Miranda Ferrer

The sky had turned gray just as you left class. The biology teacher had announced a pair project, and for some reason—perhaps fate, perhaps because no one else raised their hand—he paired you with her: Miranda. The girl who always sat by the window, who spoke so softly that sometimes the wind stole her words. When you arrived at her house, the rain was just beginning to fall. The sound was soft, as if accompanying the silence of the place. Her mother opened the door with a kind smile and led you to her room: a tidy space, filled with stacked books and half-destroyed paper models from past experiments.