Between Us, Part 3: When Kaja Gets Angry

Between Us, Part 3: When Kaja Gets Angry

The Story Begins

On Monday morning, Class 8.B was only half noisy. Some students were still standing by the windows with their jackets on, others were searching under their desks for chargers, and Filip was trying to open a bottle of juice without spilling it on his notebook.

Nela sat at her desk, looking at the sheet that divided up the tasks for the class project. They had to make a display board about places in town that could be improved. Kaja was in charge of the photos, Nela of the texts, and together they had to put it all in order.

“Did you send me those captions yesterday?” Kaja asked without saying hello.

Nela looked up. “I thought it was for today. We said we’d finish it in the morning.”

“No, we said you’d have them finished by evening.” Kaja set her phone down on the desk a little harder than necessary. “At least that’s how I understood it.”

The class chat glowed on the screen. Among the messages about homework was Kaja’s line from Sunday evening: Send them when you have them. Nela had not noticed it until that morning. The night before, she had helped her mum with her younger brother, then studied history, and eventually her phone had ended up under the blanket with a dead battery.

“Sorry, I didn’t see it,” she said quietly. “I’ve got almost all of it done. I just wanted to revise the introduction.”

Kaja fell silent for a moment. But her shoulders remained tense, as if they had been pulled right up to her ears. She wore the colourful hoodie she often wore, yet even that did not give her her usual energy today.

“Sure,” she said. “So we’ll be doing everything at the last minute again.”

Something in the classroom went quiet. It was not complete silence, more the kind in which everyone suddenly hears paper rustling and a pen clicking. Adam stopped rummaging through his backpack. Filip looked at Nela, then at Kaja, and left the juice unopened.

Nela wanted to say that it was not about everything, only three captions. Instead, she took out her notebook and opened it to the right page.

“We’ll get it done,” she said.

Kaja took the task sheet and ran her finger over it. Just then the teacher came in for the first lesson, so they could not continue talking. But the short exchange did not become any less noticeable simply because the bell had rung.

During maths, Nela got two problems wrong, although she could normally solve similar ones at home without trouble. Meanwhile, Kaja did not turn towards her even once. She wrote quickly, and every now and then her pen knocked against the desk.

During the long break, everyone was meant to move to the tables at the back and finish the project. Their civics teacher had given them twenty minutes. Nela placed her printed texts beside Kaja’s photographs. On one sheet, though, the title beneath the picture of the old bus stop was missing.

“I’ll add that,” she said, reaching for a pen.

Kaja leaned over the table. “Couldn’t you have added it earlier?”

“It’s one sentence.”

“Exactly. One sentence, one message, one caption. It’s always something.”

Nela paused. A few people pretended to be cutting out pictures, but their scissors suddenly moved more slowly. Filip cleared his throat as if he wanted to say something, then lowered his head over the glue instead.

“Kaja, you don’t have to say it like that,” Nela said. Her voice was quiet, but in that tension it sounded clearer than she had expected.

When Things Start to Change

The red-haired girl turned sharply towards her. “And how am I supposed to say it? Should I pretend everything is great? Because you always just say we’ll get it done, and then I have to save it?”

The sentence was not shouted. That was exactly why it hurt more. It sounded ordinary, almost matter-of-fact, only too loud to ignore.

Nela knew that Kaja was not really saving the whole project. She also knew that the week before, they had spent two breaks choosing photos together and laughing about a strange statue near the station. Even so, at that moment she could not think of anything that would not sound like defending herself in front of the whole class.

So she only nodded, took the sheet, and said, “Okay. I’ll add it.”

Then she went to the window, where an empty desk stood. She sat there with her back to the others and began writing the title beneath the photo. Her letters were neat, but the last one spread slightly when she pressed harder with the pen than she meant to.

Behind her, she heard whispering. Not distinct words, more short fragments of sentences that always grew quieter whenever someone turned around. Class 8.B was not cruel. No one laughed or added stupid comments. Still, Nela felt their eyes between her shoulder blades.

A moment later, the bell rang. As soon as the civics teacher entered the classroom, everyone hurried back to their seats. The project remained on the back table, slightly crooked, with one corner stuck to the mat.

After the lesson, Nela left the classroom before the others. She stopped at the water dispenser only because she did not want to have to go anywhere straight away. The water trickled into the paper cup too slowly. By the time it was full, she did not even want to drink it.

Voices drifted from the classroom. Filip was trying to tell Adam something about PE, but the laugh that came out was brief and cautious. Even through the half-open door, Nela could feel that everyone knew what had happened. And perhaps they were waiting to see whether she would return and act normal, or whether Kaja would come and apologise.

Nela did not like becoming the centre of anything. She preferred to put things aside, like papers stacked on a table that no one wants to deal with. But papers do not disappear. They get in the way when you are looking for something else.

