faintly of damp dust. Sudom entered with his umbrella still half wet, shaking it carefully near the door. Their eyes met, and Joya felt the same soft flutter she had begun to recognize lately. She opened her notebook to hide the smile forming on her lips.
The group project waited between them like a small country.
"Good morning, Joya," Sudom said and sat beside her. His voice carried no drama, only warmth, yet for her it felt like a secret invitation. She answered gently, afraid that louder words might reveal too much.
During class the teacher talked about stories and structure. Joya listened to the lecture, but another lecture was happening inside her chest. She wondered how a heart should be structured. Where would she place the beginning, and what would be the ending?
Sudom leaned closer and whispered about the project plan. His shoulder almost touched hers. She felt courage arriving, then leaving again, like the fans switching speed above their heads.
At lunch they went to the library as planned. The room was quieter than the lake after sunset. Sudom spread papers across the table and began drawing ideas. Joya watched the careful seriousness on his face. She liked seeing him like this, not only the cheerful boy on a bicycle, but the thoughtful one among books.
"Do you write when you feel heavy?" he asked, looking directly at her.
She thought for a second. "Writing makes things lighter," she replied. The sentence felt true enough to stand without support. Sudom smiled, impressed by simplicity. Joya felt seen again, yet still invisible in that deeper space she guarded.
They started drafting the project story. Sudom read her first lines and said they felt like breathing. That compliment stayed inside her mind longer than the taste of the rice she had eaten earlier.
After school the sky gathered clouds again. The sun looked tired, like the students. Sudom and Joya walked toward the gate together. Their steps matched more naturally now. Other students talked loudly around them, but they carried their own quiet road.
"About yesterday's road question," Sudom began.
Joya prepared herself like someone preparing tea for an unknown guest.
"You can answer whenever you want," he finished.
Kind words again. Not the right ones.
She laughed softly and changed the topic to homework. Yet the unfinished feeling remained hanging between their sentences. At the corner Sudom rode away on his bicycle through the wet street, and Joya watched him disappear behind a slow bus.
She realized she was no longer afraid of losing him. She was afraid of never being understood.
That evening mist returned over the hills. Her mother asked about dinner, about ordinary life, but Joya lived inside another life now. She sat by the window and opened her notebook. Drops still fell from the roof edge, keeping rhythm with her pen.
She wrote several private lines meant only for Sudom. Lines about the road, about dust rising from wheels, about the way his smile sometimes felt distant as another town. She wondered if one day he would read those pages or if she would need to speak them aloud herself.
Rain cannot wash everything. Some words wait for voices.
Night came gently, touching the lake first, then the streets. Joya folded the note once again and kept it under her pillow. Tomorrow she would try another gesture, maybe braver than paper and quieter than a shout.
Would Sudom finally understand her silence?
Or would her heart travel a longer road toward his awareness?
The answer waited somewhere between day and night, just like their story. And Joya, slowly but steadily, was learning to walk that bridge alone.