Chapter 7 – The School That Ends at Class Tenth

 

            The school did not announce its ending.

            There was no bell for it, no assembly, no speech reminding them that some doors do not reopen. It ended quietly, the way certain places do…by remaining exactly the same while the people inside were forced to change.

            The building stood as it always had: pale walls softened by years of sun, windows holding dust like memory, corridors echoing with footsteps that never asked where they were going next. The neem tree near the boundary wall shed its leaves without drama. The playground lines faded slowly, as if even chalk understood impermanence.

            For ten years, the school had been a complete world. Now it revealed its true shape…finite, contained, ending at Class Tenth.

            Kamal learned this not through announcement, but through absence.

***

            It was an ordinary morning when the future arrived without knocking.

            A notice was pinned near the staff room. Thin paper. Black ink. Corners already curling, as if even it wished to retreat.

            Students gathered around it in small knots…reading, re-reading, leaning closer as if proximity might soften meaning.

            Admissions for Classes Eleventh and Twelfth are not available.

            Nothing more.

            No explanation. No apology.

            Kamal stood at a distance, his bag hanging from one shoulder. He watched reactions pass over faces…indifference, mild irritation, excitement, relief. Some students laughed, already planning new uniforms, new campuses. Some walked away too quickly, pretending this was minor.

            A few remained very still.

            Kamal did not step closer. He already knew what the words would say. He had always known. The school had never promised more than this. It was he who had imagined continuity.

            In the classroom, the teacher spoke of examination schedules and certificates, her voice overly careful.

            “After this year,” she said, pausing longer than required, “you will move on.”

            Move on to where, she did not specify.

            Kamal stared at his desk…scarred by years of careless carving. Initials, dates, half-formed hearts. He traced a groove with his fingertip and wondered how many students had once sat exactly here, listening to similar sentences, believing they were prepared.

            Across the room, Monica sat near the window.

            She was listening.

            She understood immediately.

***

            Monica did not react outwardly.

            She had learned early that visible reactions invited questions, and questions demanded answers she often did not wish to give. Instead, she folded the information inward, letting it settle slowly, painfully.

            So this was the shape of it, she thought.

            Not a breakup. Not a confession interrupted. Just geography.

            She glanced at Kamal…not openly, not urgently. Just enough to confirm what she already sensed. His posture had changed. His attention lingered on things that had never demanded it before: the classroom clock, the window latch, the crack in the wall behind the blackboard.

            He was memorizing.

            That hurt more than the notice itself.

            Monica had always been the one who understood endings before they arrived. She sensed them the way animals sensed storms…through subtle shifts others dismissed.

            This school was ending for him.

            For her, it would continue.

            That difference felt cruel.

***

            They did not speak of it after school.

            They walked as they always had, bicycles rolling beside them, dust rising in familiar patterns. The road curved gently, lined with trees that had witnessed their silence grow over the years.

            Everything looked unchanged.

            That was the betrayal.

            The shop at the corner still displayed sweets in glass jars. The stray dog slept beneath the bench. Children played marbles near the drain, shouting with careless certainty.

            Kamal wanted to speak.

            He wanted to say: I am leaving.

            He wanted to say: I don’t know how to place you in the future.

            Instead, he said, “Tomorrow there’s the science test.”

            Monica nodded.

            “Yes.”

            Tomorrow.

            They had always lived inside that word, stretching it thin, pretending it was endless.

            She sensed his restraint and matched it…not because she lacked courage, but because she respected the fragility of the moment. Some truths demanded timing, not bravery.

***

            At home, Kamal’s father read the newspaper with practiced seriousness.

            “You’ll apply elsewhere,” he said. “Better facilities. Better exposure.”

            Kamal nodded.

            His mother stirred the pot slowly. “Change is good,” she added. “You’ll make new friends.”

            Good.

            The word felt hollow.

            No one asked how he felt. Perhaps they believed emotions adjusted automatically, like uniforms altered by tailors who never asked whether the cloth had memories.

            That night, Kamal lay awake listening to the house…sounds he had never noticed before. The ceiling fan’s uneven rhythm. A distant dog barking. The soft creak of a door as wind passed through.

