She strolls down the hallway, reminding herself to keep her head down. If any eyecontact was made, she would never know, but the embarassment could not be avoided unless she kept her head down. She bumps into someone, but she didn’t bother to look. She swore she heard him say her name, her full name. Thing is, she already knew who it was. She could tell. The wisp of blond and the hint of a lisp. Memories from another time. She wanted to stop walking and look back, at the off chance that she would catch him looking back too. She felt the entry of the ice cold steel into her back. It penetrated her skin and left her bleeding profusely on the hallway floor. She didn’t look back, not once. She couldn’t. With her right hand, she tried to block the wound, and with the other, she wiped away her tears despite the anguish it caused her to move that arm. She could hear the crazy English teacher yell through the corridor, warning students to hurry to class before the anthem. It is already ten minutes after the bell and she realizes she’s already in class, her notebook open in front of her, and three quarters of the note already copied. She feels the tingling of blood rushing to her numb left hand, and the wetness of the paper she was writing on. She was sitting alone and told herself that he never existed. There were still three more classes, a forty minute lunch and the rest of her life to bump into him again.