UNSENT FEELINGS

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1 1 - 1 S T . M A T T H E W 1 1 - 1 S T . M A T T H E WG R O U P 5 G R O U P 5U N S E N TU N S E N TFEELINGSFEELINGS2 1 - 9 - 2 6lovelovewayswaysDon’t let your online presence be greater than your real life presence

Chapter 1:Chapter 1:Chapter 1: About YouAbout YouAbout You Chapter 2: My ConstantChapter 2: My ConstantChapter 2: My Constant Chapter 3: Shoot my shot, for goodChapter 3: Shoot my shot, for goodChapter 3: Shoot my shot, for good Chapter 4: Hope New York holds YouChapter 4: Hope New York holds YouChapter 4: Hope New York holds You Chapter 5: This person is unavailableChapter 5: This person is unavailableChapter 5: This person is unavailable Chapter 6: Kahel na LangitChapter 6: Kahel na LangitChapter 6: Kahel na Langit Chapter 7: Maybe We’ll Get MarriedChapter 7: Maybe We’ll Get MarriedChapter 7: Maybe We’ll Get Married One Day, But Who Knows?One Day, But Who Knows?One Day, But Who Knows? Chapter 8: You're the Lo(ss)ve of MyChapter 8: You're the Lo(ss)ve of MyChapter 8: You're the Lo(ss)ve of My Life.Life.Life. Chapter 1: About You Chapter 2: My Constant Chapter 3: Shoot my shot, for good Chapter 4: Hope New York holds You Chapter 5: This person is unavailable Chapter 6: Kahel na Langit Chapter 7: Maybe We’ll Get Married One Day, But Who Knows? Chapter 8: You're the Lo(ss)ve of My Life.T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Unsent FeelingsAuthorsAuthors Dacayan, Avrille Gwyne S. Manansala, Jasper Lay Sawal, Jace Adrian Dayondon, Ariana Faith De Jesus, Tiffany Figueroa, Chloe Issabelle Romero, Alezzandra Upadhyay, Sofia Anne Yumul, Denise Dacayan, Avrille Gwyne S. Manansala, Jasper Lay Sawal, Jace Adrian Dayondon, Ariana Faith De Jesus, Tiffany Figueroa, Chloe Issabelle Romero, Alezzandra Upadhyay, Sofia Anne Yumul, Denise Subject TeachersSubject Teachers Ms. Nichole Dizon SIr. Rommel Esguerra Sir. Micko Cruz Ms. Nichole Dizon SIr. Rommel Esguerra Sir. Micko Cruz

Chapter 1 About You “I met him when I was trying to start over.” Every person has an about you. A little box beneath your name where you decide what the world gets to know. Your favorite color. Your favorite song. The places you've been. The things you love. The version of yourself you don't mind strangers seeing. Magnolia used to think that was all a person was—a collection of things they chose to put on a screen. Until the internet taught her otherwise. There are some things you can delete with a single tap. A photograph. A message. A username. An entire account. But Magnolia learned that a person was not as easy to erase. For months, she had tried. Before Ezrah became a name Magnolia would remember for years, she was simply a girl trying to become someone who no longer looked back. Transferring to a new school was supposed to be her reset button. A clean page. A different hallway. Different faces. Different conversations. Somewhere far enough away that nobody would look at her and immediately remember what had happened. “New school, new Magnolia,” she had whispered to herself the night before her first day. She'd been sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring at the ceiling while her phone rested beside her. “You can do this.”

Her phone lit up. Magnolia's eyes immediately dropped to the screen. For half a second, her heart jumped. Then she realized it was only a notification from an app she barely used. She exhaled. “See?” she muttered. “This is exactly why I'm deleting everything.” Her thumb hovered over the screen. Then she opened her social-media account. For a while, Magnolia had lived comfortably behind a screen. Her accounts used to be little windows into her life. She posted photographs of ordinary days, captured sunsets, shared small victories, and left pieces of herself scattered across the digital world without ever thinking about who might pick them up. Back then, she had never been afraid of being seen. “What could possibly happen?” she'd asked once when a friend warned her about posting too much. “People can save your pictures,” her friend had said. “So?” “So you don't know where they'll end up.” Magnolia laughed. “It's just a picture.” She wished she could go back and tell that version of herself how wrong she was. Because eventually, someone did save her pictures. Someone changed them. They created ‘deepfakes’ with her photos. Altered them with AI to make it look like her. Then they shared it. Spread it online like a virus. Strangers began talking and gossiping about her as though they knew her. The comments bombarded her. The hate and rumors pierced her innocent heart. Magnolia became the subject matter of the whole campus; she was the batches’ laughing stock. The deepfakes became the reason for her ridicule and continuous cyberbullying. Until Magnolia stopped being able to look at her own photographs without wondering what someone else would do to them. Her phone became something she was afraid to open. She would stare at a notification for minutes before deciding whether she had the courage to tap it. Sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she turned her phone face down and pretended she hadn't seen anything.

But the words still found their way into her head. Maybe they're right. Maybe I shouldn't have posted that. Maybe I should have known better. Maybe everyone is looking at me. The internet had no doors she could close. Even when she stopped checking her accounts, the words followed her beyond the screen. They appeared in the quiet moments before sleep. They surfaced while she was eating. While she was studying. While she was walking through school. Sometimes, she'd hear a group of people laughing somewhere behind her and immediately wonder: “Are they talking about me?” She hated that question. She hated how easily it had become part of her. So Magnolia began deleting. One account became another. Another became another. “Delete.” Her finger pressed the button. A confirmation appeared. Are you sure you want to delete your account? Magnolia stared at the words. “Yes.” She pressed it. Gone. She opened another account. “Delete.” Gone. Another. Gone.

Photographs disappeared. Messages disappeared. Followers became numbers that no longer mattered. The little digital version of her life slowly became smaller and smaller until there was almost nothing left. At one point, Magnolia stopped and looked at her screen. Her old profile picture was still there. It was a photograph of her smiling. She remembered taking it. She remembered exactly where she had been. She remembered thinking she looked happy. Her thumb hovered over the delete button. “You weren't happy,” she whispered. She deleted the picture. Then she locked her phone. For a few seconds, she sat completely still. It was strange. She had expected relief. Instead, there was an emptiness she couldn't name. As though she had just thrown away a box of photographs and only realized afterward that some of them had been memories she actually wanted to keep. But she didn't take them back. She couldn't. Or maybe she simply didn't know how. When she finally created a new account, Magnolia left the profile completely blank. No photographs. No old usernames. No biography. No explanations. Nothing that could be searched. Nothing that could be interpreted. Nothing that could be used to construct a version of her she didn't recognize. Just an empty profile. She stared at it. A blank page. For once, Magnolia liked the idea of being unknown. “You don't know me,” she whispered to the screen. Her own reflection stared back at her. “And that's the point.” She set her phone down. For the first time in months, she felt like she had control over something. She could choose what people saw. She could choose what they knew. She could choose what stayed hers. At least, that was what she told herself. The first morning at her new school, Magnolia stood in front of the mirror and adjusted the strap of her bag. “Okay.” She looked at herself. “New school.”

A hesitant pause formed, even despite the new beginning that lingering awareness of something new has formed will never wear off. “New people.” Another pause. “No drama.” She pointed at her reflection. “And absolutely no oversharing.” Her reflection, unfortunately, did not look convinced. “Don't look at me like that.” She picked up her phone. Her blank social-media profile stared back at her. No notification, messages, nor comments has even been shown. Perfect. “See?” she said quietly. “Peace.” She slipped her phone into her pocket. And that became Magnolia's rule. Keep your head down. Do your work. Be polite. Don't get too close. Don't give people too much. Because she'd learned something the hard way: People couldn't use pieces of you against you if you never gave them any pieces to begin with. So she built walls. Not the kind people could see. The kind that existed in the pauses before she answered personal questions. In this way she changed the subject when conversations became too intimate. In the way she smiled without explaining what she was actually thinking. In the way she kept her phone locked and her accounts empty. In this way she made herself difficult to reach. It worked. For a while. As the days passed, soon into months, Magnolia slowly learned the rhythm of her new school, Assumption de Regina School. At first, everything had felt unfamiliar. The corridors seemed longer than they actually were. The classrooms all looked the same from a distance, and she kept checking her schedule just to make sure she wasn't walking into the wrong room. She had memorized the location of the canteen, the library, the comfort rooms, the beautiful chapel and the staircase that everyone seemed to use whenever the bell rang. Eventually, though, unfamiliar things began to feel ordinary. She learned which electric fan in their classroom made an annoying clicking sound whenever it turned to the left. She learned that the canteen's fried chicken would usually sell out before lunch ended. She learned that the hallway outside the faculty room was always quieter than the others during break time, while the corridor near the canteen became almost impossible to walk through during recess.

She even learned the sound of the school day. The first bell in the morning. Chairs scraping against tiled floors. Teachers calling attendance. Students shouting greetings and chants across classrooms and every section. The rhythmic whir of electric fans fighting against the Philippine afternoon heat. The distant squeak of shoes against the basketball court. And, every so often, the familiar sound of a tricycle or jeepney passing beyond the school gates. Somehow, the noise stopped bothering her. It became background music. A strange kind of comfort. Magnolia had started to settle in. Not completely. But enough. She had begun answering classmates when they talked to her instead of simply nodding. She occasionally joined conversations during lunch. Sometimes, she even laughed without immediately wondering who might be watching. It wasn't the fresh start she had imagined. It was quieter than that. Less dramatic. More like slowly learning how to breathe in a place that had once felt foreign. And maybe that was enough. Until one afternoon, a teacher called her name. “Magnolia?” She looked up from her notebook. The last few minutes of class had already begun to feel heavier. The afternoon heat pressed against the classroom windows, and the electric fan above them rotated lazily from one side to another, doing very little to cool the room. “Yes, Ma'am?” Her teacher, Mrs. Cruz, stood beside the desk. “Could you do me a favor?” Magnolia narrowed her eyes playfully. “What kind of favor?” The teacher smiled. “We have a new transferee. I need someone to show him around the campus.” Magnolia blinked. “A transferee?” “Yes.” “Someone?” Her teacher nodded. “Someone who isn't me?” A few classmates nearby laughed. The teacher shook her head with a smile, “You already know your way around. You'll do fine.”

Magnolia tilted her head. “Why me?” “Because you've been here long enough to know the place.” “That doesn't necessarily mean I know where everything is.” Her teacher raised an eyebrow with a chuckle. “You've been studying here for months.” “Exactly, Ma’am. Months. Not years.” “Still counts, nak.” Magnolia sighed by the thought, after all out of all the universe has chosen, it has to be her. “Is this another one of those programs?” Her teacher smiled. “It is.” Magnolia already knew what she meant. At Assumption de Regina School, welcoming new students wasn't simply left to the teachers. It had become a small tradition—a way of reminding students that being new didn't mean being alone. Students who had already adjusted to the school were encouraged to welcome incoming transferees, show them around, introduce them to teachers and classmates, and help them become familiar with the routines of campus life. The program was one of the activities integrated by the Christian Living Education and MAPEH departments, not only as a way to help newcomers adjust, but also as part of the school's character formation and evaluation. The teachers believed that character wasn't measured only through grades. Sometimes, it was seen in smaller things. How willing a student was to help someone who was lost. In whether they noticed when someone was sitting alone. In how patiently they explained something they already understood. In whether they could make another person feel like they belonged. Magnolia had heard the explanation before. “It's about connection,” her CLE teacher had once told the class. “You know what it feels like to be welcomed, so you should learn how to welcome others.” She remembered thinking it sounded a little idealistic. Now, standing in front of her teacher, she couldn't help but smile. “So I'm basically being assigned community service.”

“Think of it as a character-building activity.” “That's a very nice way of saying community service, Ma’am.” Her teacher laughed. “You'll survive, your fellow classmates have experienced the same. Even you did when you first transferred here, Magnolia” Magnolia stared at the ground for a moment before looking at Mrs. Cruz. “I’ll do it ma’am.” “Thank you.” “But I'm charging, I would like a plus point, Ma’am.” Her teacher raised an eyebrow once more. “For what?” “Emotional damages.” A few students laughed again along with Mrs. Cruz. “Just show him around,” her teacher said, shaking her head. “Introduce him to the places he needs to know, help him understand his schedule, and make sure he doesn't spend his first week wandering around like a lost tourist.” Magnolia picked up her bag. “Okay, Ma’am.” She didn't think much of it. After all, she had once been a newcomer too. She knew what it was like to walk through unfamiliar halls while everyone else seemed to know exactly where they were going. She knew the awkwardness of entering a classroom where everyone already had their own groups, their own inside jokes, their own places to sit. Maybe that was why the school had created the tradition in the first place. Because every student had once stood at the beginning of something. Every familiar face had once been unfamiliar. Every friendship had once started with a stranger. Magnolia just didn't expect that this particular stranger would become important to her. The moment she stepped into the hallway, she was met by the familiar warmth of the afternoon. Sunlight spilled through the open windows, turning the tiled floor into long patches of gold. Somewhere downstairs, students were still talking loudly after their last class. The smell of food rom the canteen lingered in the air—fried food, sweet drinks, and the faint scent of rice that seemed to follow students everywhere. A few classmates passed by, some already carrying their bags over one shoulder. “Bye, Magnolia!”

“See you tomorrow!” She raised her hand. “Bye!” Then she continued toward the classroom where the new transferee was supposed to be waiting. She spotted him near the door. A boy stood with one hand holding the strap of his backpack, looking around as though the entire school had been written in a language he hadn't learned yet. He checked his schedule. Looked at the room number. Looked at the schedule again. Then looked down the hallway. Magnolia almost laughed “Yikes." Definitely lost. She watched him for another second. He looked at the signs on the walls. Then at the staircase. Then back at his schedule. Magnolia couldn't help herself. “Are you trying to figure out where you are?” The boy turned. “I'm trying.” Magnolia looked at him properly for the first time. Oh. Of course. He had the kind of face that looked unfairly put together without seeming like he had tried. Warm brown skin, black hair that was slightly messy in the way that somehow still looked intentional, and dark eyes that carried the lazy, half-awake expression of someone who had never been particularly worried about impressing anyone. He was tall, too. Not just tall, but basketball tall—long limbs, broad shoulders, an athletic build that made the school uniform look less like a uniform and more like something he had accidentally been handed on his way out the door. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows. His tie was slightly loose. His shoes were spotless. Of course they were.

He looked like the kind of boy Magnolia had seen a hundred times on social media. The type with the slightly sleepy eyes. The effortless half-smile. The kind of expression that looked like he had just walked out of a basketball edit set to some unnecessarily dramatic song. Basketball photos. Expensive watches. Mirror selfies. Pictures taken in cars that probably cost more than someone's entire college tuition. Comments filled with girls saying things like “Lord, when will it be my turn?” Magnolia mentally gagged. Then internally slapped herself. Oh, brother. The “I don't talk much, but when I do, everyone listens” guy. The kind of guy who would probably even post just his jersey as a thirst trap once every three months and somehow receive a hundred comments from girls saying things like “bro is majestic” and “when will it be my turn?” Magnolia immediately decided she wanted no part in that nonsense. Absolutely not. He glanced down at the paper in his hand, then back at her. “Are you trying to figure out where you are?” “I’m trying.” Magnolia raised an eyebrow. “That’s reassuring.” “I’ve been trying for about ten minutes.” “Ten minutes?” “Yeah.” “And you haven't asked anyone for help?” He shrugged. “I thought I'd figure it out.” There it was. That little shrug. That tiny, effortless confidence.

