Chapter 20 — The Thirteenth Desk Drawer

The first day of the new school year comes after a summer filled with paint dust. The Thirteen Reading Room sign hangs in front of building C, dark blue letters, not elaborately decorated. The old door was kept, but the lock was replaced with a transparent lock so the mechanism inside could be seen. Khoi said that was the school's way of reminding everyone that safety should not be synonymous with tightness.

An Khe became an eleventh grade student. She still sat near the window, but table number thirteen was moved into the reading room. Its old place in the classroom is a new desk, the wooden surface is so smooth that there is no story. On the first day, the teacher asked who wanted to sit in that seat. No one raised their hand. An Khe looked at Khoi, he shrugged.

“Just leave it blank for a week,” she said. “Someone will need it.”

An Khe is no longer new to school. The lower classes came to her to ask how to look up documents, how to write letters asking for support, and how to use the scanner. Some people sought her out just to talk about things unrelated to the table. She learned to listen without making every sadness her duty.

Khoi is in charge of repairing things in the reading room. He made another low chair for the children, closed the leaky cabinet and recorded each item of supplies. Tuong Vy opened a "Slow Reading" club, each week choosing a true story for everyone to debate. Mai sometimes sends books back without writing down the name of the giver.

One afternoon, Mai went to school with the mother of a new scholarship student. The mother wanted to thank her, but Mai refused. She said the scholarship was not her own gift; That is the responsibility the school must carry out. The mother still secretly placed a bag of oranges in front of the door. Tuong Vy shared it with everyone, saying that this type of thank you is easier to say than thank you on stage.

Mai asked An Khe if she still felt angry. An Khe said yes, sometimes. She was angry at those who signed, those who saw and turned away, even at the times when she herself just wanted an answer quickly.

“Anger is not bad,” Mai said. "It shows you where your boundaries are. Just don't let anger drive the rest of your life."

In the backyard, Khoi was fiddling with a wooden board. An Khe walked over and saw him engraved the words "Everyone has an unopened desk drawer".

“Where are you going to hang it?”

"I don't know. Carve first, find a place later."

“Sounds like the way you live.”

“What about you?”

An Khe looked towards the reading room window. “I usually find a place first before I dare to carve.”

Khoi laughed. He gave her the chisel. An Khe added a period at the end of the sentence. The dot is slightly off, but neither of them corrected it.

At the end of the semester, the school received a letter from someone who studied with Mai. That person apologized for hearing the rumors and believing them, saying that Mai was probably just doing too much to get attention. The writer did not ask Mai to answer, just wanted to admit that he had contributed a stone to the wall that made it impossible for her to return.

Mai reads letters in the reading room. She didn't cry. She folded it up and put it in the storage compartment for unnamed apologies. An Khe asked if she was going to answer.

“Maybe. But not today.”

That was the first time An Khe understood that an apology is not the key that opens all doors. The recipient has the right to open it whenever they want, or just keep it in hand to know the other person can finally see the door.

The night before the closing ceremony, An Khe and Khoi stayed in the reading room to arrange books. The electricity in the hallway flickered, the sound of rain tapping on the corrugated iron roof. Khoi took out a small envelope from desk drawer number thirteen, with the name An Khe written on the outside.

“You write?” she asked.

"Yes. But I don't know how to send it in a less awkward way."

An Khe opened the letter. Khoi wrote that from the day she moved in, the table was no longer a physical evidence but became a place where people sat. He thanked her for not turning the people in the story into simple good or bad characters. He also wrote that if she wanted to leave school in the future, he would still keep the key to the reading room, but hoped she would come back.

“Are you confessing your love with a key?” An Khe asked.

Khoi's ears turned red. “I'm trying the least risky way.”

“It failed.”

“So do we have to do it again?”

An Khe smiled and folded the letter. She took a piece of paper from her pocket, wrote a few words and gave it to him. Khoi read: "I will come back. But next time you have to speak frankly."