            This house would remain.

            The school would not.

            Monica would not.

            The thought pressed into him with quiet force.

***

            Monica did not cry that night.

            She sat by her window, watching the road dissolve into darkness. She allowed the ache to exist without naming it. Naming made things real, and she was not ready for that kind of permanence.

            This is not ending, she told herself.

            This is interruption.

            She repeated it until it felt believable.

            Monica had never demanded certainty from life. She had learned to stand firmly even when the ground shifted. If Kamal was leaving, she would not burden him with her fear. Love, she believed, should not feel like guilt.

            But she allowed herself one weakness.

            She imagined him walking unfamiliar corridors, sitting beside strangers, laughing at jokes she would never hear.

            That image stayed.

***

            The days that followed were painfully normal.

            Teachers continued lessons. Homework was assigned. Students complained about marks. The bell rang with practiced authority.

            That was how endings disguised themselves…as routine.

            During a free period, Kamal and Monica sat on the back bench, sharing a notebook filled with careless sketches.

            “Remember,” Kamal said, pointing at a drawing of the playground, “when we thought this place was endless?”

            Monica smiled faintly. “I thought everything important would happen here.”

            “Did it?”

            She looked at him, steady and unafraid.

            “Yes.”

            The word held years inside it.

            They did not promise letters. They did not speak of visits. Such assurances belonged to people who believed distance could be negotiated.

            They believed only in truth.

***

 

            The final day arrived without permission.

            There was no farewell assembly. No announcement. Kamal’s name was not separated from the rest.

            He packed his bag like any other morning.

            At the last bell, students rushed out, celebrating freedom. For Kamal, it felt like exile disguised as vacation.

            Monica waited near the gate.

            “So this is it,” she said.

            He nodded. “I thought it would feel heavier.”

            “It will,” she replied. “Later.”

            They stood facing each other, the road stretching behind them in both directions.

            “I’ll remember,” he said.

            She nodded. “That’s enough.”

            They did not hug.

            They did not cry.

            Some goodbyes refuse spectacle.

            Kamal turned and walked away.

            They had both finished the same class.

            But Kamal left immediately…carried forward by decisions already made for him.

            Monica remained behind, not because her journey was different, but because it had not yet been decided.

            Delay, she would learn, could make absence feel heavier than departure.

***

            The road noticed first.

            It had grown used to two shadows moving together, adjusting instinctively. Now there was only one.

            Monica watched until he disappeared.  She did not wave.

            She turned back toward the school gate.

            The building stood unchanged, indifferent.

            For the first time, she understood that places outlive people, but not memories.

***

            That night, Kamal packed his books into a new bag. Different covers. Different labels. Same handwriting.

            Elsewhere, Monica sat by her window, listening to the road breathe.

            They did not know what shape the future would take.

            They only knew this:  Somewhere between a school that ended at Class Tenth and a road that remembered their steps, something real had begun.

            Interrupted.  But not ended.

***

            Monica did not return home immediately.

            She stood near the gate long after Kamal disappeared, pretending to adjust her bag, pretending to search for something inside it. In truth, she was waiting for a sensation…something dramatic, something final…that never arrived.

            What came instead was confusion.

            The world did not stop. The road did not tremble. The sky did not darken in recognition. A group of younger students ran past her, laughing loudly, careless in a way she suddenly envied.

So this is how it happens, she thought.
You lose someone, and the day refuses to notice.

            She walked slowly, not trusting her legs to remember the route on their own. Every few steps, memory interfered…his voice pointing out a broken stone, his silence matching hers, the sound of two bicycles being wheeled instead of one.

            Now there was only one.

            The absence was not loud. It was accurate.

            At home, Monica’s mother was folding clothes.

            “You’re late,” she said casually.

            “Yes,” Monica replied, placing her bag down with care. Too much care. As if it might shatter.

            Her mother glanced up, then back down. Mothers often sensed things they did not name. She did not ask why Monica’s eyes looked distant or why her movements were slower.

            “Food is on the stove.”

            Monica nodded.

            She went to her room and sat on the edge of the bed without turning on the light. The room felt smaller, though nothing had changed. Her books lay stacked neatly. Her uniform hung where she had left it.

