0056.

I felt the wave of melancholy wash over me, mixed with relief, as Evelyn walked away. The stirring of those memories was part of seeing her again, a sense of touching things I hadn't in so long, that I had thought were locked away. Yet, those memories seemed to be an echo from another life, a life I no longer wanted to hold onto. My eyes drifted to Niylah beside me. Her searching gaze was steady and warm, a sense of home.

She didn't need to say anything. It was sufficient that her hand had touched mine, to put me in my place. I leaned into her, my fingers instinctively giving her hand a light press as if to reassure her that maybe this was where I was supposed to be: here, now, with her.

The rest of the assembly passed in a blur, with all those announcements and speeches no person listened to. My mind kept wandering back to the strange encounter, that out-of-place reminder of a past I thought I had long since outgrown. I couldn't get Evelyn's words out of my head, especially: *"Some t