The two people stood in the middle of the reading room, no one said more. Outside the window, the rain gradually lessened. When the security bell rang, Khoi locked the door, and An Khe checked the table. Desk drawer number thirteen is still open, inside there are papers from many people, each paper is a question that may not have an answer.

Many years later, when someone asked where the story began, An Khe often told about an extra desk in an old classroom. But she always stopped there, not mentioning how the table kept the secret for them. She said secrets can't solve anything on their own. The solvers are those who pull up their chairs, read each line, call the forgotten person's name correctly, and open the door that someone once locked.

That day, the table was occupied. Not just one person, but anyone who needs a place to write what they haven't dared to say. And for the first time, no one has to fear that their paper will be pushed into the darkness.

An Khe hung the reading room key next to the desk. Khoi hangs a dot on a wooden board. Mai's story doesn't end with everything being perfect. It ends on a more modest note: from now on, those who remain know what to do when a chair becomes vacant.

After the end of the lecture, An Khe went home to help her mother arrange boxes of old documents. Her mother decided to reapply for a job as an archivist, not at her old company but at a children's support organization. She said she can't fix everything she's missed, but she can start by not ignoring it anymore.

Khoi stayed at school all summer. He painted the wooden board, changed the lamp and wrote instructions for using the reading room. One day he sent a photo of a hinge installed upside down. An Khe laughed so much that he almost dropped the phone. He said a new project cannot be perfect if the worker is still a student; She replied that was all the more reason to keep the maintenance book.

Tuong Vy was elected as a student representative on the reading room management board. She no longer tries to be right. She learned to say "I don't know" before looking for the answer. Duy Khang opened a sports corner in the backyard, using old prize money to buy balls for the lower classes. He didn't want anyone to remember him by the envelope, so he just labeled it "shared use".

Mai invited the group to her small apartment. On the shelf there is a tin box similar to the one Mrs. Thu used to keep. Mai had put in the copies she was allowed to save, not to live in the past but to know she could open it when needed. She cooked a pot of slightly salty sour soup. Khoi ate three bowls, Tuong Vy drank all the water, An Khe asked for the recipe.

“Are you planning to write a book?” Tuong Vy asked.

Mai shook her head. "Maybe one day. But if I write, I won't write to prove that I was wronged. I will write about the days after that, when I have to learn to trust people again."

An Khe understands that is the most difficult part. A report can conclude who is wrong, but it cannot order someone to stop being vigilant. Trust is not returned with a signature; it comes back through many times others respecting boundaries.

Before leaving, Mai gave An Khe an old hairpin, the same item that was once in a cloth bag in the warehouse. She told An Khe to keep it if she wanted, but not to consider it as evidence. An Khe received it and put it in a separate notebook, next to the unanswered questions.

On the first day of the school year, a new student sat at the desk in class 11A7. He asked why the table surface had an M-shaped scratch. An Khe was about to tell everything, but Khoi shook his head. She just said it was a story that needed to be read at the right time. The boy nodded, took a pen and opened the notebook.

Table number thirteen in the reading room is occupied. Sometimes it's a little girl writing a letter to her mother, sometimes it's a student looking up documents, sometimes it's Mai standing still looking at the sunlight on the wooden surface. No one has to take on the role of hero. They just need to leave the door open, write down the correct name, ask one more question, and not give away the power to tell someone else's story for the sake of convenience.

An Khe and Khoi passed by the window at the end of the row. The door was still open like the first day, but the figure standing next to the teacher was no longer a mystery. It's anyone willing to step in. An Khe looked at the key next to the desk, then looked at Khoi.

“Will you still fix the table tomorrow?”

"Yes. But I will ask the person sitting first what to change."

An Khe laughed. They went downstairs, leaving behind a well-lit room and a desk drawer that was no longer locked. Mai's story has returned to its correct name, and the stories of those after her are starting with a blank page.