Not exactly arrogance, well almost. But close enough to annoy her. “You're very confident for someone who's been standing in the same place for ten minutes.” He looked at the hallway around them as if considering her accusation. “Maybe I was confident that someone would eventually notice me.” Magnolia stared at him. “You were waiting to be rescued?” “I wouldn't call it ‘rescued’.” “What would you call it?” “Efficient.” She let out a short laugh. “That's one word for it.” His mouth twitched. He wasn't offended, perhaps partially. If anything, he looked entertained. That somehow made him more annoying. Magnolia had met people like him before—the kind who carried themselves as if the world had been arranged for their convenience. They didn't necessarily mean to be arrogant. They were just accustomed to having options. And judging by the watch on his wrist, the polished shoes, and the general I-have-never-had- to-check-a-price-tag-twice energy he was giving off, Magnolia had a feeling Ezrah had grown up with plenty of those options. She glanced at his schedule. “You're looking for Room 11-1.” “Yeah.” “You're in the wrong building.” He blinked. “Seriously?” “Seriously.” He looked down at the paper again. Then back at her. “So this is not Room 11-1?” “No, this is the Junior High-School Building.” “Huh.”

“You've been standing here for ten minutes.” “Yeah.” “In the wrong building.” “Apparently, I thought this school had only one big building.” The moreno simply just shrugged once more with a slight frown before looking around. “And you were confident?” He gave her a small, shameless smile despite still being wrong. “I still am.” Magnolia pressed her lips together. I already don't like him. It had been approximately three minutes. A new personal record than any guy she has met even online. “You're Ezrah, right?” “Yeah. Ezrah Blue” He folded the schedule and slipped it into his pocket. “And if I'm not mistaken, you are Magnolia, like the ice cream brand?” “......Yup. That's me. Esther Magnolia” “Nice to meet you.” “Tour guide?” “Unfortunately.” He smiled. “Unfortunately?” “I was promised an incentive.” That earned a quiet laugh from him. “I'll make sure they’ll give it to you.” “Good. Because my rates are expensive, and I need the plus point.” “Apparently.” Magnolia looked at him. He said it so casually that she couldn't tell whether he was joking. Then he smiled again. There it was. That effortless confidence. The kind that probably worked on everyone. Unfortunately for him, Magnolia was not everyone.

“Come on,” she said, turning around. “I'll show you around before you accidentally walk into the faculty room and get adopted by Mr. Dizon.” He fell into step beside her. “Is that something that happens here?” “Not often.” “That's reassuring.” “I didn't say it was impossible.” He laughed again. And despite herself, Magnolia smiled. Just a little. She immediately looked away.

Chapter 2 My Constant By the time Magnolia finished showing Ezrah around the school, she had already learned three things about him. First, he was terrible at remembering directions. Second, he asked an unreasonable number of questions for someone who claimed he could figure things out himself. And third— He was much easier to talk to than she expected. “That's the chapel,” Magnolia said as they walked past the open courtyard. Ezrah glanced toward the building. “And that's the library.” “Okay.” “The canteen is downstairs.” “Got it.” “And if you hear the bell ring twice—” “Go to class?” “No. Run.” Ezrah looked at her. Magnolia nodded seriously. “Why?” “Because that's when everyone remembers they have somewhere to be.” He laughed. Magnolia tried not to smile. It was becoming a problem. She was supposed to be giving him a tour, not enjoying herself. “Anyway,” she continued, “you'll eventually memorize everything.”

“Hopefully.” “You'll be fine.” “That's what you said when I was in the wrong building.” “And I was right.” “You also laughed at me.” “I was laughing with you.” “I wasn't laughing.” “That sounds like a personal problem.” Ezrah shook his head, smiling. They continued walking until they reached the covered court. A few students were still there, some shooting baskets while others sat along the benches. The moment Ezrah stepped into view, a couple of students noticed him. “Yo, Ezrah!” He raised a hand. Another student called from across the court. “Practice later?” “Yeah,” Ezrah answered. Magnolia glanced at him. “You already have people here?” “Apparently.” “Apparently?” “I don't know them that well.”

Magnolia gave him a look. Three people had already called his name. “You're going to have to work harder if you want me to believe that.” Ezrah laughed. Before he could answer, someone shouted from behind Magnolia. “Magnolia!” She turned. A girl with shoulder-length hair was walking toward them, carrying two books against her chest. Mika. She stopped in front of them and looked between Magnolia and Ezrah. Then she looked at Magnolia again. Then back at Ezrah. Her eyes narrowed. Magnolia immediately knew that expression. “No.” “I didn't say anything.” “You were about to.” Mika smiled innocently. “I was just going to say hi.” “Then say hi.” “Hi.” Magnolia sighed. Mika turned toward Ezrah. “I'm Mika.” “Ezrah.” “I know.” Ezrah raised an eyebrow. Mika smiled. “Everyone knows.” Magnolia groaned. “Can we please not start?”

“I haven't started anything.” “You're thinking loudly.” Mika laughed. Another voice came from behind them. “What are you guys doing?” Clara approached with Noah beside her. Clara was carrying a small bag over one shoulder, while Noah had his usual expression—the kind that suggested he had walked into the conversation halfway through and was already regretting it. Mika pointed toward Ezrah. “New transferee.” Clara's eyes widened slightly. “Oh.” Noah looked at Ezrah. “Basketball?” Ezrah blinked. “Uh, yeah. Point Guard” Noah nodded as if that answered every question he had. “Figured” Magnolia looked between them. “Why does everyone know this already?” Mika crossed her arms. “Because people talk.” “Too much.” “That's also true.” Clara smiled at Ezrah. “Welcome to Assumption de Regina.” “Thanks.” “I'm Clara.” “Noah.” Ezrah nodded at both of them. “Nice to meet you.” Magnolia watched her friends silently assess him. She knew that look. They were curious. Very curious.

And she wasn't going to let them make things weird. “So,” Magnolia said, clapping her hands once, “the tour is officially over.” Ezrah looked at her. “That's it?” “Yep.” “You're leaving me?” “I've done my civic duty.” “You're really committed to that plus point.” “Obviously.” Mika laughed. “She's been talking about that since she was assigned to you.” “Of course she has,” Ezrah said. Magnolia pointed at him. “Don't judge me.” “I wouldn't dare.” Clara smiled. “You can sit with us during lunch if you don't have anywhere to go.” Ezrah hesitated. Then agreed. “Sure.” Magnolia looked at her friends. She knew exactly what they were thinking. And she was already tired. “Don't.” Mika raised both hands. “We didn't say anything.” “You don't have to.” Noah looked at Magnolia. “You're being defensive.” “I'm not.”

“You are.” “I hate all of you.” “You'll survive,” Clara said. Magnolia rolled her eyes. But she was smiling. Lunch came faster than Magnolia expected. Their usual table was near one of the windows overlooking the courtyard. Mika sat across from Magnolia. Clara was beside her, while Noah occupied the seat at the end of the table. Ezrah sat beside Magnolia. Not because Magnolia had invited him specifically. At least, that was what she told herself. “You're quiet,” Clara said. Ezrah looked up from his food. “Am I?” “Kind of.” “He's probably still trying to figure out where he is” Magnolia said. “I know where I am now.” “That's progress.” Ezrah smiled. Mika leaned forward. “So, Ezrah.” Magnolia immediately looked at her. “Mika.” “What?” “Don't interrogate him.” “I'm not interrogating him.” “You're using your interrogation voice.”

“I have an interrogation voice?” “Yes.” Noah nodded. “You definitely do.” Mika ignored them. “So where did you transfer from?” Ezrah told them the name of his previous school, St. Luke Academy where he had spent most of his earlier years. It was a school known for its strong academic programs, discipline, and emphasis on sports, particularly basketball. “And why did you transfer?” The table became slightly quieter. Ezrah's expression changed. Only for a second. Magnolia noticed. He looked down at his food before answering. “My family moved.” Mika nodded. “Oh.” She didn't push further. Magnolia was grateful. There were some questions that didn't need immediate answers. After a moment, Noah changed the subject. “So you're playing for the school team?” Ezrah nodded. “Hopefully.” “You should,” Noah said. “I've heard you're good.” Ezrah smiled faintly. “Who told you that?” “Everyone.” Magnolia looked at Ezrah. “You're actually good?” Ezrah looked offended. “Actually?” “You know what I mean.” “I don't think you do.” Mika laughed. “He's one of the better players in the division.” Magnolia looked at him. “You're serious?” Ezrah shrugged. “I play.”

“That doesn't answer the question.” “I guess I'm decent.” Noah scoffed. “Decent?” Clara smiled. “You're being humble.” Ezrah looked down at his food. “Maybe.” Magnolia noticed the change again. It was subtle. Whenever basketball came up, his confidence seemed to disappear for a moment. Like there was something underneath it. Something heavier. She didn't ask. Not yet. After lunch, Magnolia found herself walking beside Ezrah again. Their next classes were in the same direction. For several minutes, neither of them spoke. Then Ezrah broke the silence. “Your friends are nice.” “They're annoying.” “They can be both.” Magnolia smiled. “That's fair.” “Mika seems like she knows everything.” “She thinks she does.” “Clara seems nice.” “She is.” “And Noah?” “Quiet.Very.” Magnolia laughed.

“He talks more when he gets comfortable.” Ezrah nodded. “What about you?” “What about me?” “Which one are you?” Magnolia looked at him. “I'm the one who tells people where the rooms are.” Ezrah smiled. “That's not what I meant.” She knew what he meant. She just didn't know how to answer. “I don't know.” “You don't know yourself ?” “That's not what I said.” “You said you don't know.” Magnolia looked ahead. “I guess I'm still figuring it out.” Ezrah didn't laugh. He simply nodded. “Fair.” They continued walking. After a while, he asked, “Why are you here?” Magnolia's steps slowed.

She had expected the question eventually. Still, hearing it made something inside her tighten. She looked at the hallway ahead. “It's complicated.” Ezrah nodded. “You don't have to tell me.” Magnolia glanced at him. Most people would have followed the question with another one. He didn't. That made her want to answer. “My old school wasn't exactly a good place for me anymore.” “There was something that happened online.” She swallowed. “People used my pictures. They edited them with AI. Made fake things using my face, there’s a term now, deepfake they call it.” Ezrah's expression hardened. “They spread them around.” He looked at her. “I'm sorry.” Magnolia shrugged. “I deleted everything.” “Everything?” “Almost.” She smiled faintly. “I thought if I deleted enough, I'd eventually stop feeling like everyone was looking at me.” “Did it work?” Magnolia took a moment. “No.”

Ezrah didn't say anything. “I still felt like people were talking about me,” she continued. “Even when they weren't.” She looked down at her scar-covered arms. “I started being careful about everything. What I posted. What I said. Who I talked to.” “And now?” “Now I don't post anything.” Ezrah nodded. “That makes sense.” Magnolia looked at him. “You don't think it's weird?” “No.” “Why?” He shrugged. “Because I don't know what it's like to have strangers use something personal against you.” He paused. “But I know what it's like to lose something you can't get back.” Magnolia looked at him. There was something in his voice. Something different. “What happened?” Ezrah stopped walking. For a moment, he looked toward the windows. “My dad passed.” Magnolia's expression softened. “Oh.” “It happened a year ago, that’s why I transferred.” She didn't know what to say.

So she didn't say anything. Ezrah continued. “He was the person who got me into basketball.” Magnolia listened. “He used to bring me to games. We'd practice together. Even when I was terrible.” “You were terrible?” Ezrah smiled. “Very.” “I don't believe that.” “You should.” “I'll need proof.” He laughed quietly. Then his expression became serious again. “After he died, I almost stopped playing.” Magnolia looked at him. “But eventually, I realized basketball was one of the few things that still made me feel close to him.” He looked down at his shoes. “So I kept going.” “That’s why you want to play professionally?” “Mhm.” His answer was immediate. “I want to see how far I can take it.” Magnolia nodded. “Because of him?” “Partly.” He looked at her. “And because I want to prove to myself that losing him didn't mean losing everything.” Magnolia was blank after what Ezrah said.

So she simply stated, “I think he'd be proud of you.” Ezrah looked away. “Maybe.” “He would.” “You didn't know him.” “No.” Magnolia smiled softly. “But I know what it's like to wish someone could see who you're becoming.” Ezrah looked at her again. For the first time since they had met, neither of them joked. Neither of them tried to fill the silence. They simply understood. Two people who had tried to erase pieces of their past. Two people who were still carrying them. And somehow, they had ended up walking through the same hallway. The bell rang. Its sharp sound echoed through the hallway, bouncing off the classroom walls and pulling students out of their conversations. Chairs scraped against tiled floors behind them. Somewhere down the corridor, someone shouted goodbye to a friend before hurried footsteps followed. Magnolia looked toward the classroom. “We should go.” Ezrah nodded. They started walking again. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. Their footsteps fell into the same rhythm against the polished floor—quiet, almost unnoticeable beneath the growing noise of students returning to their classrooms. Magnolia could still feel the weight of what she had told him. It was strange. She had spoken about something she had spent months trying not to think about, and yet the world hadn't collapsed afterward.

The hallway was still there. The afternoon sun still spilled through the windows. The electric fans still hummed above them. Students still laughed somewhere behind them. Everything had remained exactly the same. Except something inside her felt slightly different. “Magnolia?” She looked at him.“Hmm?” Ezrah hesitated for a moment. “Thanks for telling me.” She blinked. For some reason, those four words felt heavier than they should have. She looked ahead. “You told me something too.” “I guess I did.” “So we're even.” Ezrah smiled. “Deal.” Magnolia smiled back. But as they continued walking, her thoughts lingered. She had always believed that telling someone something personal meant handing them a piece of yourself. A piece they could keep. A piece they could twist. A piece they could eventually use against you. That was what the internet had taught her. That was what strangers had taught her. That was what months of being watched, judged, and talked about had taught her. Keep your life private.

