Love Before Graduation

The morning light spilled through the clouds like it had forgotten how to shine—dim, tired, barely there. It smeared across the school walls in patches, not warm enough to feel real. I pulled my jacket tighter, but it didn't help.

The cold wasn't what made my chest feel like it was caving in.

Fear did that.

I gripped the strap of my bag like it might anchor me to something real and kept walking. Fast. Like I could leave the feeling behind if I just moved quickly enough.

Nami was sitting by the garden. Perched on a low stone wall, hunched over her phone, but not really looking at it. Her eyes were somewhere else. Like she was waiting for a text that would never come. Or remembering something she wished she hadn't.

"Nami."

She blinked up, her eyes blurry like she hadn't really woken up yet. "Aira? You okay? You look like..." She paused. "Like you've seen a ghost."

I sat beside her. I didn't realize I was out of breath until I stopped moving.

"Suhina... its About her. She went. In her sleep. To Shubh's house."

Nami looked at me like she wanted to laugh, but forgot how. "Seriously? She's doing that?"

"She doesn't even remember going. Says someone calls her. In her dreams. And when she gets there, it's like... it's like she belongs there."

Nami didn't respond right away. Just stared at the dead leaves on the ground like they might rearrange themselves into an answer.

"My cousin once told me about a girl in their village," she finally said. "Same thing. Sleepwalking. Always to the same place. People thought it was some kind of spell or curse or..." She shook her head. "It's stupid. Just a story."

But her voice cracked at the edges.

And I saw it—the doubt threading its way in, delicate but undeniable.

"Shubh's house?" she asked.

I nodded.

Her face shifted in that quiet way people's faces do when they're trying to keep the world from cracking open.

"Maybe it's not ghosts," I said. "Maybe it's trauma. Or something her mind is trying to fix in dreams."

"But what if it's not just in her head?"

I didn't have an answer. But Nami already knew that.

She stood. "Let's go talk to her."

"After lunch?"

"No," she said. "Now."

We went to the hallway where suhina us Standing .

The hallway was too still. That kind of still that makes you feel like you're interrupting something. A breath. A moment.

Suhina stood by the lockers like she didn't remember how she got there.

And when she turned to us, it felt like she was looking through water—like recognition had to swim up from somewhere deep.

"You came," she said softly. But it wasn't her voice. Not exactly.

Nami stepped forward, but gently. Like approaching something that might shatter. "Aira told me. About the dreams. About the house."

Suhina looked at me then. Like her eyes were asking a question her mouth couldn't.

"It's okay," I said. "You can trust her."

She nodded slowly. "It was the fourth time last night. I locked my door. I know I did. But this morning... the lock was broken."

Her voice was paper-thin. Fragile in a way that made something inside me ache.

Nami's voice dropped, careful. "Is there something in that house? Something calling you?"

Suhina didn't answer. She just looked away. But silence can be louder than words sometimes.

And in that silence, I realized something.

This wasn't just sleepwalking.

This wasn't just fear.

This was something else.

And we were already part of it—whether we wanted to be or not.

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