Maybe, Someday

The midday heat pressed heavily through the open-air corridors of the fourth floor, thick with the scent of floor wax, exhaust from the avenue below, and the collective rustle of hundreds of students trading rooms. Mark adjusted the strap of his canvas messenger bag, his yellow polo bright under the harsh fluorescent lights as he leaned in to complain about their upcoming syllabus. Josh barely heard him. With a yellow wooden pencil tucked securely behind his right ear and his sketchbook hugged against his plain white t-shirt, he had stopped near the stairwell railing, arrested by a sudden break in the pedestrian tide. Across the corridor stood a girl he had never noticed before, bathed in the amber glare of the Manila sun streaming through the high concrete louvers. She wore a pale blue cotton blouse tucked into a knee-length denim skirt, her straight black hair caught up in an unadorned wooden clip. She was juggling a thick stack of spiral notebooks while staring at a buzzing mobile phone, her brow knit into a tight, anxious knot that made her golden skin look fragile under the glare. For a second, her shoulders sagged, revealing a bone-deep exhaustion that felt jarringly intimat…