Rafael POV
I get here too early.
The sky hasn't even decided if it's waking up.
Gate open, a few people dragging their feet inside.
I check my phone: 7:38.
Seven-thirty. Library.
I shove the phone back in my pocket before the thought grows teeth.
It's just a project.
I repeat it until it wears out. Doesn't help much.
I cut across the almost empty courtyard. Street noise leaks over the wall—distant honks, an engine swallowed by the wind.
The building hasn't swallowed anyone yet.
One dark window, another lit, people dripping inside one by one.
The library's at the end of the hallway.
Dirty glass door. Crooked SILENCE sign.
I stop.
I could turn toward class and pretend I forgot.
I could go sit in the courtyard and let the bell erase the whole thing.
My hand finds the handle.
I push.
The noise drops by half. Cold air. Dusty-book smell. Light hitting the tops of the tables.
And there she is.
Luísa.
At a table by the window. Notebook open. Pen moving. Some big book next to her, covered in sticky notes. Her leg bouncing, sneaker tapping soft against the floor.
She doesn't look up first. She looks at the page.
Only when the glass door shifts does her head turn.
Her eyes lock on mine.
I drag out the chair across from her. My backpack tugs to the side and almost pulls me off balance. I sit before I can think about what I'm doing.
Notebook on the table. Open.
Only then she checks the time—quick glance at her watch—then back at me.
"Seven-thirty turning into almost seven-forty-five, huh?" she says, low.
"I never said I was coming," I answer.
That half-smile shows up, somewhere between teasing and poking.
"But you did," she says.
Something tightens in my chest.
"Let's just get this over with," I mutter, still adjusting the notebook, not really looking at her.
"Good morning to you too," she says, corner of her mouth still tilted.
The librarian lifts her gaze over her glasses up front—just enough to remind us she exists.
Luísa hunches her shoulders a bit, drops her voice.
"I got here at seven-twenty," she says, flipping through the book. "Had time to check a few references."
I look at the cover. Anthology of Contemporary Brazilian Plays. Sticky notes grow out of it in every direction. She runs her finger down a page like there's a whole world there.
"We don't need references," I say. "Helena wants something simple. We cut out a slice of life and that's it."
I grab my pen and write at the top: Scene – Unspoken Words.
The letters come out crooked. My chest pinches—not sure if it's the title or everything else.
"'Simple' like what?" she asks. "Two robots talking about the weather?"
"Everyday scene," I say. "Normal place, less chance of looking ridiculous."
"Normal place like…?" she pushes.
I chew on the pen cap, think fast.
"Bus stop," I write. "School hallway. Stairwell."
I'm talking more to the paper than to her.
"Person A wants to leave. Person B tries to keep them there."
I jot that down too. A wants to leave / B tries to hold on. Passable.
I feel her leaning in, trying to read. I angle the notebook toward me. Reflex.
"Let me see," she says, dragging her chair closer, arm crossing the table.
"Chill," I grumble. "I'm just throwing ideas around."
"Ideas are meant to be seen, not hidden," she shoots back.
The pen moves. I scribble a few blunt lines:
"Person A: I'm done. I have to go.
Person B: You didn't even listen to what I had to say.
Person A: It doesn't change anything."
Plain. No decoration.
"Look," I say, nudging the notebook like half an inch forward—just enough for her to read. "We can do it like this: I write the base, the actual script, then give you your lines to memorize."
She pulls her eyes off the page and onto me, slow.
"My lines?" she repeats.
"Yeah," I say. "You're good at the acting part, stage, all that. Better if you focus on how to say it instead of freezing trying to build the structure."
I feel the sentence tilt wrong as it comes out, but it's already out there.
She drops her pen on the table. The plastic hits hard for how light it is.
"Freezing?" she says.
"Figure of speech," I shrug. "I handle the boring part, you bring it to life onstage. Each of us does what we're better at."
She pulls in a breath through her nose, holds it a second, lets it out slow. Her leg stops bouncing.
"What boring part?" she asks, too calm. "Creating?"
"Structuring," I correct. "Thinking through the logic, what makes sense, timing for the presentation. That stuff."
She closes the playbook with a soft thud and leaves her hand on top of it.
"Rafael…" she starts, leaning her arms on the table, coming closer. "I can create too, you know. I'm not here to be a mouthpiece for some guy who thinks feelings are a joke."
"Some guy" lands sharp.
I roll my eyes, more to cut the moment than because I'm actually mad.
"I never said feelings are a joke."
"You said it without saying it," she fires back. "Which, by the way, is literally the theme of this project, remember?"
