Student sample for assessment
Written by a Year 9 student in Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia.
The supermarket was too bright. Maya pushed her trolley toward the freezer section and tried to focus on the ice cream flavours—vanilla, chocolate, salted caramel—anything but the figure three aisles over. It was definitely him. Same jacket. Same way of standing with his weight on one foot. Four years. They'd been inseparable at fourteen, the kind of friendship where you finish each other's sentences and know which hurt you had without asking. Then he'd moved schools, and they'd promised to stay in touch, but promises dissolve. A missed text message here. A birthday left uncelebrated there. Eventually you stop checking. Eventually you forget they exist until you see them in a supermarket and your stomach drops. Maya turned her trolley around. Slow. Casual. She could reach the milk from the other aisle. 'Maya? Oh my God, is that you?' He was already walking toward her, and she couldn't turn away now. She couldn't pretend she hadn't heard. She stood there holding the trolley handle like it was keeping her upright. 'It's been so long,' he said, and he was smiling—that smile, the one that made her remember why they'd been close. 'You look... different. Good different.' She wanted to say something smart. She wanted to tell him about university applications and the drama club and the person she'd become. Instead, she said: 'You still have that jacket.' He looked down like he'd forgotten what he was wearing. 'Yeah, I guess I do. Mum says I should throw it out.' They stood in the freezer aisle, cold air leaking out, and Maya realised she didn't know what to ask him. Where he'd been, yes. What he was doing, sure. But those weren't the real questions. The real question was: why did it hurt to see him smile at her like she hadn't become a stranger? 'I should grab some ice cream,' she said. 'Right. Yeah, of course. Um... are you on Instagram or anything? We could catch up properly.' She watched him say it, watched the hope flicker in his face, and she knew they both understood what would happen. He'd add her. She'd accept. They'd like each other's photos maybe twice. And then nothing would change. They'd still be the people who'd been close once and weren't anymore. 'Yeah,' she said. 'I'll look you up.' He nodded. He looked smaller somehow, even though she knew he must be taller than he used to be. 'Good to see you,' he said, and he meant it. She could tell. He meant it in the way people mean things when they know they're also saying goodbye. Maya selected a tub of vanilla, watched him head toward the checkout, and understood that some people leave your life not with a fight or a dramatic ending, but like this—slowly, and then suddenly in a supermarket, where you stand in the cold air and realise you're grieving something that's been gone for years.