A brief shock surged through me as my binder, notebooks, and planner were propelled out of my hands and clattered to the floor. I bent my knees and crouched, grasping for my binder.

“Sorry,” I muttered it quickly, with obvious emotion attached but so fast passing that one might not of even heard it if not listening carefully.

After that, I didn’t even pay them a glance.  Time was closing in, and I needed to get to my fifth hour fast. I grabbed the last of my school supplies and shot upward, full on running towards the end of the hall in sight. I didn’t pay much thought to the incident as I surged through the door to the French room and plopped down into my desk, but once seated, that changed instantly. Perhaps one could say it was a bit of an aftershock; I wondered if I had done any serious harm to the other person or if their papers were scattered or not, but I also thought about what that person could say to others, and I started to sweat. Questions shot around my mind, so, acting as the resident fly swatter, I stopped one of the inquiries in motion. Now focused, I thought to myself, how did that happen? It all happened so fast; it was obvious at least one of us was rushing. We walked into the same area of the school at the same time, and we didn’t have time to either see each other or stop running into each other… what first was shoved under the rug slid out again, and I found myself more embarrassed by the incident.y mind darted around to remember if it was anyone I knew,what their reaction was,or if they missed their class. I didn’t know the answers to those questions; I could only guess -- it had all happened so fast.

      Years passed. The incident had become thick with fog, largely irrelevant or forgotten since then. Steadily striding forward, I turned a blind corner that lead to the social studies hallway.  Moving forward, I barely had time to register their face, and then I was caught off guard, and we slammed into each other, school supplies cascading onto the light grey-green floor. I rapidly reached out and caught my planner in mid air and got a tight hold of it before bending down and reaching for my binder. Grasping it, I looked up at the boy who I had run into.

   “Sorry, I should’ve watched where I was going.”

    “It’s OK. I should’ve as well; I was rushing.”

       The boy replied almost instantly, shakily -- our responses were similar that way. Glancing for my novel, I noticed some of the other boy’s papers had escaped and were now plastered over the floor. I grabbed my novel, and noticing I had nothing left to pick up, I grabbed one of the other boy’s papers and handed it to him.

    “Thanks,” he muttered.

    “You’re welcome,” I replied.

      After helping him pick up his papers, I shot back up and trotted on to my classroom. Glancing back, I saw the boy do the same. Split seconds after I arrived in the classroom, the bell rang, and I sat in my seat. While the event was still a bit of a shock to me, because of the unexpected nature of the run-in, after checking my binder for all of my papers, I was already focusing on the assignment for the day. It had all happened so fast. Yet it felt “complete”. I had made a mistake, but so had they, and we both apologized for it, making sure we learnt for the next time and so forth.