The librarian looks up again. Silent shhh.
Luísa lowers her voice even more.
"Helena asked for real subtext, not a script read in turns," she goes on. "'True feelings hidden between the lines' is not just something for the board. It needs a reason."
I look down at the page.
"We don't need a soap opera for that," I say. "Just a slice of conversation."
She props her chin on her hand, elbow on the table.
"So why are they fighting?" she asks, tapping the line with her pen. "'I'm done, I have to go.' 'You didn't even listen.' 'It doesn't change anything.' Why? What happened before? What did one of them want to say and didn't?"
"It doesn't matter," I reply. "The audience doesn't have to know everything."
We do," she counters instantly. "Otherwise it's just random lines. Without a reason, there's no subtext. Just empty talking."
The pen digs into my fingers.
"You're overcomplicating this," I say. "Real life is simpler."
She lets out a short, dry laugh.
"Is it?" she asks. "In which real life? 'Cause in mine no one says what they mean on the first try."
She reaches for my notebook and tugs it closer. I hold on.
Our hands meet over the coil binding.
Her skin brushes mine. Warm.
I snatch my hand back like I've been shocked. She pulls hers away too, fingers closing around her pen.
Half a second of silence.
The library fades back in behind it—pages turning, the printer grumbling somewhere, slow footsteps between shelves.
She breathes deep and looks at the notebook again.
"Look at this," she says, this time without pulling away. Reads softly: "I'm done, I have to go." "You didn't even listen to what I had to say." "It doesn't change anything."
She lifts her eyes.
"This could be a million things," she says. "Someone standing at a bus stop after getting stood up. Two friends pretending they're fine after one of them screwed up. Or…"
Her gaze catches mine and holds for a beat too long.
"Or someone who says 'whatever' when it's actually the only thing that matters."
My stomach drops. My brain echoes back to the classroom. My own voice.
"It doesn't have to be that dramatic," I say, forcing my tone flat. "Otherwise it starts sounding fake."
"Dramatic isn't making things up," she shoots back. "Dramatic is pretending nothing ever hits anyone."
She opens the playbook on a marked page, turns it toward me, taps a line that's underlined. I barely skim it.
"All these scenes have the same thing," she says. "No one fights over nothing. There's always a before, an after, an 'I wanted to say this but said that instead.'"
"We won't have time for before and after," I say. "It's a school presentation, not a theater festival."
"No one asked for flashbacks," she smirks. "Just coherence."
Her pen taps my notebook.
"You really think you can decide everything by yourself?" she asks.
"Someone has to keep this grounded," I answer, voice edging. "If we run with all your ideas, the scene turns into a live therapy session."
She leans back, arms folding over her chest. Her messy bun slips a little.
"Of course," she says. "Good thing we have the great guardian of reality here to protect everyone from feeling anything."
The sarcasm drips.
"I'm just trying to make the assignment work," I say. "You're the one taking it personally."
"Personally?" She laughs under her breath, disbelieving. "You literally just cast me as your echo. 'I do the hard part, you memorize.' Super impersonal."
The librarian appears at the end of a shelf, eyes sharp, finger to her lips.
"Shhh."
Luísa lifts a hand in a quiet apology. I duck my head.
She leans in again, voice barely above a whisper now.
"You talk like your brain is the only one functioning," she says. "Like I'm here doing an internship in being your echo. I work with subtext every day, okay? That's what theater is."
"Theater is pretending," I shoot back. "Pretending you feel, pretending you're someone else. Isn't that what you love? Pretending?"
Her fingers squeeze the pen.
"I already told you—I can pretend just fine," she says. "Helena asked for truth buried underneath. And you run away even when we're just making people up."
"You force intimacy on everyone," I say before I can stop myself. "Is that a special offer or just for me?"
Her eyes narrow.
"I'm not forcing anything," she says. "I'm trying to figure out who these characters are. But apparently you panic at anything that looks remotely real. So… great."
"And you can't sit with yourself for five seconds," I throw back. "That's why you talk non-stop about everything all the time."
It comes out sharper than it sounded in my head.
Too late now.
Her jaw tightens. Not for long, but enough.
She turns her face slightly away, breathes, then comes back.
The librarian glances up from her computer again—another silent hey—chairs creak somewhere, someone coughs. All of it far.
We lower the volume. The rest doesn't go anywhere.
She flips through pages of my notebook fast, taking in half sentences, arrows, scratched-out lines.
"There's good stuff here," she says, still annoyed. "But you write like the world is a microwave manual."
