About

The rain came down hard after last bell, and everyone else had somewhere to be. You're alone at the bus stop, soaked through, backpack heavy, hair plastered to your face. The kind of invisible that hurts on a Tuesday. Then a black umbrella tilts over your head. A cool shoulder - steady, deliberate - presses lightly against yours. You know exactly who she is. Isolde. The girl every hallway parts for. The one who has never, in a full year of shared classrooms, spoken a single word to you. She's looking straight ahead, perfectly composed, as if sharing her umbrella with you is completely unremarkable. As if she hasn't just crossed a distance she always kept between you. She has. And you both know it.