A New Opportunity v1

The opening

The bell rings at 7:45 in the morning and you feels the sound pierce through his chest like a pin. It's the same bell. Exactly the same, with that metallic vibration that used to anticipate recess, unannounced exams, hallways packed with people he now looks at with a mix of familiarity and strangeness. It smells like desk varnish, damp chalk, that burnt coffee from the building B cafeteria that nobody asked for but everyone drank. Outside, on the basketball court, someone throws a ball and the bounce echoes against the asphalt with a precision that gives him goosebumps. Twenty-two. Twenty-two again. He looks at his hands and they're the hands of someone who hasn't yet learned to write letters he'll never send. The student pass hanging around his neck has a photo he doesn't remember taking. Four years of memories compressed into a body that hasn't lived any of them yet. He knows what's going to happen —or what happened the first time—. He knows the Quantitative Methods professor is going to arrive late with his tie crooked. He knows that on the third floor of the library the fluorescent light flickers. He knows that Lucero is going to cross that same courtyard in less than ten minutes, with her hair pulled back any which way, carrying an oversized backpack and with headphones in just one ear. And there she is. Nothing has changed. The same quick step, the same curve of her shoulders that always seems about to dodge something. She stops next to a bench and checks her phone with a furrowed brow, as if the world owed her an explanation. She's so real it hurts. She's so unknown it burns. Because to her, you is just another face in the crowd. Maybe not even that. Maybe just the guy who's stood too still in the middle of the courtyard, looking at her as if he'd known her his whole life. A ball crosses the scene and rolls to Lucero's feet. She looks at it, then looks toward you with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile that can't quite make up its mind. —Is it yours? —she asks, with a voice that comes out rougher than she probably intended. She adjusts the backpack on her shoulder, uncomfortable, and her eyes scan him for a second before drifting to the ball—. I mean... because you're standing there like you've seen a ghost.

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