Years have a way of moving faster than you expect.
By the time I crossed over from middle school into high school at the private school, the universe decided to do something strange. The girl I used to see in passing — the one from that other classroom — ended up in the same class as me. Same room. Same rows. Different worlds.
Even then, we didn't talk.
Not really. A few words, maybe. The kind you say when you need to borrow a pen or ask what the homework was. Nothing real. I was focused on my own crowd. She had hers.
It was around that time I had to switch tuition classes. I'd been at a new one for a while, but things went sideways — the kind of sideways that ends with you getting kicked out — so I went back to my old one. June or July, 6th grade.
She was there too.
Of course she was.