# **📖 CHAPTER 2 — "OLD PAPERS, OLD SHADOWS"**
*(Emotional, tension-heavy, dual POV)*
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## **Lena**
The school looked abandoned.
Not literally—kids were still inside, voices echoing faintly from open windows, the smell of chalk drifting into the summer air. But to Lena, walking up the familiar front steps felt like approaching a ghost.
Her ghost.
She hadn't planned to be here.
She was only supposed to drop off a form for her sister's workplace.
Ten minutes.
In and out.
But the hallway pulled her in like a memory she couldn't pull away from.
Rows of lockers. The scuffed tiles she used to count when she was nervous. The cracked bulletin board; same dents, same corners curling up.
And then—
Room 204.
His classroom.
She froze.
It looked exactly the same through the small glass window: alphabetized book shelves, messy stacks of papers, half an unfinished quote on the whiteboard like he'd been in the middle of a thought and forgot to finish it.
Her hand lifted to the doorframe without her permission.
"Don't do it," she whispered to herself.
But her fingers touched the wood anyway.
It wasn't the room she missed—it was the feeling of sitting in it, scribbling notes while pretending not to look at him.
She inhaled carefully.
"Just one look," she murmured.
She pushed the door open a few inches—
"Lena?"
Her heart jumped violently.
She spun around—
**Elias Crane stood at the end of the hallway.**
A folder tucked under his arm. Hair slightly wind-tossed. Shirt sleeves rolled up again. He looked like a memory and a shock at the same time.
She straightened instinctively.
"I—I didn't think you'd be here," she said.
He walked toward her slowly, his footsteps quiet but steady.
"I could say the same about you."
"I'm not snooping," she blurted. "I just… I used to sit in that room. It feels strange being back."
He stopped a few feet away. Close enough to see how his eyes softened. Not close enough to touch.
"You don't need to explain," he said gently. "This place holds a lot of history."
"And some things I thought I left behind," she murmured.
His jaw tightened slightly.
He heard the weight in her voice.
He always did.
He looked past her, into the classroom.
"Want to go in?" he asked.
Lena blinked.
Her pulse skidded.
"I—no. It might feel weird."
"It will," he said honestly. "But not for the reasons you think."
She frowned.
"What reasons do *you* think?"
A pause.
A long one.
Then, softly:
"You grew up in this room. You learned who you were going to be. Places like that stay with people."
Her breath caught.
He wasn't talking like her old teacher.
He was talking like a man remembering her.
---
## **Elias**
Seeing her in the hallway hurt in a way he didn't expect.
Not pain—just a tightening, a reminder of how much time had passed and how little it changed.
Lena's presence used to fill classrooms. Even at eighteen. She didn't see it then, but he did. And now, standing in front of him as an adult, she seemed like a brighter, steadier version of the same girl.
He shouldn't have said what he said.
He shouldn't let his words carry weight.
He shouldn't look at her like this.
But she looked so lost.
And also—found.
He stepped closer to her classroom door and pushed it open wider.
"I came to pick up old papers," he said lightly. "The historical society wants literature from past curriculum years."
Lena blinked. "You're taking your old materials?"
"Yes. I kept copies."
"No… I mean… you're taking them from here? From your old room?"
His throat tightened.
"My replacement didn't want my archives. Said they 'felt dated.'" His mouth twitched. "I disagreed."
Lena smiled faintly, then stepped into the room behind him, hesitating at the threshold.
Her voice was small.
He wasn't used to small from her.
"Do you miss it?"
He turned toward her, leaning lightly against the desk he once lectured from.
"Yes," he said honestly. "But not in the way you think."
"How, then?"
Another pause.
He was too honest with her.
Always had been.
"This room didn't matter," he said. "The students did."
Her breath hitched.
He regretted the words instantly—but not enough to take them back.
---
## **Lena**
She walked slowly between the desks, trailing her fingers over the scratched wood. She could almost hear echoes of the past—whispers, laughter, the soft tap of chalk against the board.
Her chest tightened.
"It's strange," she said. "Everything feels smaller."
"You got bigger."
She looked up sharply.
Elias cleared his throat.
"I mean—older. Adult."
"I knew what you meant," she said softly.
But her heart reacted anyway.
He was looking through an old folder on the desk.
Stacks of essays, faded worksheets—years of students he taught and forgot.
Except—
he didn't forget all of them.
Her eyes drifted to a drawer on the side of the desk.
A drawer she remembered him using for "special" papers—essays that stood out, that meant something to him as a teacher.
She opened it before she could stop herself.
Inside lay a thin stack of papers tied with a ribbon.
She recognized her handwriting instantly.
Her senior portfolio.
Her final essay.
Her writing.
Time froze.
"Why… why is this here?" she whispered.
Elias stiffened.
He set down the folder slowly.
"Lena—"
"You kept it?"
Her voice cracked.
"After all these years?"
He closed the distance between them by only a few steps.
But it felt like a confession.
"I kept three student portfolios in my entire career," he said quietly. "Yours was one of them."
She swallowed hard.
"Why?"
He hesitated.
He had an answer, but it lived behind a wall he rarely let down.
"You were different," he said finally. "You wrote with honesty most adults can't manage. Your work reminded me why I started teaching."
Her eyes stung.
"That's… a big thing to say," she whispered.
"It's the truth."
She looked down at the papers, brushing her fingertips over her own words from four years ago.
"I thought you forgot about me the second I walked out of this school."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Lena," he said softly, painfully honest, "there are some people you don't forget. No matter how much time passes."
Her breath caught so sharply it hurt.
She felt something shift inside her—a door creaking open, slow and dangerous.
"Elias…"
His name came out without thought.
Without permission.
He inhaled sharply when he heard it.
Not in shock—
in reaction.
As if something inside him broke just a little.
Before she could say anything else, footsteps echoed down the hall.
She stepped back.
He did too.
Distance reappeared like a wall dropping between them.
A teacher passed by the open door, glancing inside, curious.
Elias nodded politely.
Lena forced a smile.
Only when the footsteps faded did Elias speak again.
"We shouldn't stay here," he said quietly.
"I know."
She tied the ribbon back around the stack of papers and slid them gently into the drawer.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For keeping it."
His voice was barely audible.
"Thank you for giving me something worth keeping."
They left the room together, walking down the hallway in silence.
At the exit, he paused.
"Lena," he said, his voice low, almost rough, "be careful walking home. The heat's getting worse."
She nodded.
"Will I… see you around?"
He hesitated.
Every part of him seemed to debate the answer.
"Yes," he finally said.
"But maybe… we should try not to see each other too much."
Her chest twisted.
"And why is that?" she asked, even though she knew.
His eyes softened with something she wasn't ready for.
"Because seeing you is… more complicated than it should be."
She felt her heart stumble.
"Then why does it feel impossible not to?"
He had no answer.
Not one he could say out loud.
So he walked away first.
And she watched him go—
knowing something had shifted between them.
Something fragile.
Something dangerous.
Something that had been waiting four years to wake up.
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