Keep your feelings hidden. Don't give people ammunition. But Ezrah hadn't taken what she told him and turned it into something ugly. He hadn't looked at her differently. He hadn't asked unnecessary questions. He hadn't tried to make her pain sound smaller or bigger than it was. He had simply listened. And somehow, that was enough. Magnolia glanced at him from the corner of her eye. The afternoon sunlight caught the side of his face as they passed another window, briefly outlining his hair in gold. The faint scent of rain lingered in the warm air, even though the sky outside remained bright. Somewhere below them, the canteen was still busy, and the smell of fried food drifted faintly through the corridor. For once, Magnolia didn't feel the need to fill the silence. Maybe she had misunderstood something all this time. Maybe being vulnerable wasn't the same as being powerless. Maybe trusting someone didn't mean giving them control over you. Maybe it simply meant believing that, for once, someone would hold what you gave them carefully. Beside her, Ezrah was quiet too. He had spent years carrying his own kind of silence. His father's absence had become a permanent space in his life—something he could never completely fill, no matter how many games he played or how many points he scored. For a long time, he had believed that moving forward meant becoming stronger. Never stopping. Never looking back. Always having another game to win. But talking to Magnolia made him realize something he hadn't expected. Strength wasn't always about carrying everything alone. Sometimes, it was allowing someone else to know that something was heavy. He glanced at Magnolia. She was staring ahead, her fingers loosely gripping the strap of her bag. She looked different from the girl who had first approached him in the hallway. Not completely. But enough. She had walls around her. He could tell. Yet for a few minutes, she had opened one of the gates.

And he understood how much trust that must have taken. Neither of them said it aloud. They didn't have to. They were both learning the same lesson from opposite sides of the same wound: You don't have to tell everyone your story. But that didn't mean you had to hide it from everyone, either. There were people who would take your secrets and turn them into weapons. And there were people who would listen to them and simply say, I'm here. Maybe the difficult part wasn't learning how to trust everyone. Maybe it was learning how to recognize the people who had earned your trust. The two of them reached the classroom door. Magnolia stopped. “You coming?” Ezrah nodded. “Yeah.” He stepped inside. Magnolia followed. Neither of them knew it yet, but something had changed during that walk. They had arrived at the same classroom as two people who had only recently met. But they entered it carrying something new between them. Not a promise. Not a friendship they could name yet. Just understanding. And sometimes, Magnolia would later realize, that was where the most important friendships began. Not with grand gestures. Not with promises. Not with knowing everything about someone. But with two people quietly realizing: You don't have to hide from me. And that’s when they became each other’s constant.

Chapter 3 Shoot my shot, for good A whole year felt like time passing by quickly, from 11-1 to 12-1. Magnolia had always believed that memories were supposed to stay where you left them. In photographs. In old movie tickets. In folded pieces of paper tucked between the pages of books. In the little objects that seemed meaningless to everyone else but somehow carried entire years inside them. That was what she told herself as she sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, an old cardboard box resting between her knees as she waited for dinner in silence one Saturday evening. The box had once contained a pair of shoes. Now its sides were softened from years of being moved from one corner of the house to another, its lid slightly bent and its edges decorated with faded stickers. “MEMORIES <3” Magnolia had written across the top when she was thirteen, having the exact same account on Instagram having both traditional and digital memories to cherish. Ezrah had laughed at her childish handwriting. She had threatened to throw the box at him. He laughed harder. That had been four years ago. Now, at seventeen, Magnolia ran her thumb over the word. Memories. She lifted the lid. A pile of photographs greeted her, mixed with ones from her current friends and classmates. One showed her and Ezrah standing outside a movie theater, both squinting because the afternoon sun was too bright.

Another showed them eating ice cream, with Ezrah’s face covered in chocolate because he had somehow managed to make a complete mess of himself. There were receipts. A pressed leaf. A friendship bracelet with half the threads coming loose. A birthday card with terrible drawings. A tiny plastic keychain. A bus ticket. A note written on a napkin. A dried flower that had probably been dead for years. Magnolia picked up the photographs one at a time. And, without meaning to, she looked for him. There he was among the sea of familiar faces of a new start. Ezrah. Always somewhere in the frame. Sometimes beside her. Sometimes behind her. Sometimes caught in the background because whoever had taken the picture hadn’t realized he was there. Magnolia smiled faintly. “You’re everywhere,” she whispered. She picked up another photograph. It was from the summer they had first become close. They hadn’t even been friends at the beginning. They had simply been two children assigned to the same group project. Ezrah had forgotten his notebook. Magnolia had complained about it. He had called her bossy. She had called him irresponsible. They had finished the project together anyway. Somehow, that had been the beginning. Years later, she couldn’t remember what the project had even been about. But she remembered Ezrah’s laugh. She remembered the way he had leaned over the table and whispered, “If we fail this, I’m blaming you.” She remembered saying, “You’re the one who forgot the notebook.” She remembered him grinning.

She remembered everything except the thing that had supposedly mattered. The project. Magnolia set the photograph down. Her eyes drifted toward another. Then another. And another. She kept finding him; it was becoming baffling as she opened her phone to scroll to see more various pictures of Ezrah. It was almost ridiculous. Yet she found Ezrah in every important memory because, somehow, he had become part of all of them. Her first school competition. Her worst birthday. The summer storm that knocked out the electricity and forced the school to online modality. In the afternoon they got lost trying to find a bookstore because Google Maps led them the wrong way. The day Magnolia had cried after receiving a disappointing exam result in Gen Math. The day Ezrah had failed his driving test, not wanting to admit he was still underage to even take it and insisted that the examiner had ‘something against him.’ The countless afternoons under the old tree behind the neighborhood park. That tree had become theirs without either of them deciding it. When things were difficult, they went there. When things were exciting, they went there. When there was nothing to talk about, they still went there. Magnolia sighed at the thought; soon she opened the notes app with a raised eyebrow.

Things to do before we graduate. She laughed softly. The list was utterly ridiculous. 1. Watch ten movies in one day. 2. Go somewhere neither of us has been. 3. Eat at the fancy restaurant near the mall. 4. Get lost. 5. Learn how to do Morse code. 6. Become famous. 7. Don’t become famous at the same time. 8. Learn Theology in one day. Magnolia stared at the last one. Still be friends when we’re old. Her smile faded. There had always been other people around them. Some came and went, people they met in class or talked to for a semester before slowly losing touch. Others stayed. Clara, Mika, and Noah had been the ones who stayed since her first day at Assumption de Regina School. But ofcourse, they are not Ezrah. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much that sentence meant to her. She put the phone aside. For a long time, she had been trying to understand something she didn’t have the courage to say aloud. It wasn’t simply that Ezrah was her best friend. He was the person she looked for when something funny happened. The person she wanted to tell when something went wrong. The person whose opinion somehow mattered even when she insisted it didn’t.

Somewhere between childhood and the present, something had changed. She couldn’t point to a specific day. There had been no dramatic moment. No sudden realization. It happened gradually. Like sunlight moving across a floor. Like a tree growing taller without anyone noticing. “No. No, no, no, no, no—” Magnolia froze. Her mind soon drifted off to imagine such things. Ezrah was smiling in it. Not his usual ridiculous grin, either. It was softer. Natural. The kind of smile he wore when he wasn't trying to impress anyone. Her brain went completely blank. Then— “Oh, NO.” She quickly moved away and soon collapsed onto the floor. Immediately, she grabbed the nearest pillow and screamed into it. “AAAAAAAH!” She stayed there for several seconds. Then lifted her head. “No.” She pointed accusingly at absolutely nothing. “No. We're not doing this.”

"This is Ezrah." She stared at it. "Ezrah." "My best friend." She stared at her own face, seeing how it went through different emotions. "The annoying one." Pausing with a laugh. "The stupidly charming one." Another pause. "The one who thinks he's funny." She squinted. "...He is kind of funny, in a way." Magnolia immediately slapped her arm, immediately wanting to wake up from this dream. "NO." She got up and began pacing around her room. "Absolutely not." Her heart was beating far too quickly. She pressed both hands against her cheeks. "How?" She looked toward the ceiling as though expecting an explanation. "How did this happen?" Nothing. "Seriously!" She threw her hands up. "I have known him for just almost a YEAR! ALMOST A YEAR MAGNOLIA!" She began counting on her fingers. "I have watched him trip over his own shoes." One finger. "I have seen him eat food that had clearly been sitting in the refrigerator for too long as if the canteen staff didn’t notice him." Two. "I've heard him make the worst jokes known to humanity, yet he still makes girls laugh." Three. "I've seen him fall down the stairs." Four. She stopped. "...Okay, that last one was actually kind of funny."

Magnolia groaned. "Why am I defending him?!" She dropped onto her bed. Her mind refused to cooperate. Because the problem wasn't that she suddenly thought Ezrah was attractive. She had always known he was. She just hadn't cared. At least, that's what she had told herself. Until now. Now every little thing seemed different. She remembered the way he smiled whenever he saw her. The way he'd automatically save her a snack. The way he'd remember tiny things she had mentioned months ago. The way he'd send her random pictures because he knew she'd find them funny. The way he'd look at her whenever something happened, as though checking whether she had seen it too. Magnolia's stomach twisted. "Oh my gosh." She covered her face. "I like him." She said it quietly. Then louder. "I like him." She immediately screamed into her pillow again. "WHY?!" She fell backward onto the mattress. "This is terrible." Her eyes wandered toward her phone. No. She shouldn't. She absolutely shouldn't. Her hand reached for it anyway. She unlocked the screen. Open their photos.

Scrolled. One picture. Then another. Then another. "Oh, that's a nice picture." She stopped. Ezrah was standing beside her, laughing. Magnolia stared. "I look happy." She frowned. "Why do I look that happy?" She swiped. Another. They were sitting together beneath the old tree. She remembered that day. They had spent almost three hours doing nothing but projects. Just talking. She stared at the photograph. "I really liked being there with him". Her thumb stopped. That thought shouldn't have felt so significant. But it did. She swallowed. Then another thought appeared. "What if I didn't have to call him my best friend?" Magnolia's eyes widened. She immediately locked her phone. "Nope." She tossed it onto the bed. "Nope, nope, nope." She stood up. Then sat back down. Then stood again. Her mind was running faster than she could keep up with. What if he liked me too? She froze. "No."

She shook her head. "Don't think about that." But the thought had already planted itself. And now her imagination was running. She imagined sitting beneath the tree with him. Except this time, she wasn't wondering whether he might feel the same. She imagined him actually saying it. I like you too. Magnolia's face went hot. She buried herself under the pillow. "STOP." She emerged again. "Why am I imagining this?!" She paced. "He's probably going to laugh." Then she stopped. "...He wouldn't." She knew he wouldn't. Ezrah could be a flirt. He could be playful. He could make jokes about practically anything. But he wasn't cruel. If she told him the truth, he would listen. That somehow made it scarier. Because suddenly, this wasn't some ridiculous fantasy she could laugh off. It was real. Her feelings were real. Magnolia stared at the memory box sitting on the floor. Inside were years of memories with other people. Photos. Tickets. Notes. Little pieces of their lives.

And at the bottom was the one thing she hadn't been brave enough to say. She walked over and opened the box. Her fingers found the folded paper. She pulled it out. She stared at the blank side. Her heart hammered. Just write it. "No." Write it. "I can't." You've already admitted it to yourself. Magnolia groaned. "That's the problem." She sat on the floor. The paper trembled between her fingers. She reached for a pen. Then hesitated. "What if I regret this?" She stared at the empty page. "What if everything changes?" She thought about all the times Ezrah had been there. The first time they became friends. The first time he made her laugh until her stomach hurt. The nights they stayed awake talking on Facebook. The countless afternoons beneath the old tree of the school. The way he always seemed to find her in a crowd. Magnolia's expression softened. I don't want to lose that. Then another thought came. But I don't think I can keep pretending this is all I feel. She closed her eyes. Took a breath. And began writing. She rewrote the note six times. The first version was too long. The second sounded ridiculous. The third made her want to crawl under her bed. The fourth consisted mostly of crossed-out sentences. The fifth was so short that it barely said any thing.

Finally, she wrote the truth. She didn't know when her feelings had changed. She didn't know why. She only knew that they had. Ezrah had always been her best friend. But somewhere along the way, she had started liking him more than that. Magnolia stared at the words. Her heart hammered. She whispered, "...I really did." She looked at the photograph beside her. Ezrah smiled back from the paper on the group photo. Magnolia's face immediately crumpled. "Ugh!" She grabbed the pillow again. "Why did it have to be you?!" Her voice was muffled. "Of all the people in the world!" She threw herself backward onto the floor. Then she started laughing. She couldn't even explain why. Maybe because it was ridiculous. Maybe because she was scared. Maybe because somewhere underneath all the panic was a tiny part of her that was happy. She looked at the note again. Her smile slowly returned. "Okay." She folded it carefully. "I like you." She paused. Then whispered, "...A lot." Her cheeks burned. She immediately screamed into the pillow one last time. "OH MY GOSH!" She folded the note one final time and placed it at the bottom of the memory box. She shut the lid. There. Problem solved. Except it wasn't. Because the note stayed there for months. And every time Magnolia saw Ezrah, her brain betrayed her all over again.

Every smile became something she noticed. Every glance became something she wondered about. Every little gesture became something she replayed later when she was alone. And the worst part? She had begun imagining a future she had never allowed herself to consider. Not some perfect fantasy. Just small things. Sitting beside him. Walking home together. Having someone who knew all her worst habits and stayed anyway. Being the person he looked for first. Magnolia would catch herself thinking about it and immediately bury her face in her hands. "Stop." A pause. "...Stop." Another pause. She smiled helplessly. "...Please stop." But her heart already knew. She wasn't simply confused anymore. She had fallen in love with her best friend. And, much to Magnolia's horror, she wasn't sure she wanted to climb back out. Four Months Later “You’re late.” Magnolia looked up from beneath the old tree near the chapel. Ezrah stood a few meters away, holding two paper bags. “I’m three minutes late.” “Four.” “How did you even know?” “I have a watch.” “You have a phone.” “Same difference.” Magnolia rolled her eyes. Ezrah dropped onto the grass beside her. “I brought food.” “Apology accepted.” “I didn’t apologize.” “You brought food.” “That isn’t an apology.” “It is when you’re you.” He handed her one of the bags. Magnolia looked inside. “Is this turon?” “And sandwiches, my mother made it for me.” She looked at him suspiciously. “Are you sure? Did you steal these?” “Why is that always your first assumption?” “Because you’re suspicious.”

“I’m offended.” “You’ll survive.” They sat beneath the tree as some students also lingered while chatting and ate in comfortable silence. That was another thing Magnolia liked about Ezrah. They didn’t always need to talk. Sometimes they could sit beside each other for an hour without saying anything and somehow never feel uncomfortable. Ezrah leaned back against the trunk. “You remember that list we made?” Magnolia froze. “What list?” “The graduation list, it was a paired activity for LACS remember?” “Oh.” “I still haven’t done half of it.” “That’s because some of it we’re just nonsense." “Becoming famous is possible, you know.” “You wanted to become famous for eating twelve burgers.” “It would’ve been impressive.” “You couldn’t even finish four.” “That was a strategic retreat.” Magnolia laughed. Ezrah smiled. For a moment, neither spoke. Then he said, “We should finish the list.” Magnolia glanced at him. “Before graduation?” “Yeah.” “When?” “Whenever.” “You realize graduation is in a few months.” “I know.” “Then we have a lot to do.” “Exactly.” Magnolia smiled. “Fine.” They shook hands dramatically. “Deal.” Neither of them knew that one of those unfinished things would soon become impossible. Ezrah found out on a Tuesday. It was raining.