            Everything was where it belonged.

            She was not.

            For the first time, the thought surfaced without permission:

            Tomorrow, he will not be here.

            Not on the road.  Not near the window.             Not in the pauses where he always appeared without being called.

            Her chest tightened…not enough to cry, just enough to make breathing feel deliberate.

            She lay down fully clothed and stared at the ceiling.

            This was not heartbreak the way stories described it.

            This was something quieter.

***

            The next morning arrived with unfair enthusiasm.

            Sunlight filled the room as if nothing had been lost. Birds argued loudly near the window. Somewhere, a radio played an old song she did not listen to.

            Monica sat up slowly.

            He is gone, she reminded herself.  And I am still here.

            The thought did not hurt. It stunned.

            At school, everything looked the same…and that was worse than change.

            The corridors echoed as usual. The same notice board stood near the staff room. The same chalk dust floated lazily in the air.

            But Kamal’s desk was empty.

            Not ceremonially empty. Just… unused.

            Someone else would sit there soon. Someone else would carve their name into its surface, unaware that the space had once held a boy who listened more than he spoke.

            Monica took her seat near the window.

            She told herself she would not look.

            She looked anyway.

            During class, the teacher asked a question.

            Monica knew the answer.

            She raised her hand halfway…then stopped.

            What is the point? she wondered suddenly.
            Who is watching now?

            The realization startled her. She had never raised her hand for Kamal. She had done it for herself.

            But he had been there…quiet, observing, understanding.

            Now the room felt unbalanced, as if a piece of furniture had been removed without warning.

            She lowered her hand.

            The teacher moved on.

            At recess, her friends talked about results, about new admissions, about which schools were better. Monica listened without participating.

            One of them asked, “Isn’t Kamal leaving?”

            The question was asked lightly, as if it concerned a bus schedule.

            “Yes,” Monica said.

            “Must be nice. New place, new people.”

            Monica smiled, because that was easier than explaining that new did not always mean better, and leaving did not always mean choice.

            She excused herself and walked toward the playground.  The neem tree stood exactly where it always had.  She leaned against its trunk and closed her eyes. This time, the pain did not wait for permission.  It came suddenly, sharp and unplanned.  Her throat tightened. Her eyes burned.

            She pressed her forehead against the bark and stayed very still, as if movement might betray her.

            I was careful, she thought.
            I didn’t ask for promises. I didn’t ask him to stay. I didn’t even cry.

            So why does it still hurt?

            Because love, she realized, did not measure fairness.

            It measured absence.

***

 

            That evening, Monica took the longer route home.

            She walked the road slowly, deliberately, forcing herself to notice details she had ignored before: a crack near the culvert, a new shop sign, the smell of fresh paint somewhere nearby.

            She stopped at the spot where Kamal usually paused to adjust his bicycle.

            Her feet slowed on instinct.

            Then she stopped entirely.

            For a moment…a brief, foolish moment…she expected him to appear, walking beside her as if nothing had changed.

            The moment passed.

            She laughed softly at herself.

            “Not today,” she whispered, unsure why she spoke aloud.

            The road remained silent.

***

            That night, Monica finally cried.

            Not loudly. Not desperately.

            Just enough to let the weight loosen.

            She cried for the conversations they never had.  For the feelings they protected too well. For the unfairness of timing that pretended to be fate.

            When the tears ended, she felt empty…but lighter.

            She wiped her face, folded her blanket carefully, and lay back down.

            This is not the end, she told herself again.

            This time, the words did not feel brave.

            They felt necessary.

***

            Miles away…or perhaps only a few streets…Kamal sat in a new room, staring at unfamiliar walls.

            He unpacked his books slowly, pausing when his hand brushed against a notebook Monica had once scribbled in absentmindedly.

            He did not open it.

            Some things were better remembered intact.

            He sat on the bed and exhaled.

            The silence here was different.

            It did not know him yet.

***

            And so the school ended.

            Not with closure.  Not with clarity.

            But with two people learning…separately…that some connections do not dissolve when distance appears.

            They simply wait.  Quietly.  On the road.