I didn't suddenly become a smart kid.
Mornings were still heavy, my uniform still felt too big, and I still yawned in class like everyone else. From the outside, there was nothing different about me. And honestly, I didn't want there to be anything different. I wasn't trying to stand out. I wasn't trying to prove anything. I just wanted to move forward quietly, without anyone noticing.
After school, I didn't go straight home. Not because I had some grand plan waiting for me, but because my feet stopped in front of a small building along the village's main road. The library. It was old, its paint faded by time, and its door always creaked when someone pushed it open. In my previous life, I rarely stepped inside this place. I always told myself I would come later. And that "later" never arrived.
Inside, the room was quiet. Wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with used books whose pages had turned yellow and whose covers were often torn. I walked slowly between them, my fingers brushing against the spines without any clear no goal, no target. Then my eyes stopped on a thin book with unfamiliar letters on its cover.
English for Beginners.
I stared at it for a long moment. Not because it fascinated me, but because memories surfaced without warning. The machine manuals scattered around my father's workshop. The foreign words I never understood. The articles I never bothered to read. I picked up the book. It was light, cheap, and unremarkable nothing special at all. Just like who I had been in my previous life.
I sat down at a reading table and opened the first page. The sentences were simple, almost too simple. I read them slowly, then read them again. I didn't understand everything right away. Some words felt awkward in my mouth, unfamiliar on my tongue. I closed the book and stayed still for a moment, then opened it again. I didn't feel smart. I didn't feel left behind either. I just felt like I had time.
As the sun began to tilt toward the west, someone suddenly sat down across from me.
"What are you doing?"
I looked up. My friend was staring at the book in my hands with a strange expression, as if he wasn't sure what he was seeing.
"Studying?" he asked, hesitant.
I nodded slightly.
"Oh."
He didn't laugh. He didn't tease me, and he didn't ask anything else. He simply opened his bag, pulled out a worn-out comic book, and started reading. We sat there together in silence a silence that didn't feel awkward or heavy.
"Do you understand it?" he asked after a while.
I shook my head.
"Then why bother?"
I thought about it for a moment. "So I'll understand it later."
The answer was simple, almost too simple. He looked at me for a few seconds, then shrugged.
"Alright then."
That was all. No encouragement. No comments. He treated me the same as always, and that alone made me want to keep sitting there, turning pages slowly.
That evening at home, I opened the book again. I read a single page, then stopped. I wrote one word on a small piece of paper and realized I had spelled it wrong. I erased it and wrote it again. My father walked past me, his work jacket draped over his arm.
"Studying?" he asked briefly.
"Yes."
He nodded. Not proud, not surprised just accepting.
That night, before I fell asleep, I stared at the cracked ceiling of my room. I didn't feel like I had changed dramatically. I didn't feel better than anyone else. I had only done one small thing something I never did in my previous life.
I started.
And for the first time, I didn't tell myself later.