Not the kind of rain that came and went after a few minutes, but the steady, gray sort that seemed determined to stay for the entire afternoon. Rain tapped against the library windows, turning the world outside into a blur of wet pavement and umbrellas. Magnolia sat alone at one of the tables near the window. Her Effective Communication book was open. Her notebook was open. Her pen was in her hand. She had written the same sentence three times. None of it made sense anymore. She rested her cheek against her palm and sighed before murmuring. "Why does every word have a meaning to use?" "Because apparently every communication of words gives meaning to a person’s life." Magnolia looked up. Ezrah stood beside her table. His hair was slightly damp from the rain, and the sleeves of his uniform were pushed up his arms right after practice. She smiled automatically. "You're late." "You're already here." "That's usually how being early works." He pulled out the chair opposite her. Normally, he would've dropped into it without asking. Normally, he would've stolen her pen. Normally, he would've looked at her notebook and complained about how much work she was doing. He did none of those things. He simply sat down. Magnolia's smile slowly disappeared. She studied him. "What?" "Nothing." "You have a serious face." "I don't have a serious face." "You absolutely do." He looked down.

Magnolia leaned forward slightly. "Ezrah." "I'm fine." "You're lying." "I'm not." "You are." He didn't answer. The rain filled the silence between them. Magnolia closed her textbook. "Okay." Ezrah looked up. "Okay?" "Whatever this is, you're not getting out of it by pretending you're fine." A faint smile appeared on his face. "You're really persistent." "You know me." "Yeah." He looked away again. That small word somehow sounded heavier than it should have. Magnolia's stomach tightened. "What happened?" Ezrah reached into his backpack. For a second, his fingers remained around something inside. Then he pulled out a folded envelope. He placed it on the table. Magnolia stared at it. She looked at him. "What's that?" "Open it." She hesitated. "Is this some kind of prank?" "No." "Did you get suspended?" "No." "Did you accidentally break something?" "No." "Did you—" "Magnolia." He almost laughed. Almost. "Just open it." She slowly took the envelope. There was an overseas university seal printed on the front. Her eyebrows drew together. She opened it. She read the first paragraph. Then the second. Then she stopped. Her eyes moved back to the beginning.

She read it again. Her mouth fell slightly open. "Ezrah." He nodded. "Yeah." "You're..." She looked at him. "You're accepted." "Yeah." "Into the program?" "Yeah." "The one you applied for?" "There's only one program I applied for." Magnolia looked down at the letter again. Her eyes scanned the words. Prestigious university. International program. Full opportunity. Ezrah had been accepted into Montverde Academy in New York, a place Magnolia knew only from basketball highlights and articles about players who eventually made it to the NBA. She knew how much this meant. She remembered him talking about it late one night on the phone. He had talked about wanting to study somewhere new while he does basketball. About seeing places beyond their town. About proving to himself that he could actually do something with all the dreams he carried around. At the time, Magnolia had laughed. "Then go." She remembered saying it so easily. "What's stopping you?" Now she wished she could reach back through time and tell herself to be more careful with words like that. She looked up. "This is huge." "I know." "You actually got in." "I know." "Ezrah, this is—" She smiled. A real smile. "This is amazing." He watched her. For a moment, he didn't say anything.

Then quietly: "You think so?" Magnolia frowned. "Of course I think so." He nodded. She looked back at the letter. Then something caught her attention. Her smile faded. "Wait." She looked at the university name again. Then at him. "You're leaving already?" Ezrah's eyes dropped to the table. "It's overseas, my mom wants to take the opportunity while our visa is available." The words landed differently when he said them. Magnolia stared at him. "Overseas." "Yeah." "Not just another city?" "No." "Another country?" He nodded. The library suddenly felt colder. Magnolia looked back at the letter. The words hadn't changed. But now she couldn't stop seeing the distance hidden between them. A different country. Different time zones. Different people. A different life. "When did you apply?" "A while ago." "You didn't tell me." "I wasn't sure I'd get in." "You could've told me." "I know." "Why didn't you?" Ezrah rubbed the back of his neck. "Because if I told you, it would've made it real." Magnolia went quiet. That answer hurt more than she expected. She looked down at the letter. "So you were just going to find out and then tell me?" "I didn't know if there would be anything to tell." "But there is." "Yeah." He smiled faintly. "There is." Magnolia tried to smile again. She really did. She wanted to be happy for him. She was happy for him. That was the worst part. She was proud of him. She wanted him to go. She wanted him to have everything he had worked for. She wanted to be the friend who said, Go. Take the opportunity.

But somewhere underneath all of that was a smaller, selfish voice whispering, Please don't. She hated that voice. She hated herself for having it."How long?" Ezrah hesitated. Magnolia's fingers tightened around the letter. "You’re staying there aren’t you?" She slowly nodded. "That's..." She couldn't finish. Ezrah watched her. "Long?" "Yeah." He looked down. "I know." Magnolia tried to laugh. Ezrah raised an eyebrow. "You don't believe that." "No." "Me neither." The admission made her smile disappear. She looked toward the window. Rain slid down the glass in crooked lines. She tried to imagine it. Graduation. Summer. Friends. Her birthday. His birthday. Holidays. School. Everything continued without him being there. She couldn't. Every version of the future she had quietly imagined contained Ezrah somewhere in it. Not necessarily beside her. Not necessarily in some grand way. Just there. Calling her. Showing up. Stealing food from her plate. Making stupid jokes. Existing in the same place as her. She hadn't realized how much she'd depended on that until now. "When do you leave?" "Three months." Magnolia stopped breathing for a second. "Three months?" He nodded. "After graduation." She looked down. Three months. Ninety-something days. That suddenly sounded terrifyingly short. She had thought they had time. Time to graduate. Time to figure things out.

Time to decide what they were becoming. Time to maybe— She stopped herself. That thought belonged somewhere else. She looked at Ezrah. "You really want to go?" His expression changed. "Yes." It was immediate. Certain. Then he added quietly, "But that doesn't mean I want to leave you." Magnolia looked away. "I know." "I mean it." "I know." "You don't have to say it like that." "Like what?" "Like you're already saying goodbye." Magnolia swallowed. "I'm not." He looked at her. She forced a smile. "I'm not saying goodbye." Ezrah didn't smile back. "Okay." A long silence followed. Then he reached across the table and tapped the acceptance letter. "You've always told me I should take opportunities." "I do." "You've always told me not to be afraid of leaving." "I know." "So..." He exhaled. "You still mean that?" Magnolia stared at him. She wanted to say no. She wanted to say that maybe this opportunity wasn't worth it. She wanted to tell him that there were other schools. Other programs. Other chances. She wanted to be selfish for once. But she couldn't. Because she knew how hard he had worked. She knew how many nights he'd stayed at school for practice.

She knew how many times he'd talked about wanting this. And she knew that if she asked him to stay, she would eventually hate herself for it. So she nodded. "Yes." Ezrah's shoulders relaxed slightly. Magnolia smiled, though her eyes had begun to sting. "You have to go." He stared at her. "Really?" "Yes." "Even though you're sad?" She laughed quietly. "Especially because I'm sad." Ezrah frowned. "That doesn't make sense." "It does." She looked down at the letter. "If I asked you to stay because I didn't want to miss you, then I'd be asking you to choose between me and something you've wanted for years." She looked back at him. "I don't want to be that person." Ezrah was silent. Magnolia's voice became quieter. "I want to be the person who tells you to go." His expression softened. "But what happens to us?" Magnolia's heart sank. There it was. The question neither of them had wanted to ask. She looked at him. "I don't know." "Me neither." "We'll figure it out." "How?" "I don't know." She gave a weak laugh. "We'll call." "Okay." "Text." "Okay." "FaceTime." He smiled faintly. "Okay." "You'll send me pictures." "You hate when I send pictures." "I hate when you send pictures of food." "That's different." She laughed. For a second, they almost felt normal again. Then the laughter faded. Magnolia looked at him. "You're really going." Ezrah nodded. "Yeah." She looked down. "You're really going to leave."

Ezrah nodded. "Yeah." She looked down. "You're really going to leave." "Yeah." She pressed her lips together. "Okay." Ezrah reached across the table. His hand stopped halfway. He hesitated before resting it on the edge of the paper instead. "We're going to be okay." Magnolia stared at his hand. Then at him. "You don't know that." "No." He smiled sadly. "But I'm hoping." Magnolia nodded. "Me too." Outside, the rain continued falling. Neither of them knew how much their lives were about to change. They didn't know how difficult the distance would become. They didn't know about the missed calls, the time zones, the new people, the misunderstandings, the lonely nights, or the moments when two years would feel much longer than two years should. For now, there was only a library table. An acceptance letter. A rainy Tuesday. And two best friends sitting across from each other, trying to pretend that an ocean wasn't already beginning to form between them. After Ezrah told me he was leaving, we became determined to make the remaining months count.Neither of us said it out loud, but I think we were both scared that if we didn’t make enough memories now, there would be nothing left to hold onto when he was gone. So we crossed things off the list. We watched terrible movies and spent more time making fun of them than actually paying attention. We visited places neither of us had ever been before, even if getting there meant taking three wrong turns and arguing over whose fault it was. We ate at the fancy restaurant we had written down years ago and spent most of the meal trying not to laugh because we felt completely out of place. We got lost. A lot. We took photographs everywhere. Some were good. Most were terrible.

We returned to the old tree more times than I could count, sometimes with something to talk about and sometimes with absolutely nothing to say. We even attempted the twelve-burger challenge again. We failed spectacularly. Ezrah blamed me. I blamed him. Neither of us finished more than half. One afternoon, we were sitting on the living room floor surrounded by photographs when my younger brother, Theo, walked in. He stopped in the doorway. His eyes moved from me, to Ezrah, to the photographs scattered all over the floor. Then he looked back at us. “You two are weird.” I frowned. “Go away.” Instead of listening, Theo walked over and picked up one of the photographs. It was an old one. Ezrah and I were standing beside the old tree, both of us making ridiculous faces at the camera. Theo stared at it. Then he looked at the pile of photographs. “You have like a million pictures together.” “Give me that.” He lifted it above his head. “Why?” “Because it’s mine.” Theo grinned. Then, with the kind of expression that immediately made me suspicious, he asked, “Are you two secretly dating?” I nearly dropped the memory box in my lap. Ezrah coughed. “That’s none of your business.” Theo's eyes widened. “OH.” I pointed at him. “Don’t.” “OH!” “Theo.” He started laughing before running out of the room. I buried my face in my hands. “I hate him.” Ezrah laughed beside me. “He’s not wrong that we have a lot of pictures.” I looked at him through my fingers. “You’re not helping.” “Sorry.” He was still smiling. He wasn't sorry at all. And somehow, that made me smile too. As the departure date got closer, our conversations became strangely serious. There were fewer stupid arguments. Fewer distractions. Maybe because we both knew there wasn't much time left.

The sun was beginning to disappear behind the houses, leaving the sky soft and orange.I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve. Then I finally asked the question that had been sitting in my head for days. “What happens after you leave?” Ezrah looked up at the branches. “We talk.” “How often?” “Every day.” I looked at him. “Promise?” He turned toward me. “Promise.” “What if you're busy?” “Then I'll call when I'm free.” “What if I'm busy?” “I'll wait.” I smiled a little. Then I looked down again. “What if we change?” The words came out quieter than I intended. Ezrah didn't answer immediately. I instantly regretted asking. I didn't want to hear the answer. After a moment, he said, “People change.” My chest tightened. “I know.” “We're not the same people we were four years ago.” “No.” “And we're probably not going to be the same people two years from now.” I swallowed. “No.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “But that doesn't mean everything disappears.” I looked at him. He was staring at me now. “We might change,” he continued. “We might meet new people. We might get busy. Things might be different.”I didn't like hearing that. Not even a little. “But I don't want that to mean we stop caring about each other.” I smiled, even though there was something aching underneath it. “Me neither.” The breeze moved through the leaves above us. I leaned back against the tree and looked up at the branches.

For years, that tree had been part of our life. So had the memory box. The list. The photographs. All those little things we'd never thought would matter someday. One of the things on our list suddenly came back to me. Still be friends when we're old. I smiled to myself. I hoped that wasn't the only thing I wanted anymore. The morning came too quickly. Magnolia hated that. She hated how ordinary the day looked. People were buying coffee. Cars were moving through the streets. The sun was shining. The world had the nerve to continue normally. Ezrah stood beside his luggage while holding his phone. His mother was speaking with the airline staff. Magnolia stared at the screen. Ezrah was sitting on the other end of the call, his face illuminated by the pale glow of his phone. Behind him, she could hear the faint hum of an air conditioner and the occasional rustle of movement somewhere in the room. Neither of them knew what to say. For a few seconds, there was only the quiet crackle of the call between them. Finally, Ezrah tilted his head. “You look like you’re going to cry.” “I am not.” “You are.” “I’m going to hang up.” “That sounds more like you.” A small smile tugged at Magnolia’s lips. For a moment, it stayed there. Then it disappeared. She looked down at the screen, tracing the edge of her phone with her thumb. “Take care of yourself.” “I will.” “Eat properly.” “I will.” “Don’t stay awake all night.” “I make no promises.” “Ezrah.” “Fine.” She let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh.

“And call.” “I will.” “Actually call.” “I said I will.” “Don’t disappear.” Ezrah’s expression changed. The teasing faded from his face, leaving something quieter behind. “I won’t.” Magnolia swallowed. She hated how simple the words sounded. How easily he could say them when neither of them knew what the future would look like without the other nearby. “You’ll really be gone,” she whispered. Ezrah looked away for a moment. “Yeah.” The word hung between them. Magnolia could hear the faint buzz of her phone against the table beneath her fingers. Outside her window, a vehicle passed, its tires briefly hissing against the road. She wished the world would quiet down. She wished the call could last forever. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” she admitted. “You don’t have to say anything.” “That’s not fair.” “What isn’t?” “You’re making this too easy.” Ezrah gave her a small smile. “It’s not easy.” She looked at him. His eyes were tired, and for the first time that night, she noticed how hard he was trying not to show it. “Promise me something.” “What?” “Don’t let this be the last time I hear your voice.” He smiled faintly. “It won’t be.” “And don’t just say that.” “I mean it.” Magnolia nodded, blinking quickly. Ezrah leaned closer to the camera, as if getting nearer could somehow make the distance disappear. “I’ll call you,” he said. “Even if it’s late. Even if I have nothing to say.” “You better.” “I will.” They fell silent again. Neither reached for the end-call button.

Minutes passed without either of them saying much. They simply stayed there, watching each other through the small glowing screen, memorizing a face that would soon no longer be just a few minutes away. Finally, Ezrah whispered, “I should go.” Magnolia’s fingers tightened around her phone. “I know.” Neither moved. “Goodbye, Magnolia.” Her throat tightened. “Goodbye, Ezrah.” He smiled. She tried to smile back. The call ended. The screen went dark, leaving her reflection staring back at her. Magnolia stayed exactly where she was, her phone still warm in her hand, listening to the sudden quiet of her room. He was gone. Not for a few weeks Not for a little while. For good.