"And you talk like life's a movie trailer," I say. "Everything has to sound deep."
She presses the pen to her lips for a second, thinking.
"You really think you're above everyone, don't you?" she asks. "Like, 'I get how life works, the rest is just drama.'"
"I don't think anything," I say. "I just don't see the point of digging into things that don't change."
"They don't change for people pretending they don't care," she counters. "For people who hide behind 'whatever' like a shield."
That word again. Heat crawls up my ears.
"We're talking about the assignment," I cut in. "Not me."
"It's all the same place, Rafael," she says. "You want to write about people who run and won't admit they're running."
"At least I know when to stop," I say. "You push intimacy on characters, audience, your own partner. What do you want—me to sit here and open up my chest so you can take notes?"
"I want you to stop acting like only your part matters," she says, steady. "I'm not a speaker playing your script."
She tosses the pen onto the notebook. It's not loud, but it hits.
"If you want that much control, write it alone," she adds. "Just don't call me your partner after."
That line hits a place I try to keep offline.
I snap the notebook shut.
The sound crashes across the library.
A few heads turn, curious, then hurry back to their pages.
"You know what?" I say, and my voice comes out cold. "Do it your way."
I yank the notebook back and stuff it into my backpack without finesse. The page edge bends.
"I'll see what's worth keeping later."
"Rafael, that's not what I—" she starts, leaning forward, but I'm already shoving my chair back. The leg scrapes loud against the floor.
The librarian appears at the end of the aisle, expression hard.
"Guys," she says quietly but firm. "If you can't keep it down, finish the conversation outside."
"I'm already leaving," I say, not looking at her.
I drag the zipper all the way around, swing the backpack onto one shoulder. The weight lands heavy.
Luísa's hand is still resting on the book, eyes fixed on me. Her breath catches halfway.
"Congrats," she says, soft but cutting straight through. "We've got our abandonment scene done."
Abandonment slices through.
My body locks for a fraction.
The urge to turn around and say something climbs up my throat.
Dies there.
I don't turn.
I spin on my heel and head for the door.
Every step sounds louder than it probably is.
I push the glass open. School noise slams back into me—voices, laughs, footsteps, someone yelling "hold the ball, dude!" across the courtyard.
Her silence stays in there, taped to that table.
I walk down the hallway without looking back. Fingers clamp around the backpack straps until my knuckles blanch.
My whole body is tight, like I just came out of a fight instead of a conversation.
"I'm not going back."
"It's just a project."
"She can deal with it."
I repeat it, but the rhythm doesn't stick.
The path to the cafeteria happens on autopilot.
Down the stairs.
Past a group complaining about a test.
Around a bag abandoned in the middle of the floor.
Across the courtyard that's finally filling up.
The smell of coffee and cheese bread gets stronger.
There's already a line.
I take my place at the end.
People in front.
Thoughts pressed in behind my eyes.
I stare at the old menu board: coffee, milk, bread, pastries, juice. Same as always.
I'm not even that hungry.
I just want something hot to hold onto.
The line creeps forward.
My head drags itself back to the library table.
"If you don't show up… that's our first scene about being left."
She'd said it laughing. Half a test.
I showed.
And still delivered the scene anyway.
I picture her hand frozen on the book. The "don't call me your partner after."
Another step. The line moves.
Something weird hollows out my stomach. Not hunger.
Something worse.
My turn.
The cafeteria lady looks at me over the counter.
"What's it gonna be?"
"Coffee," I answer. "Actually… make it two."
She blinks.
"Two?"
"Yeah," I say quickly. "Two."
She fills two foam cups. Fresh coffee smell climbs up.
I pay, take both. Heat seeps into my fingers, then my wrists.
I step out of the line and lean against the nearest wall.
One cup in each hand.
Steam curling up.
I look toward the hallway back to the library wing.
Straight shot. Easy.
Students walk past—laughing, running with a ball, arguing about a history project.
I could go straight to class.
Sit down, pretend to read.
Wait for the bell.
Drink both coffees alone just to prove a point to absolutely no one.
"I'm not going back."
"I've got better things to do."
"She'll think I'm… whatever."
My body doesn't move.
I stay there, stuck, staring at the hallway like it's a stage.
The cups burn a little against my palms.
One slips just enough to slosh. I tighten my grip.
Working with her is going to be hell.
I think the whole sentence.
And still, I don't throw the second cup away.
I don't drink it either.
I just stand there, caught dead-center, like one exclamation point and three ellipses are pulling my arms in opposite directions.