The rain had turned the schoolyard into a minefield of mud and shallow pools.
Mira clutched her notebook to her chest, the one with the blue rabbit sticker on the cover—the one she used to practice writing words without stuttering. She'd stayed late after class again, copying vocabulary lists until her hand cramped. Now, the halls were empty.
She should have known better than to take the back path.
Three boys from her class loitered by the bike racks, kicking at puddles. One of them—Minho, with his too-big front teeth—spotted her first.
"Well, well," he called, grinning. "If it isn't Stutterbird."
Mira ducked her head and quickened her steps.
A wet smack—a pebble landed in the mud at her feet.
"Say something," another boy jeered.
"Yeah, t-t-talk to us!"
Her throat tightened. She gripped the notebook harder.
Then—
A hand snatched it from her grasp.
Minho flipped through the pages, his grin widening at the carefully printed sentences, the shaky attempts at cursive. "Look at this! She's practicing how to talk!"
The boys howled with laughter.
Mira lunged, but Minho danced back, holding the notebook just out of reach.
"Want it back?" He dangled it over the largest puddle. "Say please."
The word lodged in her throat like a stone.
P-please.
But nothing came out.
Minho's grin turned sharp. "Guess not."
The notebook hit the murky water with a sickening plop.
Mira didn't move. Couldn't. She stared at the pages darkening with moisture, the ink bleeding into nothing.
The boys whooped, shoving each other as they ran off, their laughter echoing behind them.
Alone, Mira crouched, her fingers hovering over the ruined paper. She couldn't bring herself to touch it.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a traitorous thought whispered:
Jae would have stopped them.
But Jae hadn't come to school today.
And for the first time, Mira wondered—
Had he left for good?
---
The journal entry was smudged, the pencil lines pressed too hard:
They threw my notebook in the puddle. I tried to dry it, but the words are gone.
A pause. Then, in smaller letters:
I wish he'd been there.
She closed the journal and tucked it under her pillow, where no one would find it.
Where no one would know how much it hurt to miss someone who'd never really been hers in the first place.