Chapter 4 Hope New York holds You When Ezrah eventually left for the United States, Magnolia tried to convince herself that nothing had really changed. They still had their phones. They still had messages. They still had video calls. It felt as though I had been dreaming for what seemed like an eternity. There were so many moments when Ezrah had become part of my life so naturally that I couldn't remember exactly when it happened. Maybe it was during the afternoons when we stayed behind after class. Maybe it was in the quiet conversations that somehow lasted longer than they were supposed to. Maybe it was simply because, little by little, we had become people who knew things about each other that nobody else did. The things we were afraid to say. The memories we didn't usually talk about. The dreams we weren't sure we were brave enough to chase. Somewhere between all those conversations, I realized something. I cared about him. More than I had expected. And perhaps that was the beginning of everything. Not a grand confession. Not some perfect moment. Just two people becoming important to each other without realizing how difficult it would be when life eventually pulled them in diff erent directions. When Ezrah finally left for the United States, the distance stopped being an idea. It became a time difference.

A different sky. Different classrooms. Different schedules. Different lives. The ocean between them was enormous, but their screens made it look smaller. At first, we tried to make everything feel normal. “Good morning.” “Have you eaten?” “How was practice?” “How was school?” “Take care.” Until the gaps became impossible to miss. Their conversations became small windows into each other's lives. Ezrah sent pictures from training. Magnolia sent photographs she had taken around school. Sometimes, they would stay on video call while doing completely different things. He would be reviewing something for basketball. She would be editing photographs. Neither of them needed to talk constantly. Just knowing the other person was there seemed enough. For a while. Then their lives became busier. Ezrah's training became more demanding. Magnolia's academics became heavier. Photography slowly became more important to her. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. And without either of them noticing, their routines began changing. Their calls became shorter. Then less frequent. “Sorry. Practice ended late.” “It's okay.” “I'll call tomorrow.” “Sure.” Tomorrow became another day. Another day became the weekend. The weekend became next week. And somehow, I'll call tomorrow something neither of them questioned anymore. Magnolia noticed first. Or at least, she thought she did. Ezrah began replying later. Sometimes hours passed. Sometimes an entire day. She told herself it was normal. He was busy. He was adjusting. He had training. He had a new life.

She understood that. At least, she kept telling herself she did. Then one night, Magnolia sent a message. How was practice? She waited. No reply. She checked again later. Still nothing. She put her phone down. Picked it up again. Nothing. She sighed and placed it beside her pillow. He's probably tired. The next morning, there was still no reply. Magnolia stared at the screen. Her thumb hovered over the chat. Did I do something? The thought came so suddenly that she almost dismissed it. But once it appeared, it refused to leave. She began replaying their previous conversations. Had she said something wrong? Had she become too demanding? Had she asked too many questions? Had she complained too much? Maybe she had been too quiet. Maybe she wasn't supportive enough. Maybe she had made him feel guilty for leaving. Maybe he thought she didn't understand his dream. Maybe— Magnolia stopped herself. She was doing it again. Turning silence into evidence against herself. She had done this before. Back when strangers had used her photographs against her, she had constantly asked herself what she had done wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have posted that. Maybe I should have known better. Maybe this was my fault. And now, years later, she found herself staring at another silent screen and asking the same question.

Is this my fault too? She started sending fewer messages. Not because she didn't care. Because she was afraid of caring too much. “Good luck with practice.” “Take care.” “Hope you're doing okay.” Short messages. Safe messages. Messages that didn't require anything from him. Sometimes he replied. Sometimes he didn't. And every unanswered message felt like another tiny crack in something she couldn't see. One evening, Magnolia typed: Are you okay? She stared at it. Deleted it. Typed again. You've been quiet lately. Delete. Did I do something? Her thumb stopped. She couldn't send that. What if he said yes? What if he didn't answer? What if the silence itself was the answer? She deleted the message. Instead, she typed: I hope you're doing okay. Send. The message showed as delivered. Nothing else. Magnolia placed the phone beside her. Outside her window, rain tapped softly against the glass. She picked up her camera. Through the viewfinder, the world became something she could control. Focus. Exposure. Composition. Everything had a setting. Everything had an explanation. If a photograph was blurry, she could adjust the focus.

If something wasn't framed correctly, she could take another picture. People weren't like that. Relationships weren't like that. There was no setting that could tell her what had gone wrong. She lowered the camera. Her phone remained silent. And once again, the same question returned. Was it me? Magnolia hated that she didn't know. She hated even more that she was beginning to believe the answer might be yes. Ezrah was changing too. His life in the United States had become more demanding than he had expected. Training. School. Games. Expectations. There were days when he barely had enough energy to look at his phone. Sometimes he saw Magnolia's messages and told himself he'd answer when he had more time. Then another practice came. Another game. Another exhausting day. And the message remained unanswered. He didn't realize how his silence looked from the other side of the ocean. He didn't know that Magnolia was beginning to interpret every unanswered message differently. And Magnolia didn't know that his silence wasn't necessarily rejection. Neither of them asked. Neither of them explained. They simply assumed. And assumptions slowly became their third presence. Always there. Always speaking for them. Months passed, another year in college had begun. Yet their conversations became occasional. Then rare. Then almost nonexistent. There was no final argument. No dramatic goodbye. No moment where either of them said they were done. If it was too dark, she could change the exposure.

They simply became two people who used to talk every day. And somehow, that hurt more. Because Magnolia didn't know when she was supposed to stop waiting. There was no ending to accept. Only silence. Sometimes she opened their old conversations. She would scroll upward and find messages from months ago. Pictures. Jokes. Good morning. Good night. Promises. Memories. Proof that there had once been a time when talking to each other had felt effortless. She would stare at the screen until her eyes became tired. Then she'd close the conversation. Not because she had stopped caring. Because she didn't know what else to do. Perhaps that was what made everything so painful. There were things she wanted to ask. Are you still okay? Do you still think about me? Did I do something wrong? Are you just busy? Do you want me to stop messaging you? Do you miss me too? But none of them were ever sent. They remained inside the space between thought and action. Unspoken. Unanswered. Unsent. And perhaps that was where Magnolia finally understood something she had spent years refusing to believe. Not every relationship ends because someone stops caring. Sometimes people simply stop communicating. Sometimes both people are waiting for clarification. Sometimes both are afraid to ask t he question that might hurt.

And sometimes—two people can still care about each other while slowly becoming strangers. Magnolia didn't know what had happened to them. She only knew that she was still here. Still remembering. Still wondering. Still carrying questions she didn't know how to ask. And somewhere across the ocean, Ezrah was living a life she could only see through fragments. A photograph. A short message. A disappearing story. A name that no longer appeared on her screen as often as it used to. She looked at their old conversation one last time that night. Her finger hovered over the message box. She typed something. Stopped. Then deleted it. Because some feelings were easier to keep inside. Some questions were easier not to ask. And some words— no matter how badly they wanted to be heard— remained unsent.

Chapter 5 This person is unavailable The message arrived on an ordinary afternoon. That was perhaps what made it worse. There was no warning. No argument. No strange feeling that something was about to happen. Magnolia was sitting at her desk, finishing an assignment while the late afternoon sunlight slipped through the curtains of her bedroom. Her phone vibrated beside her notebook. She reached for it without thinking. She expected a message from one of her classmates. Maybe Mika. Maybe Clara. Maybe Noah asking about their assignment. She didn't expect to see an unfamiliar name. Juliette Guinto, Ezrah’s mother. Magnolia froze. For a few seconds, she simply stared at the notification. Her heart began beating faster. She opened it. There were only a few sentences. “Magnolia, I am asking you to stop contacting Ezrah.” “He has a bright future here in the US, and I don't want anything distracting him from what he needs to accomplish.” “Please stop contacting him.” “If you really want him to succeed, you'll do what I say.”

Magnolia read it once. Then again. Then a third time. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen. She didn't understand. Stop contacting him? She scrolled upward. There was no previous conversation. Nothing. Just that message. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. She wanted to ask why. She wanted to ask what had happened. She wanted to ask whether Ezrah knew she had been contacted. Instead, she locked her phone. Magnolia placed it on the desk. Then picked it up again. She read the message once more. The words ‘bright future’ stayed in her mind. So did the words ‘distract him.’ Was that what she had become? A distraction? Magnolia stared at her reflection in the darkened phone screen. She suddenly remembered the promises they had made before Ezrah left. They had promised to keep talking. They had promised to tell each other about their days. They had promised that distance wouldn't change what they had.

She remembered their late-night calls. The laughter that sometimes lasted until neither of them could remember what they had originally been talking about. The video calls where they didn't even have to speak. The letters they wrote and sent across the ocean. The photographs. The simple messages. Good morning. Have you eaten? Take care. Good night. Small things. Things that shouldn't have mattered so much. But they did. Because they had made the distance feel smaller. Now Magnolia wondered if all those promises had meant something only to her. Her chest tightened. Did Ezrah know? Maybe he had asked his mother to send the message. Maybe he had told her that he wanted space. Maybe he had stopped replying because he no longer wanted to talk to Magnolia. Or maybe— Maybe he didn't know anything about it. That possibility hurt almost as much. Because if he didn't know, then she was being asked to disappear from his life without even giving him the chance to speak for himself. And if he did know...

Magnolia closed her eyes. She didn't want to finish that thought. For the rest of the afternoon, she couldn't concentrate. Her assignment remained open in front of her. The same paragraph sat unfinished for nearly an hour. She read the same sentence repeatedly without understanding it. Her phone remained beside her. Silent. She kept looking at it. Part of her wanted Ezrah to message her. Just once. What's happening? My mom contacted you? I'm sorry. Anything. But another part of her was terrified that his name would appear. What if he confirmed everything? What if he told her that his mother was right? What if he said he needed to focus? What if he told her that their conversations had become a burden? Magnolia pressed her palms against her eyes. “Stop.” She whispered it to herself. “Just stop thinking.” But thoughts didn't listen. Her mind returned to the same question. Was this my fault? Again. The same question. The same habit. The same feeling she thought she had left behind at her old school.

Back then, strangers had taken pieces of her life and turned them into something she didn't recognize. She had blamed herself. She had wondered whether she should have known better. Whether she should have been more careful. Whether everything would have been different if she had simply done things differently. And now she was doing it again. Taking someone else's silence and turning it into evidence against herself. Magnolia looked at her phone. She wanted to reply to Ezrah's mother. She typed: May I ask why? She stared at the message. Deleted it. She tried again. Does Ezrah know that you contacted me? Deleted. Again. I don't understand. Deleted. Eventually, she turned the phone off. She couldn't find the right words. Maybe there weren't any. “Nak?” She looked up. Her mother was standing in the doorway. “Dinner.” “I'll eat later.” Her mother looked at her for a moment. Then at the untouched food on her desk. “You said that an hour ago, don't waste food.” Magnolia forced a small smile. “I'm just finishing something.” Her mother didn't leave. Instead, she stepped inside. “You've been staring at the same page for almost an hour.”

“I know, ma.” Her mother pulled the chair beside her and sat. “What happened?” “Nothing.” Her mother gave her a familiar look. Magnolia knew that look. It was the look mothers gave when they already knew nothing was never really nothing. “Magnolia.” She swallowed. For a moment, she considered saying that she was fine. It would have been easier. But she was tired of pretending. So she picked up her phone. Opened the message. And handed it to her mother. Her mother read it carefully. She didn't react immediately. She simply returned the phone. “Did Ezrah send this?” “No.” “His mother?” Magnolia nodded. “Do you know why?” “No.” “Does Ezrah know?” “I don't know.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I don't even know if he's been ignoring me because he wants to or because he was told to.” Her mother remained quiet. Magnolia looked down. “I don't understand.” She rubbed her thumb against the edge of her phone. “We had promises.” Her mother listened.

“We said we'd keep talking. We said we'd stay in each other's lives. That we’d be constant. And then he stopped replying, and I thought maybe he was just busy.” She took a shaky breath. “But now his mother is telling me to stop contacting him.” Her eyes began to sting. “What am I supposed to think?” Her mother reached for her hand. Magnolia let her. “You don't have to know everything tonight.” “But what if I did something wrong?” “Did he tell you that you did?” Magnolia shook her head. “No.” “Did he ask you to stop talking to him?” “No.” “Then don't punish yourself for an answer you don't have.” Magnolia looked at her. Her mother's voice remained calm. “Sometimes, anak, people make decisions that affect us without explaining them. It doesn't always mean you did something wrong.” Magnolia lowered her eyes. “But what if I really am distracting him?” “Then that's something he needs to communicate.” She paused. “Not something you should have to guess.” Those words stayed with Magnolia. Her mother continued. “You cannot control what Ezrah chooses.” Magnolia remained silent. “You cannot control what his mother thinks.” Another pause. “You cannot control whether he calls you, whether he answers your messages, or whether he chooses to explain himself.”

Her mother squeezed her hand. “But you can control what you do next. As your mother, I also have a dream for you.” Magnolia looked away. “What if moving forward means giving up on him?” Her mother smiled sadly. “Moving forward doesn't always mean giving up.” “Then what does it mean once more? Everything feels like I went back in time.” “It means you stop standing in the same place waiting for someone else to decide what happens to your life.” Magnolia didn't answer. Her mother glanced toward the window. “Remember your old school?” Magnolia's stomach tightened. She knew exactly what her mother meant. “You spent months believing that what happened there was the end of everything.” Magnolia looked down. “You thought people would always see you through what they had done to you.” She nodded slowly. “But you transferred.” “You helped me.” “I helped you pack your things,” her mother corrected. “You were the one who walked through those doors.” Magnolia smiled faintly. “You were the one who started again.” Her mother looked at her. “You made new friends. You learned new hallways. You laughed again.” Magnolia thought of Mika. Clara.

Noah. The noisy classrooms. The canteen. The chapel. The afternoons she once thought would always feel unfamiliar. And then she thought of Ezrah. She remembered the first time she saw him standing outside the wrong classroom. The way he had confidently claimed he wasn't lost. The way he made her laugh when she hadn't expected to. The conversations. The basketball court. The promises. Her mother watched her expression. “Sometimes life is like social media. People can leave you on seen, hurt you, disappear without an explanation, or show you a version of themselves you thought you knew. But you cannot spend your whole life staring at a screen, waiting for someone to come back online. Sometimes, you have to put the phone down and keep living. But life isn’t meant to be lived staring at a screen, waiting for someone else to decide when you can move again. If you have a dream for yourself, hold on to it. Walk toward it with God by your side. And remember, you have your family and your friends beside you, too. You are never as alone as you think you are.” “You may not be able to control what happens with Ezrah. You may not be able to control what his mother thinks or what he chooses to do. But you can choose what you do with your own life. So keep going, anak. Keep studying. Keep dreaming. Keep becoming the person you want to be.” “Sometimes moving forward doesn’t mean you stopped caring. It simply means you decided that your life is still worth living, even when you don’t have all the answers.” “You have already started over once. Remember how you walked through those school doors even when you were afraid? Look at you now. You made friends. You laughed again. You found pieces of yourself that you thought you had lost.” “So don’t let one unanswered message become the end of your story.”