She pulled a sticker-covered notebook from her school bag. On the last page, she had an unfinished sentence from the week before, but now she could not complete it. She wrote only: When someone says “again”, it sounds as if you have ruined things that have not even happened yet.

Then she looked at the words for a moment and quickly shut the notebook. She felt embarrassed that she had written them at all.

Something clicked near the lockers at the end of the corridor. Kaja stood there with her back to Nela, struggling with the lock. She turned it once, then again. When the locker finally opened, she took nothing out. She only rested her palm against the metal door.

At first, Nela told herself she would go the other way. She could leave the whole conversation until later. Maybe until tomorrow. Maybe forever, if Kaja acted as if nothing had happened.

Just then, Kaja’s phone vibrated. She looked at the screen, and her expression changed. Not dramatically; for a moment, all the sharpness simply left her face.

An Important Moment

“Are you okay?” Nela asked before she had time to think.

Kaja flinched and turned the phone face down. “Sure.”

“You don’t have to tell me what it was.”

“Then why are you asking?”

Nela shrugged. “Because you don’t look okay.”

Kaja gave a short, humourless laugh. “Neither do you.”

That was true. And perhaps that was exactly why Nela did not leave.

“What you said during the project hurt,” she said. The moment she had said it, she wanted to take it back. It sounded too serious. “I don’t mean the caption. I mean the part about you supposedly having to save everything.”

Kaja looked at the locker. “I shouldn’t have said it in front of the others.”

“You shouldn’t have said it to me either.”

“Yeah.” Kaja ran a hand through her short hair. “I just… I don’t know. Everything has been getting on my nerves since this morning.”

“I noticed.”

“Thanks,” Kaja snapped automatically, then immediately lowered her eyes. “Sorry. Again.”

This time, Nela almost smiled, but not quite. “What’s going on?”

The girl was silent for a moment. Two seventh graders ran down the corridor, loudly arguing about a football. When they disappeared around the corner, Kaja said, “Things are chaotic at home right now. Mum has early shifts, and I take my brother to school in the mornings. Today he dug his heels in and wouldn’t put his shoes on, so I was nearly late. Then Mum texted to ask whether I’d forgotten something for Grandma. And I hadn’t forgotten, I just…”

She did not finish.

“It was just too much?” Nela supplied carefully.

Kaja nodded. “And when I saw you hadn’t finished the captions, it felt like one more thing I would have to deal with. Even though it really isn’t such a big thing.”

For a moment, they stood beside the lockers without speaking. Nela noticed that Kaja’s nails were chipped from nervously scratching at the polish. She had never noticed before. Usually, Kaja was the one with an answer ready before the other person had time to breathe.

“You should have just told me normally,” Nela said. “Not acted as if I was doing nothing again.”

“I know.”

“Because then I felt as if I really was useless. And everyone was looking.”

At last, Kaja turned directly towards her. There was no defiance in her eyes, only something tired. “I didn’t want them to look.”

“But they did.”

“Yeah.” Kaja bit her lip. “Sorry, Nela. Really.”

It was not a grand apology. No long speech, no promises that it would never happen again. Just two words that came out a little harder than her earlier sharp ones.

Nela nodded. “Okay. Just… next time, tell me before you explode over one caption.”

“Next time, try answering me,” Kaja said, raising one eyebrow for a moment.

“If my phone doesn’t die under a blanket, then yes.”

This time Kaja really smiled, though only a little. “That’s a weird way for a phone to die.”

“It’s a very common way for phones to die.”

When they went back to the classroom, they did not walk close beside each other as they usually did. About a step of space remained between them. Yet even that felt different from before. It was not full of anger, but of things they did not yet know how to say.

Filip was sitting on the edge of a desk in the classroom doorway, waiting for the next lesson. When he saw them, he stopped playing with his pen. Adam looked up from his notebook. The other classmates pretended to be busy with their own things, but their silence was no longer so sharp.

What Comes Next

Kaja went to the back table, picked up the project, and straightened its stuck corner. Then she handed Nela the photographs.

“The introduction is good,” she said. “Just print it in larger letters so people can see it.”

“Okay,” Nela replied.

That was all. No hug, no big reconciliation in front of the class. Even so, Filip finally opened his juice, and Adam asked whether he could add a small drawing of a cycle path to the display board. The class moved on, although everyone knew that something between the two girls still remained unsaid.

That evening, Nela sat at the desk in her room. The lamp shone only on her notebook, while the rest of the room was softly dark. Her bag lay open on the floor, with the corner of her history textbook sticking out.

Her phone vibrated once. It was a message from Kaja.

Thanks for today.

Nela looked at it for a while. She placed her fingers on the keyboard, but did not reply straight away. She did not know whether to say You’re welcome or ask how she was managing at home. Maybe she would write later. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe it would be better to wait first and see whether Kaja would say more herself.

Instead, she opened her notebook. On a blank page, she wrote slowly, so her letters would not run away.

“Some sentences hurt only after school.”