Tangled

After school hours, Caelis had asked them to stay back for a bit. There was a few more minutes until they had to meet up as requested. Most of the students had already left, their laughter and footsteps bleeding into the distance, leaving only the hum of cicadas and the faint creak of the old basketball hoop near the gym.

She wasn’t looking for him. That’s what she told herself every time. But her feet had a way of finding him anyway.

Gale stood alone on the court, a worn basketball in his hands, its faded lines tracing the years between them. His uniform tie hung loose, shirt wrinkled like always, hair a mess from where he’d run his fingers through it one too many times. He was still taller than she remembered, broader too. The kind of boy who used fit too easily into a space that used to be half hers.

He took a shot, the ball arcing high before swishing clean through the net. No celebration, no audience. Just him, a boy in the quiet, playing against no one.

Mirei hovered at the edge of the court, hidden just enough that he wouldn’t notice her unless he looked. Her fingers twisted into the hem of her sleeve, a habit that never really left. She should go - that’s what the reasonable part of her said. But the part of her that still remembered the glue-stained desks and red yarn necklaces couldn’t move.

She thought about Aren’s voice earlier that day, calm and certain: You could talk to him, you know.

Mirei hadn’t answered. What was there to say?

He was a boy she used to know. A boy who probably didn’t even remember all the half-moments that built her world.

The ball bounced against the cracked pavement, breaking the silence. Mirei swallowed hard. All she had to do was step forward, call his name, ask some meaningless question about the group project - any excuse to be part of his world again. But her feet stayed rooted, too tangled in doubt.

What if he looked at her and saw nothing? What if she was just another classmate, another face in the blur of high school days he’d forget the moment they graduated? What if talking to him just made her realize how far apart they really were?

The ache was familiar now, the tight pull in her chest where old threads had frayed and snapped long ago. She could sew herself shut a thousand times, but that gap - the one shaped like him - never closed right.

Gale took another shot, missing this time. The ball rolled toward the edge of the court, stopping a few feet from where she stood. Mirei’s breath caught, panic prickling under her skin.

If she stepped forward now, he’d see her. If she didn’t, she’d still be the girl hiding at the edges, too afraid to reach out.

Gale turned, hands on his hips, catching sight of her just as she took a half step back. For a moment, his eyes lingered, brow furrowed like he was trying to place her. Mirei’s heart stumbled over itself.

But then, just as quickly, his gaze slid away, like she was no one. Like she’d never been Dora. Like she’d never mattered at all.

The ache pulled tighter. Mirei turned before he could look again, walking fast, breath shallow.

Some knots couldn’t be untied. Some threads had frayed past saving.

And maybe - just maybe - it was better that way.