You don’t have to know what happens next, anak. You just have to take the next step.” “Don't let one painful situation convince you that you've gone backward.” Magnolia's eyes became wet. “But it hurts.” “I know.” “I don't want to lose him.” Her mother nodded. “I know.” There was no easy answer. No sentence that could suddenly make everything feel okay. Her mother didn't pretend there was one. Instead, she said, “You can miss someone and still move forward.” Magnolia looked at her. “You can care about someone and still choose yourself.” She paused. “Put the phone down when you need to. Look around you. There are people who love you, a future waiting for you, and a God who walks with you through all of it. And you can leave a door open without standing in front of it forever.” Something inside Magnolia loosened. Not completely. The hurt was still there. The questions were still there. She still didn't know whether Ezrah knew about the message. She still didn't know why he had stopped replying. She still didn't know whether their silence was temporary or permanent. But for the first time that afternoon, she understood something. She didn't need every answer before she could take another step. Maybe she would never receive an explanation. Maybe Ezrah would eventually contact her. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe the story between them wasn't finished. Maybe it was. She didn't know. And for once, Magnolia decided she didn't have to force herself to know.

She didn't know. And for once, Magnolia decided she didn't have to force herself to know. She picked up her phone. The message from Ezrah's mother was still there. She didn't delete it. She didn't reply. She simply closed it. Then she opened her camera. Outside the window, the last light of the afternoon was fading, leaving soft gold across the rooftops. Magnolia raised her camera. Focused. Adjusted the frame. Click. The photograph wasn't perfect. The light was uneven. The sky was partly hidden behind clouds. But she kept it anyway. Because maybe life wasn't about waiting until everything became clear. Maybe sometimes, you simply kept walking while carrying the things you hadn't figured out yet. Magnolia looked at the photograph. Then at her phone. Still silent. She took a breath. “Let’s go eat downstairs, I'll make you tea.” Her mother took the untouched food without turning back. For the first time that day, she didn't check for Ezrah's name. She put the phone away. And went downstairs to eat dinner with her mother

There will be questions tomorrow. There would be memories. There might even be answers. But tomorrow wasn't here yet. Tonight, Magnolia chose to be present. She had already learned how to start over once. Maybe she could do it again.

Chapter 6 Kahel na Langit Magnolia found other ways to get in touch with Ezrah. At first, she told herself she was only looking for answers. Eventually, she found herself opening her laptop late one evening and typing his email address into the recipient box. She stared at his name for a long time. It was strange how something as simple as a name could carry so much weight. At first, Magnolia wrote because she wanted to know what went wrong between them. She wanted to know why the conversations had stopped. Why the promises they once made had slowly disappeared beneath weeks of silence. Why someone who once felt so close could suddenly feel so far away—reduced to a name she could only see through an empty inbox. Every night, she would sit in front of her laptop, its pale light illuminating her face in the darkness. She would type something. Read it. Delete it. Type again. Delete it again. There were so many things she wanted to ask that she didn't know which question deserved to be asked first. Did I do something wrong? Did you change your mind? Do you still remember me? Did I become someone you no longer have room for? But every question seemed too heavy to send. So she kept them to herself.

Until one night, she stopped searching for the right words. She simply let her hands type what her heart had been trying to say all along. I don’t even know where I should begin. It feels like words aren’t enough every time I try to write to you. It’s crazy that this silence speaks louder than the rest of us put together. I don’t know what would unravel for you when you come back, or what would happen between us—if you even come back. But I hope that somewhere beneath it all, there would still be a trace of someone I once knew. If you never write back, it’s okay. But if you ever find yourself wondering whether someone out there still cares, the answer is yes. I do. Her eyes lingered on the message. It was too vulnerable. Too raw. Too honest, and yet that’s how it makes it so perfect. But maybe that was exactly why she finally pressed. Send. For a few seconds, she watched the screen as if she could somehow see the message traveling across the distance between them. Then it disappeared into the quietness of the internet. Delivered. Nothing more. Magnolia closed her laptop with a sense of relief. She told herself she had done what she needed to do. She had said what she wanted to say. But the next morning, she checked her inbox. Nothing. The day after that, nothing. And somehow, she found herself writing again. At first, the emails were filled with questions. Then, slowly, they became stories. Stories about ordinary things. Things she never thought were important enough to tell anyone. She told him about the time she almost tripped in the hallway and immediately pretended that nothing had happened. If only you were there. It was so embarrassing, honestly.

She told him about the photographs she had started taking. About how photography had slowly become something she loved. About the first time one of her photographs was displayed publicly. She remembered standing in front of it, staring at her own work among other people's photographs. For once, she wasn't thinking about what strangers might say about her. She was simply proud. She wanted to tell him that. So she did. Sometimes, something would happen that reminded her of him. She would see a basketball being passed across a court. Hear the squeak of shoes against the floor. Catch the sound of a whistle during practice. And suddenly— I saw someone playing basketball today, and immediately, your face crossed my mind. I even tried it, I never expected to enjoy it for fun! Some days, she told him about things that made her laugh. Other days, she wrote about the days that felt impossibly heavy. She told him everything. The little things. The things she thought were meaningless. The things she couldn't say out loud. Writing to him became strangely comforting. After pressing send, Magnolia would sometimes lean back in her chair and sigh. For a brief moment, it almost felt like he was still there. Listening. Teasing her. Arguing with her over something small. Then came the sunsets. The same sky wherein Magnolia and Ezrah cherished and loved each other. The constant sunsets that witnessed their relationship, quarrels, and young stupid love. There was one particular afternoon when Magnolia walked home alone.

The sun was already sinking beyond the horizon. The clouds had gathered in different shades of pink, gold, and orange, stretching endlessly across the sky. For a moment, the entire horizon looked like fields of fiery embers. Magnolia stopped walking. Her chest tightened. She remembered him. Not just one memory. Everything. The conversations. The laughter. The promises. The moments she had never realized she would miss this much. He would've loved this. The thought came so naturally that it hurt. She took out her phone and photographed the sky. She stared at the picture for a few seconds. Then she opened her email. The sky was orange today. You would've liked it. She sent it. After that, the orange sky became something else to her. It became her favorite kind of heartbreak. Every time the sun surrendered itself to the coming night, Magnolia wondered whether Ezrah was somewhere beneath the same sky. Maybe he remembered. Maybe he didn't. And somehow, the uncertainty hurt more than an answer would have. Because an answer gave her something to hold. Silence gave her nothing. Only questions. Only possibilities. Only the frightening thought that perhaps she had become nothing more than a fragment of the past for him. Still, she continued to write. Weeks passed.

Then months. The emails accumulated like tiny pieces of a life she slowly learned to let it disappear, one at a time. She never knew if he read them. She never knew if they sat unopened in an inbox somewhere across the world. But somewhere between the first email and the hundredth, something inside Magnolia changed. She realized she wasn't writing to bring him back anymore. She was writing because he had once been a part of her life. And she wasn't ready to pretend that he hadn't mattered. So, Magnolia kept writing. Not because she expected a reply. Not because she was certain he would come back. But because some feelings were too beautiful to bury and too painful to say aloud. Every night, beneath the faint glow of her laptop, she left another piece of herself in his inbox. Hoping that somewhere out there, he might still be listening. Even if the only thing listening back was silence. Even if the only response she ever received was the orange sky whenever she looked up at the dying sun. But eventually, even habits that once felt impossible to break began to feel heavy. Magnolia opened her inbox one evening. She stared at the long list of messages. One after another. Some were short. Some were pages long. Some were nothing more than a photograph and a sentence. All of them had one thing in common. There was no reply. Her cursor hovered over the message box. For the first time, she didn't feel the need to write. She simply sat there. And she understood. Letting go didn't mean that what they had shared wasn't real. It didn't mean she had stopped caring. It didn't mean she had erased him from her memories. Maybe letting go meant accepting that she couldn't keep knocking on a door that no longer opened. She closed the email window. Then she opened her drawer. Inside was a small box.

It held things she couldn't bring herself to throw away—photographs, old notes, little memories, and pieces of a past she was slowly learning how to carry differently. Magnolia took out a sheet of paper. She began writing. This time, she didn't type. She wrote by hand. There was something different about handwriting the words. They felt slower. More permanent. More honest. She wrote about the things she never got to say. About how much she had missed him. About the anger she never knew what to do with. About the questions that remained unanswered. About the version of herself who had spent so long waiting. And finally, about the version of herself who was learning to stop. When she finished, Magnolia folded the letter carefully. She looked at the envelope. There was no address written on it. No stamp. No name. Nothing that would send it anywhere. For a moment, she considered putting it in the box without looking at it again. Instead, she held it against her chest. Not because she was waiting for him. But because she was finally giving herself permission to feel everything she had been trying so hard to let go of. Then she placed the letter inside the box. She closed the lid. And for the first time in months, she didn't check her inbox before going to sleep. Outside her window, the last traces of orange were disappearing from the sky. Magnolia looked up. The sunset was ending. But somehow, it was still beautiful.

Maybe that was the lesson she had been trying to understand all along. Some things could end without becoming meaningless. Some people could leave without taking every good memory with them. And some feelings could remain unsent—not because they weren't worth saying, but because sometimes healing meant no longer needing someone else to receive them. The sky slowly darkened. Magnolia turned away from the window. And this time, she let the night come. The semester break came quietly. After weeks of examinations, unfinished requirements, sleepless nights, and too many cups of coffee, Magnolia finally had a few days where she didn't have to wake up thinking about deadlines. She should have felt relieved. Instead, she felt strangely empty. Maybe it was because there was suddenly nothing loud enough to distract her from the thoughts she had been avoiding. So when Mika suggested that they meet during the break, Magnolia agreed. They met at a small café they used to visit during their high school days. Clara arrived carrying a paper bag filled with pastries, while Noah complained about how he had nearly failed one of his exams. Mika laughed. "You say that every semester." "And every semester, I survive." "That's because you study the night before," Clara said. Noah shrugged. "It's called efficiency." Magnolia laughed quietly. For a while, everything felt normal. They talked about their exams. Their professors. The assignments they hated. The plans they had for the rest of the break. Magnolia listened more than she spoke.

She smiled when they joked. She laughed when Noah told another ridiculous story. But Mika noticed. She always did. "You've been quiet lately." Magnolia looked up. "I'm just tired." Mika studied her face for a moment. "That's not what I mean." Magnolia looked down at the cup between her hands. The steam had already disappeared. She knew this moment would eventually come. There were things she had kept locked inside for so long that she had almost forgotten what it felt like to say them aloud. She had told herself she was protecting herself. That silence was safer. That if she didn't explain anything, no one could misunderstand her. But these were her friends. The people who had stayed. The people who had known her before she learned how to hide every difficult thing behind a smile. Magnolia took a slow breath. "It's Ezrah." The table became quiet. No one interrupted her. That was what made it easier. She told them about the emails. About how she had tried to contact him. About the unanswered messages. About the things she had written and deleted. She told them about his mother's message. She told them how confused she had been.

How many nights she had wondered whether she had done something wrong. And finally, she told them about the emails she kept sending even though she didn't know if he was reading them. "I think..." Magnolia paused. Her voice became smaller. "I think I kept writing because I didn't know how to accept that he might really be gone." Nobody rushed to fill the silence. Clara reached across the table and gently placed her hand beside Magnolia's. "You don't have to be okay just because time has passed." Magnolia looked at her. "I know." But her voice sounded like she was only beginning to believe it. Noah leaned back in his chair. "Do you know what I think?" Magnolia gave him a small smile. "What?" "I think you've been trying so hard to understand why he left that you've forgotten something." "What?" "You don't need to understand everything to move forward." The words stayed with her. Mika nodded. "Sometimes people leave without giving us the explanation we deserve."

Magnolia swallowed. "Then how do you stop wondering?" Mika smiled sadly. "Maybe you don't." Magnolia frowned. "You don't?" "No. Maybe you just learn to live without letting the question control your life." For a moment, Magnolia didn't say anything. She looked at her friends. Three people sitting across from her. Three people who had listened to everything without asking her to make it smaller. She suddenly realized something. She had spent so much time believing that being strong meant carrying everything herself. Maybe it didn't. Maybe strength could also mean saying: This hurts. I don't know what to do. I need someone to listen. Magnolia looked down at her hands. "I was scared to tell you." "Why?" Clara asked. "Because I thought you'd think I was stupid for still caring." Clara shook her head. "Caring doesn't make you stupid." Noah nodded. "And missing someone doesn't mean you have to wait for them forever." Magnolia's eyes began to sting. She looked away before they could notice. But they noticed anyway. Nobody made a big deal about it. Nobody told her to stop crying. They simply stayed. And somehow, that was enough.

Later that afternoon, the four of them walked outside together. The sun was beginning to lower behind the buildings. The sky slowly turned orange. Magnolia stopped. The same color. The same kind of sky that had become attached to so many memories of Ezrah. For months, she had looked at sunsets and wondered if he was looking at the same one. This time, she looked at it with her friends beside her. She took out her phone. For a second, her instinct was to photograph it and open her email. Then she stopped. She lowered the phone. Instead, she simply looked. The sky was still beautiful. Even without sending it to him. And for the first time, Magnolia understood that perhaps some beautiful things didn't need to be shared with the person she once imagined sharing them with. Some moments could belong to her. She turned toward her friends. "Do you guys want to get something to eat?" Noah immediately answered. "Finally. I've been waiting for someone to say that." Clara laughed. Mika shook her head. "You're impossible." Magnolia laughed with them. And as they walked down the street together, she realized that moving forward didn't mean walking alone. She had spent so long looking toward someone who was far away that she had forgotten to look beside her. Her friends were there. Her family was there. And she was still here. Still dreaming. Still becoming. Still living. Maybe that was enough for today. That night, Magnolia returned home and opened her laptop.

Her inbox was still empty. For once, she didn't feel the same ache when she saw it. She opened a blank document instead. Then she began writing the letter she would never send.

Chapter 7 Maybe We’ll Get Married One Day, But Who Knows? Years passed. And life, as it often did, continued without asking Magnolia whether she was ready. The girl who once sat beneath the faint glow of a laptop, writing emails to someone who never replied, had become someone entirely different. Magnolia became a professional photographer. What began as something she did quietly—something she used to escape into when the world felt too loud—eventually became her career. Her photographs found their way into exhibitions, magazines, campaigns, and galleries. She photographed weddings, portraits, events, places, and people who wanted to preserve moments before they disappeared. There was something poetic about it. Magnolia had spent years afraid of memories. Now, she made a living preserving them. Her name slowly became known in the photography community. Clients began recommending her. Her calendar filled months in advance. She had assistants. A small studio. Shelves filled with cameras, lenses, albums, and photographs. And on the highest shelf, almost hidden behind a stack of old photography books, sat a small box. She rarely opened it anymore. But she had never thrown it away.

