The autumn sun spilled over the colorful flags on the sports field. At the Grade 10 sports meet, a boy who had just finished jumping rope couldn’t stop his momentum and crashed straight into a book-holding figure from the neighboring class.
The moment their eyes met, the wind turned a page and stirred a feeling neither dared to put into words.
For the next two years, they were both science-track students, separated by a single wall, passing through the same school building in the morning light and evening dusk. A nod and a brush of shoulders when they crossed paths in the hall, glances at each other from the front and back of the cafeteria line: these became their most restrained points of contact.
Then the bell rang for senior year, and after they were placed in new classes, their fates began to shift. When he bumped into that familiar figure again, the boy’s eyes were already brimming with the glow of autumn.
