Chapter 6

Miley woke before her alarm.

The room was dim, the light outside still unsure of itself.

For a moment, she stayed where she was, listening to the quiet of the house-the faint tick of something cooling in the walls, the low hum of the fridge downstairs.

Her blanket had twisted around her legs during the night, and she took her time untangling herself from it.

She chose her clothes more carefully today.

Not because there was a reason to-just because she felt like it. A skirt she liked, a soft sweater that didn’t itch.

She brushed her hair until it fell neatly down her back, then paused in front of the mirror, studying her reflection longer than usual.

There was nothing wrong with her face. Nothing different. Still, she adjusted a strand of hair and stepped away.

Breakfast smelled like toast and something warm.

Her mother stood at the counter, humming quietly, while her father read something on his phone. Miley sat at the table, legs tucked beneath her chair, sipping her tea slowly.

“Big day?” her mother asked casually.

“I don’t know,” Miley said. And she meant it.

The walk to school felt calm. The sky hung low and pale, and the air carried a faint chill that made her pull her sweater tighter around herself.

She noticed how the pavement dipped slightly near the corner, how a cluster of leaves had gathered near the fence across the road. Small things. Ordinary things.

Blackwood High looked the same as always-tall, brick walls, wide steps worn smooth by years of students coming and going.

Inside, the halls buzzed with conversation, shoes squeaking against the floor, lockers opening and closing in uneven rhythms.

Anya found her near their classroom.

“You look suspiciously put together today,” Anya said, raising an eyebrow.

Miley smiled faintly. “Is that bad?”

“Only if you’re trying too hard.”

“Then I definitely am,” Miley replied, and they both laughed.

They took their seats as the teacher arrived, the class settling into a familiar quiet. Miley opened her notebook, uncapped her pen, and glanced around the room

That’s when she noticed Felix.

He was already there.

Sitting a few rows away, leaning forward slightly, elbows resting on his desk as he talked to someone beside him.

He looked relaxed-comfortable in a way that made it seem like the room adjusted around him instead of the other way around.

The thought sat with her, steady and warm and unsettling all at once.

She tried to focus on the lesson, but her attention drifted.

Her eyes returned to him without permission, catching the way he smiled at something, the way he tapped his pen against the desk absentmindedly.

At some point, she made a decision.

She turned in her seat.

“Hi,” she said.

Felix looked up.

Recognition crossed his face-not dramatic, not exaggerated.

Just a small shift in his expression, like a door opening.

“Oh. Hey,” he said. “You’re Miley, right?”

Her chest loosened slightly. “Yeah.”

“You’re in my English class,” he added, like he was confirming it for himself. “And… you were sitting near the window yesterday.”

She nodded. “That’s me.”

There was a brief pause-not awkward, not tense. Just quiet.

“I was thinking,” she said, carefully, “we actually knew each other before. A long time ago. Elementary school.”

Felix frowned slightly, not confused-just thoughtful.

“Right,” he said slowly. “Yeah. I remember that now. You moved away, didn’t you?”

Her heart skipped, small and quick. “I did.”

“Wow,” he said, smiling faintly. “That feels like forever ago.”

“It kind of is.”

The teacher cleared their throat at the front of the room, and Felix shifted back in his seat.

“Guess we should pretend to pay attention,” he said.

“Probably,” Miley replied.

They both turned forward.

“Before we continue,” they said, pulling a stack of papers from the desk, “we’ll have a short quiz. Nothing major. Just to see where everyone stands.”

A quiet groan moved through the class.

Miley straightened slightly as a paper slid onto her desk.

She scanned the questions-simple enough.

Things she remembered covering, things she could work through if she thought carefully.

Her pen moved steadily.

She paused once, tapping the tip against the paper, then wrote again.

The room was silent except for the sound of pages turning and chairs shifting.

When time was up, she handed it in without much thought.

It didn’t feel important.

Just another school thing.

The rest of the class passed quietly.

Miley wrote notes, though she barely remembered what she’d written.

She was aware of Felix in a way she hadn’t expected-aware of the space between their desks, the occasional sound of him turning a page, the way his attention drifted and returned.

When the bell rang, chairs scraped back and students stood all at once.

Felix hesitated, then said, “It was nice talking to you.”

“Yeah,” Miley said. “It was.”

He smiled once more before leaving with his friends.

At lunch, Anya talked about something that had happened in math class, gesturing wildly with her fork. Miley listened, laughed at the right moments, but her thoughts wandered back to the classroom.

Not to what Felix had said-but to how natural it had felt.

The afternoon slipped by gently.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing wrong.

By the time school ended, the sky had darkened, clouds stretching thin across it like pale brushstrokes.

Home was quiet.

She dropped her bag by the stairs, kicked off her shoes, and went straight to her room.

The house felt still, but not in a way that bothered her. Just settled. Old.

She lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, replaying the day-not obsessively, just carefully.

The way Felix had looked up.

The sound of his voice.

The ease of the conversation.

It felt finished.

That night, as she turned off the light and pulled the blanket up to her chin, she thought, very simply:

Tomorrow, things would move forward.

She believed that.

And with that thought, she fell asleep.
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Chapter ended