One afternoon, Magnolia was reviewing photographs in her studio when her assistant walked over. "There's a new booking request." Magnolia continued scrolling through the photographs. "What kind?" "A wedding." Magnolia nodded. "Send me the details." Her assistant placed the tablet in front of her. Magnolia looked through the information. Date. Venue. Time. Package. Then she saw the name. Ezrah. Her finger stopped moving. For a moment, the entire studio seemed to become strangely quiet. The hum of the air conditioner. The clicking of a keyboard. The distant sound of traffic outside. Everything faded beneath the weight of one name. Ezrah. After all these years. She read the name again. Then again. Her first instinct was simple. Decline. She could send a polite message. "Thank you for considering my services, but unfortunately, I am unavailable." No explanation. No questions. No reopening of old wounds. Just a professional refusal.

Her finger hovered over the screen. Then she stopped. She thought about the girl she used to be. The girl who had spent years believing that moving forward meant leaving everything behind. Magnolia exhaled. "Accept it." Her assistant looked surprised. "Are you sure?" Magnolia nodded. "Yes." She didn't know why. Maybe because she wasn't the same person anymore. Maybe because she had spent years learning that running away from something wasn't always the same as healing from it. Or maybe she simply wanted to know what kind of person Ezrah had become. Whatever the reason was, she accepted the booking. Sera Her name was Seraphina Villareal, though she introduced herself simply as Sera. She arrived at Magnolia's studio on a warm afternoon, dressed in a cream-colored blouse and tailored trousers, her dark hair neatly pinned behind one ear. There was an understated elegance about her—not the kind that demanded attention, but the kind that naturally received it. She carried herself with quiet confidence, yet there was something unmistakably warm in the way she smiled. "Hi," she said as she stepped inside. "I'm sorry. Am I early?" Magnolia glanced at the clock. "You're right on time." Sera laughed softly. "Good. I've been terrified I'd be late to everything." "You're allowed to be nervous," Magnolia said. "That's what meetings like this are for." Sera smiled. "I'll remember that." They sat across from each other at Magnolia's consultation table. Sera had come prepared.

She had a small notebook filled with handwritten notes, a few printed photographs, and a carefully organized list of the moments she wanted captured. They went through the venue. The schedule. The ceremony. The reception. The family photographs. The small details Sera didn't want Magnolia to miss. "I don't really want everything to feel too staged," Sera explained. "Of course, there are photographs we need to take properly, but I want the rest to feel... real." Magnolia nodded. "I understand." "I want to remember what it actually felt like." Magnolia paused. That sentence caught her attention. Most clients asked for perfection. Sera was asking for something else. Memory. "The moments people don't realize are important," Magnolia said. Sera smiled. "Exactly." There was something about her that Magnolia liked. Sera didn't speak simply to fill the silence. She listened carefully, asked thoughtful questions, and never seemed in a hurry to leave. Eventually, their conversation drifted away from photography. They talked about university. Careers. The strange way adulthood seemed to arrive without permission. Sera laughed when Magnolia mentioned how different her life was from what she had imagined when she was younger.

"I think everyone reaches that point," Sera said. "You spend years planning who you're going to become, then life decides to improvise." Magnolia smiled. "Life rarely follows the plan." "Unfortunately." "Fortunately, sometimes." Sera looked at her. Magnolia shrugged. "Some of the best things in my life weren't part of the plan." Sera smiled knowingly. "I think that's true." They continued talking. Sera told Magnolia that she worked in publishing and loved old books, museums, and traveling alone whenever she had the chance. She spoke thoughtfully, never boasting about the places she had been or the people she had met. There was sophistication in the way she carried herself, but there was no arrogance behind it. Magnolia found herself relaxing. It didn't feel like a client meeting anymore. It felt like talking to someone she had known longer than an hour. Eventually, Sera glanced toward the shelves lining the studio wall. "Are those your photographs?" Magnolia turned. "Some of them." Sera stood and walked toward the display. She studied each photograph carefully. "You've photographed so many weddings." "A few." Sera smiled. "You must love what you do." "I do." And she meant it.

There was a quiet pride in her voice. Photography has become more than a career. It had become proof that she had survived the parts of her life she once thought would define her forever. Sera looked at another photograph. "This one is beautiful." Magnolia smiled. "Thank you." "What do you like most about photography?" Magnolia thought about it. "The fact that people don't always know which moments will matter to them later." Sera looked back at her. "That's a very beautiful way of looking at it." Magnolia smiled. "I think photographs remind us that we were there." Sera nodded slowly. "I like that." She returned to the table and gathered her things. "I think I'm ready to book." Magnolia smiled. "Perfect. I'll send you the final agreement." Sera nodded. Then, almost casually, she said, "Oh, and my fiancé might come by later. He wanted to meet you himself." Magnolia nodded. "Of course." She didn't think much of it. Not yet. Sera stood and adjusted the strap of her bag. "Thank you, Magnolia. I'm really glad I found you." "Thank you for trusting me." Sera smiled.

Then she paused near the door. "Magnolia." Magnolia looked up. "One more thing." "Yes?" Sera smiled. "My fiancé mentioned that he knows your name." Magnolia froze. The smile on her face slowly disappeared. The room seemed to grow quieter. "Your fiancé?" she stuttered. Sera looked confused by her reaction. "Yes." Then she smiled. "Ezrah." Magnolia didn't move. For several seconds, neither of them spoke. The name seemed to echo inside her. Ezrah. After all these years. Sera's expression changed when she noticed Magnolia's silence. "Do you know him?" Magnolia looked toward the shelves. Toward the small box hidden behind her photography books. The same box she had carried through years of moving forward. The same box she had never been able to throw away. Her throat tightened. "I..." She stopped.

There were suddenly too many memories standing between them. The school hallway. The basketball court. The emails. The sunsets. The unanswered messages. The promises. The silence. Magnolia finally looked back at Sera. "I knew him a long time ago." Sera's expression softened. There was no suspicion in her eyes. No jealousy. Only curiosity. "Oh?" Magnolia gave a small, careful smile. "We went to school together." Sera nodded. "That explains why the name sounded familiar." Then she smiled again, unaware of the history hidden behind Magnolia's words. "I guess this wedding is going to be a little more meaningful than I thought." Magnolia's heart tightened. She couldn't tell whether Sera meant it as a joke. She couldn't tell whether she should laugh. So she simply smiled. "Maybe." Sera opened the door. "I'll see you soon, then." Magnolia nodded. "See you soon." The door closed. Silence returned to the studio. Magnolia remained standing where she was. She looked toward the shelf. The little box was still there. Waiting.

For years, she had thought she knew the story. Ezrah left. She stayed. That was what she had believed. That was the version of the past she had learned to live with. But now, for the first time, something inside that story began to crack. Because Ezrah had apparently remembered her name. And if he remembered her— Then maybe he remembered everything else, too. Magnolia sat slowly at her desk. Her hands rested against the edge. She didn't know what frightened her more: seeing him again or discovering that the story she had spent years believing might never have been the truth. Maybe Ezrah hadn't left her. Maybe she hadn't left him either. Maybe somewhere between two countries, two lives, and years of silence, they had simply lost each other. And Magnolia had a terrible feeling she was about to find out how. Yet, beneath the sudden ache in her chest, she remembered her mother’s words from that very night years ago. You cannot control who stays, who leaves, or who stops replying. You can only control whether you keep waiting or choose to move forward. At the time, Magnolia had thought moving forward meant closing the door completely. Now, standing across from the woman who was about to marry Ezrah, she wondered if perhaps moving forward had never meant erasing the past. Maybe it meant learning to live with what had happened without allowing it to define everything that came after. Her mother had told her that she could miss someone and still move forward. That she could care and still choose herself. That she could leave a door open without standing there forever.

Magnolia had spent years trying to do exactly that. She had built a life beyond Ezrah. She had become a photographer. She had traveled, created, laughed, worked, and grown into someone her younger self could hardly recognize. And yet, one small box on a shelf had been enough to remind her that some doors were never truly closed. Maybe they had only been left untouched. And now, after all these years, someone had finally turned the handle. The photo shoot ended just as the sun began to disappear behind the buildings. Magnolia lowered her camera and looked at the small screen one last time. The last photograph was of Ezrah and Sera standing beneath the warm evening light, laughing at something Sera had said. It was a beautiful photograph. Too beautiful, perhaps. Because behind the camera, Magnolia had spent the entire afternoon learning how to look at Ezrah without letting the past show on her face. Ezrah had been surprisingly good at pretending nothing was wrong. He joked with Sera between shots. He listened when Magnolia gave directions. He even made a few light comments about how demanding photographers were. At one point, he had looked at Magnolia and said, almost teasingly, “You still boss people around with that camera?” Magnolia smiled politely. “Only when they don't listen.” He laughed. For a moment, it felt almost normal. And that was somehow worse. Because Magnolia remembered a younger version of herself laughing at the same jokes. She remembered basketball courts, orange skies, unfinished conversations, and the sound of a voice coming through her phone late at night. She remembered everything she had spent years teaching herself not to remember.

After the shoot, Sera suggested they have dinner nearby. Magnolia almost declined. But Sera insisted. “You've been working all day,” she said. “You should at least eat something before you go home.” Magnolia agreed. The restaurant was quiet, tucked away from the busier streets. The three of them sat around a small table near the window. At first, Ezrah played it cool. He talked about basketball. About the United States. About how different everything had been when he first arrived. He told Sera a funny story from training, and she laughed. Magnolia listened. She answered whenever someone asked her something. She smiled when she was supposed to. She even laughed once. But Ezrah kept looking at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention. And Magnolia noticed every time. Eventually, Sera excused herself to take a phone call outside. The moment she disappeared through the door, silence settled over the table. Neither of them spoke. Ezrah leaned back in his chair, suddenly looking less confident than he had all evening. “So,” he said quietly, “you really became a photographer.” Magnolia looked down at her glass. “I did.” “I saw some of your work before.” Her eyes lifted. “When?” Ezrah hesitated. “A few years ago.”

Magnolia stared at him. He gave a small, almost embarrassed smile. “You don't remember?” “I remember a lot of things.” “I figured.” The silence returned. Ezrah looked toward the window. “You look happy.” Magnolia swallowed. “I am.” He nodded. “I’m glad.” There was something in the way he said it that made her chest ache. Not jealousy. Not longing. Something older. Something unfinished. Magnolia finally asked, “Why did you stop replying?” Ezrah looked at her. The question was simple. The answer had taken years. “I didn't.” Magnolia's expression changed. “You didn't?” “No.” He shook his head slowly. “I thought you stopped.”

Then Magnolia let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “I spent years thinking you stopped talking to me.” Ezrah looked genuinely confused. “I spent years thinking you didn't want me to.” The words hung between them. And suddenly, the past didn't look the way Magnolia had remembered it. She had always imagined Ezrah choosing silence. Choosing his new life. Choosing distance. But perhaps there had never been a moment when he consciously made that choice. “After I moved,” he continued, “I emailed you.” Magnolia's heart skipped. “I sent messages, too. I asked people if they had heard from you.” “I never got anything.” “I know.” His voice softened. “I know that now.” Magnolia looked at him carefully. “How?” Ezrah's eyes dropped to the table. “My mother.” Magnolia went still. “She told me you had moved on.” Magnolia's fingers tightened around her glass.

“My mother?” “No.” He shook his head. “Mine.” The meaning settled slowly. Magnolia remembered the message. Ezrah has a bright future here in the US. Please stop contacting him. If you really want him to succeed, you'll do what I say. For years, she had wondered whether Ezrah knew. Whether he had read it. Whether he had agreed with it. Whether it had simply confirmed what he already wanted. “You knew she messaged me?” Magnolia asked. Ezrah shook his head. “No.” She looked away. “I thought you knew.” “I didn't.“ He paused. “She never told me.” Magnolia's eyes stung, but she refused to look down. “I thought you were choosing not to answer.” “I thought you were choosing not to answer me.” Neither of them spoke. Years of silence sat between them, suddenly transformed from something deliberate into something tragically accidental. Magnolia remembered every email she had sent. Every night she stared at an empty inbox.

Every sunset she had photographed because it reminded her of him. Every time she had wondered whether she had been foolish for still caring. “You know what hurt the most?” she whispered. Ezrah looked at her. “Not knowing.” He didn't interrupt. “I could've accepted it if you'd told me you didn't want me in your life anymore. It would've hurt, but at least I would've known where I stood.” “I know.” “But instead, I kept wondering what I did wrong.” Ezrah's expression tightened. “You didn't do anything wrong.” Magnolia looked at him. “You don't get to say that now.” “I know.” His voice remained gentle. “I know I don't get to erase those years just because I finally understand what happened.” That made her pause. He wasn't asking her to forgive him. He wasn't defending himself. He was simply acknowledging the damage. “I was angry at you,” Magnolia admitted. “I was angry at you, too.” She almost smiled. “That's unfair.” “I know.” A small laugh escaped them both. It wasn't happiness. Not exactly. But it was familiar.

And somehow, that familiarity didn't hurt as much as it used to. Ezrah looked toward the window. “I thought you forgot me.” Magnolia's eyes followed his gaze. “I tried.” “Did it work?” She smiled faintly. “No.” He nodded. “Me neither.” The silence that followed was different. Not empty. Not waiting. Just honest. Magnolia thought about the box sitting on the shelf in her studio. The letters. The photographs. The receipts. The dried flowers that had somehow survived all those years. “I kept the box,” she said. Ezrah looked at her. “I almost threw it away so many times.” “Why didn't you?” Magnolia thought for a moment. “Because throwing it away felt like pretending none of it mattered.” Ezrah lowered his eyes. “It mattered to me, too.” She looked at him. “Then why didn't you come back?” His answer took longer. “Because I thought you didn't want me to.” Magnolia closed her eyes for a moment. There it was.

The tragedy of it. Not that they had stopped caring. But that they had both cared from opposite sides of the same locked door, each waiting for the other to open it. “I spent so long thinking you left me,” she said. Ezrah looked at her. “I spent so long thinking you left me first.” Magnolia breathed out slowly. Neither of them knew what to do with the truth. It can’t return the lost years. It can’t undo the loneliness. It couldn't give them back the versions of themselves who had waited for answers. But it changed something. The past no longer had to be remembered as abandonment. Maybe it could simply be remembered as two young people who had cared deeply, lost their way, and didn't know how to find each other again. Sera returned to the table a few minutes later. Magnolia and Ezrah were quieter than before. But something had changed. Not between them in the way it once had been. Something subtler. Something more peaceful. For the first time in years, Magnolia didn't have to wonder whether she had been forgotten. And Ezrah didn't have to wonder whether he had ever mattered. They both knew the answer now. They had mattered. They had simply gotten lost. And sometimes reconciliation wasn't about returning to what had been. Sometimes it was about finally telling the truth about what happened—and allowing the truth to become something neither person had to carry alone anymore.

Chapter 8 You're the Lo(ss)ve of My Life. The wedding day arrived beneath a sky Magnolia knew a little bit too well. Orange. Soft gold bleeding into pink at the edges. For a moment, she stood outside the church with her camera hanging from her shoulder and watched the light settle over the rooftops. Years ago, a sunset like this would have made her think of Ezrah. You would've loved this. She used to imagine sending him photographs of skies he couldn't see. Now, she didn't need to send anything. She simply lifted her camera. Click. The first photograph was of Sera laughing with her bridesmaids. Then her mother wipes away tears. Then Ezrah stood at the end of the aisle, trying unsuccessfully to hide how nervous he was. Magnolia captured everything. The small moments. The quiet ones. The things no one noticed until later. Sera reached for Ezrah's hand. Ezrah looked at her as though he still couldn't believe the day had finally arrived. Their families were laughing during the reception. Someone crying during a speech. Two hands resting together on the table. A child dancing near the edge of the room. A glass raised in celebration. A life being chosen.

Magnolia looked through her camera and, for a brief moment, saw someone else. A younger boy with a basketball tucked beneath his arm. A boy who had once talked about becoming a professional basketball player as though saying it aloud could make the dream real. A boy who had told her about his father. A boy who had believed that one day, somehow, he would make it. And he had. He had reached the dream. Just not in the way they had once imagined. Magnolia lowered her camera. She felt the familiar ache, but it was different now. It no longer felt like something pulling her backward. It felt like gratitude. Gratitude for the person she had been. For the person he had become. For the years they had shared, even the ones that had ended in silence. For the lesson that some people could leave fingerprints on your life without being meant to remain in it forever. When the reception began to quiet, Magnolia packed her equipment. She was almost finished when she heard someone behind her. “Mags.” She stopped. She turned. Ezrah stood a few steps away, still dressed in his wedding clothes, his expression softer than it had been all day. For a second, neither of them said anything. Then he smiled. Not the confident smile she remembered from school. Not the playful one from their old conversations. Something quieter. Older.

“Thank you,” he said. Magnolia waited. “For being part of my life.” The words settled gently between them. She smiled. “You were part of mine, too.” Ezrah nodded. There was no request hidden beneath the words. No stay. No come back. No impossible promise that they could somehow return to the people they had been. There was only acknowledgement. And perhaps that was what they had needed all along. To know that what they had shared had been real. That the years had not erased it. That losing each other had not made either of them foolish for having cared. Ezrah glanced toward the reception hall. “I should go.” Magnolia nodded. “You should.” He took one step away, then looked back. “Take care of yourself, Magnolia.” She smiled. “You too, Ezrah.” And then he walked away. Magnolia watched him disappear into the crowd. She didn't follow. For the first time, she didn't feel the need to. She picked up her camera and looked once more at the photographs she had taken.

A wedding. A beginning. A goodbye. Perhaps all three could exist in the same frame. That night, back in her studio, Magnolia stood in front of the shelf where the old box had rested for years. She took it down. The cardboard had softened with age. Inside were the pieces of a life she had once been afraid to lose. Letters. Photographs. Receipts. Dried flowers. Small things that had meant everything to someone younger. She moved through them slowly. Then she found the last letter. The one she had never sent. The paper had yellowed slightly at the edges. Magnolia sat by the window. Outside, the city was quiet. She unfolded the letter. She didn't read it from the beginning. She already knew those words. Instead, her eyes moved toward the final lines. And for a moment, the years between then and now disappeared. She could almost see the girl who had written it. A girl who was still waiting. Still hoping. Still believing that love meant finding your way back. Magnolia smiled softly. Then she read the last part.

“If we ever find our way back to each other, I hope we meet as people who are happy with the lives we have built, not as two people trying to become who we used to be. Live with love!” She stopped. For years, she had thought the letter was unfinished because she had never sent it. Now she understood. It had never needed to be sent. It had only needed to be written. Magnolia folded the letter carefully and placed it back inside the box. Then she closed the lid. Not because she was forgetting. Not because it no longer mattered. But because she finally understood that some stories don't end with two people finding their way back to each other. Sometimes they end with two people finding their way forward. She turned off the light. Before leaving, she glanced toward the window. The sky had faded from orange into deep blue. Once, she would have taken a photograph. Tonight, she simply looked. And let the moment belong to her. Magnolia placed one of the wedding photographs inside the box. She chose one that showed Ezrah and Sera holding hands beneath the warm afternoon light. She placed it carefully on top of the old memories—the letters, photographs, receipts, dried flowers, and all the little pieces of a life that had once felt like it would last forever. Then she closed the box. Not to erase what had happened.

But to remember it for what it truly was: a memory. The next morning, Magnolia saw Ezrah's wedding post on Instagram. She stared at the screen for a moment. There were photographs from the ceremony. Ezrah and Sera smiling. Their families. The reception. A new chapter carefully captured in squares of light. Magnolia felt something inside her loosen. She didn't cry. She didn't unfollow him. She simply tapped the heart beneath the post, placed her phone face down on the table, and picked up her camera. Outside her window, the morning had already begun. She had spent so many years thinking about what the internet had taken from her. It had once been the place where people hurt her—where photographs of her were turned into something cruel, where strangers made her feel as though she had lost control over her own image. Then it became the place where she found connection. Where she met people. Where messages became conversations and conversations became memories. Later, it became the place where she tried to stay close to someone who was thousands of miles away. She had once believed that if she could only send the right message, write the right email, or find the right way to reach Ezrah, the distance between them would disappear. But she understood now that technology could connect people without truly communicating for them. A screen could keep a memory without keeping a relationship. A message could remain unsent. An email could remain unanswered. A photograph could preserve a moment, but it could never replace honest words.

And silence did not always mean that someone had stopped caring. Sometimes, silence meant that people had misunderstood what it meant. Sometimes, people assume instead of asking. Sometimes, they waited instead of explaining. Sometimes, they let a screen speak for them when what they really needed was a conversation. Magnolia looked at the camera in her hands. For years, she had thought her story was about the internet. About what it had done to her. About how it had brought people into her life and taken someone out of it. But now she understood that the internet had only been a tool. What mattered was how people chose to use it. A responsible online life could not be separated completely from a responsible real life. Being careful with what you posted meant remembering that there were real people behind the screens. Respecting someone's privacy meant respecting them beyond the boundaries of an app. Thinking before sharing meant understanding that a picture, a message, or a post could affect someone long after the screen was turned off. And communicating honestly meant not assuming that silence had only one meaning. Magnolia had learned those lessons slowly. Some through pain. Some through mistakes. Some through people she loved. She had learned that not everything needed to be posted. Not every feeling needed to become a message. Not every memory needed to be deleted. And not every relationship needed to remain online in order to have been real. She opened her camera. The world looks different through the lens now. Not because the world had changed. Because she had.

She thought about the girl she used to be—the girl who had been afraid of photographs, afraid of screens, afraid of what other people could do with a piece of her life. Then she thought about the woman she had become. A photographer. Someone who captured moments for a living. Someone who understood that a photograph could preserve a memory without possessing it. Magnolia lifted her camera toward the morning light. Click. For once, she wasn't taking a photograph to send to someone. She wasn't waiting for a reply. She wasn't hoping someone on the other side of a screen would understand what she couldn't say. She was simply taking a picture because she was there. Because the moment was hers. Because some memories were meant to be kept—not lived in. And perhaps that was the final lesson Magnolia carried with her: The internet could be part of your story, but it should never be allowed to become the whole of your life. Behind every account was a real person. Behind every photograph was a real moment. Behind every message was a choice. And behind every silence was a meaning that should never be assumed without asking. Magnolia lowered her camera and smiled. The past could stay in the box. The memory could stay and she could keep moving forward. Later that morning, Magnolia opened the anonymous confession form. For a moment, she simply stared at the blank space. There had been a time when blank spaces frightened her. They reminded her of everything she had been unable to say. Of messages she had typed and deleted. Of emails she had sent and never received a response to. Of words she had carried for years because she was afraid of what might happen if someone finally heard them. But this time, she wasn't afraid. She began typing:

“Do I have any regrets? No. I think I used to believe that having no regrets meant pretending that the past didn't hurt, or convincing myself that I would have been better off if certain people had never entered my life. But I don't believe that anymore. There were moments when I wished I could go back and change everything—the messages I sent, the words I never said, the times I waited for answers that never came, and the years I spent wondering if I had been forgotten. But if I changed all of those things, I would also be changing the person I became because of them. He was a wonderful part of my life when I thought he was my everything. He gave me memories I will always carry, taught me things I didn't know I needed to learn, and showed me that being understood by another person can be one of the most beautiful things in the world. Losing that relationship hurt, but losing it did not mean that I lost myself. For a long time, I thought moving forward meant forgetting him, deleting every memory, and pretending that he had never mattered. Now I understand that moving forward can also mean remembering someone without waiting for them, being grateful for what they gave you without asking them to return, and accepting that some people can be important chapters in your life without being part of every chapter that follows. I don't regret loving him, and I don't regret the time we had. I only regret the years I spent believing that my life had stopped simply because one part of it had ended. There is still so much waiting for me—people I have yet to meet, places I have yet to see, photographs I have yet to take, dreams I have yet to pursue, and versions of myself I have yet to become. Maybe that is what growing up really means: realizing that the ending of one story does not mean the ending of your own. I can miss what we were and still be grateful for what I have now. I can remember him and still choose myself. I can wish him happiness without needing to be part of it. And if he ever reads these words someday, I hope he knows that he was never a mistake in my life. He was simply someone who mattered, someone I loved, someone I lost, and someone who helped me understand that my life was always meant to be bigger than one person. So, no, I don't have any regrets. I have memories. I have lessons. I have gratitude. And most importantly, I have a life ahead of me. I must move forward—not because what happened didn't matter, but because it did, and I have learned enough from it to keep going.” She stopped. Read it once. Then again. There was no anger in the words.

No bitterness. No attempt to rewrite what had happened. Just acceptance. For years, Magnolia had been afraid of being seen. Afraid that people would judge her. Afraid that they would turn her words into something they weren't. Afraid that being vulnerable meant giving someone else the power to hurt her. But she had learned something along the way. Being seen was not the same as being exposed. She could choose what to share. She could protect what was private. She could speak honestly without giving the whole world access to every part of her. Her finger hovered over the submit button. Maybe Ezrah would see the confession one day. Maybe he would recognize the words. Maybe, for the first time, he would understand something she had never been able to explain when they were younger. But Magnolia realized that it no longer mattered. She wasn't writing for him anymore. She was writing for herself. For the girl who once believed that losing someone meant losing a piece of herself. For the girl who had spent nights staring at an empty inbox, wondering what she had done wrong. For the girl who thought that if she could only find the right words, she could bring back what had already changed. And for the woman who finally understood that someone could be important to you without staying forever. That a person could shape your life without becoming the destination of it. That some people were chapters. Not because they were insignificant. But because the story continued.

Magnolia pressed Submit. The confession disappeared from the screen. For a few seconds, she watched the empty form. Then she closed her laptop. No checking for reactions. No waiting to see who had read it. No wondering whether Ezrah had found it. She simply stood. Her camera was waiting on the table. She picked it up and walked toward the window. Morning light filled the room, spilling across her desk and touching the edges of the old box on the shelf. Magnolia lifted the camera. Click. She looked at the photograph on the screen. For once, she didn't think about sending it to anyone. She didn't think about whether someone else would like it. She didn't wonder whether someone from her past would understand what it meant. She saved it. For herself. And perhaps that was the quietest ending of all. Not forgetting. Not regretting. Not pretending that the past had never mattered. Simply understanding that it belonged to the past. Some stories do not end because love disappears. Sometimes, they end because two people learn that loving someone and living a life with them are not always the same thing. And sometimes, moving forward does not mean leaving the memories behind. It means carrying them without letting them decide where you go next. Magnolia looked through the window again. The morning was bright.

The world was waiting. And for the first time, she wasn't waiting for anyone else. She was ready to begin. She looked down at her camera and smiled. For years, she had thought photographs were about holding on. Holding on to people. Holding on to places. Holding on to moments before they disappeared. But now she understood that photographs were not meant to keep people from leaving. They were meant to remind us that we had been there—that we had lived, loved, learned, and changed. The same was true of the internet. It could preserve a photograph, but it could not preserve a relationship. It could carry a message across thousands of miles, but it could not guarantee that the message would be understood. It could make someone feel close while they were far away, but it could never replace the honesty of sitting across from someone and saying what needed to be said. Magnolia had learned that a screen could remember almost anything. A post could remain long after the person who made it had changed. A photograph could survive for years. A message could stay in a conversation forever. But none of those things could live a life for you. Behind every profile was a person. Behind every photograph was a real moment. Behind every message was a responsibility. And behind every silence was a story that should never be assumed without asking.

She had learned to be more careful with what she shared, more respectful of what belonged to other people, and more thoughtful about the way her choices online could affect someone in real life. Most importantly, she had learned that living responsibly in a digital world also meant learning how to live responsibly beyond it—to communicate honestly, respect boundaries, protect what was private, and remember that people were always more important than the screens connecting them. Magnolia raised her camera toward the morning light. Click. The photograph appeared on the screen. She looked at it for a moment. Then she saved it. Not for Ezrah. Not for Instagram. Not for anyone who might someday scroll past it. For herself. Because she no longer needed every beautiful moment to become a message. Some moments could simply belong to her. She turned toward the shelf. The old box was still there. Inside it were years of words that had once been meant for someone else. Some had been spoken. Some had been written. Some had been sent. And some had never left her hands. Magnolia smiled. Perhaps that was what unsent feelings really meant. Not feelings that were meaningless because they were never delivered. Not feelings that had to be erased because they belonged to the past. But feelings that had once been too difficult to say, too painful to send, or too uncertain to understand—and that eventually taught her how to understand herself. She had spent years believing that an unsent feeling was an unfinished feeling. Now she knew better.

Some feelings do not need to be delivered to have mattered. Some goodbyes do not need an audience. Some memories do not need to be shared. And some stories do not need the ending we once imagined in order to become complete. Magnolia picked up her camera and walked toward the door. She did not look back at the box. She didn't need to. The past was safe where it was. The memory was safe. And so was she. Outside, the morning continued without waiting for anyone. Magnolia stepped into it. Not as the girl who had once been afraid of being seen. Not as the girl who believed losing someone meant losing herself. But as the woman who had learned that she could love, lose, remember, forgive, and still become someone entirely her own. The world was still connected by screens. Messages would still be sent. Photographs would still be shared. People would still meet, misunderstand, disappear, return, and sometimes leave without explanations. But Magnolia finally understood that no screen could decide the meaning of her life. That was something she had to choose for herself. She lifted her camera. The morning light fell across the road ahead. Click. And this time, she didn't save the photograph as proof of someone she had lost. She saved it as proof of someone she had found. Herself. And somewhere, in a quiet corner of her heart, the feelings that had once remained unsent finally stopped asking to be delivered. They had already said everything they needed to say, and that was enough. The End.