The walk to school has started to feel normal, which is probably a bad sign. Same bakery window with the same sad croissants. Same man smoking outside the same bar at ten in the morning like it’s a full-time job. Same cracked bit of pavement where I always catch my toe if I’m not looking.
I went anyway. That felt like the achievement.
My head was still full of the hostel. Fireworks. Raised voices. The way Lucía had said my name like it was a thing from another life. I kept replaying it while waiting for the traffic lights to change, like my brain was trying to keep me busy so it wouldn’t have to think about verbs.
The classroom was already half full. The German guy was there early, as usual, neatly arranged. The American girl was explaining something loudly to nobody in particular. The quiet Japanese bloke nodded at everyone like he was apologising for existing. Same cast. Same room. Same chairs that are all the wrong height in different ways.
I sat down and took my notebook out like a grown adult.
The teacher came in smiling, energetic, already mid-sentence. I caught most of it. That’s new. A few weeks ago it was all just pleasant noise. Now it’s more like badly tuned radio. You get the song, but the singer keeps drowning.
We were doing something with the past. Or maybe the almost-past. Or the past that never really happened but could have if your aunt had owned a goat. Spanish has a lot of emotional commitment baked into its grammar.
She explained the exercise. I understood her.
That was the problem.
I understood the words. I understood what we were meant to do. I just couldn’t make my hands do it. Or my mouth. Or my brain in the right order.
We had to talk in pairs. Of course we did.
I got the German guy. He is very nice. He is also already on about Chapter Twelve of Life while I am still trying to find the index.
He started confidently. I nodded like I was following. I was. Mostly. Then it was my turn.
I knew what I wanted to say. I could see the sentence in my head, like a flat-pack diagram. All the pieces were there. I just couldn’t work out which screw went where.
I started. Stopped. Started again. Changed tense halfway through like a man falling down the stairs and trying to pretend it was on purpose.
He waited politely. Which is worse than impatience.
I said something that was technically a sentence. It just wasn’t the sentence I meant. It was like ordering a coffee and asking for a chair.
He smiled. The teacher drifted over. Fixed it in three words. Moved on.
I wrote the correction down. Underlined it. Circled it. I will still get it wrong tomorrow.
The rest of the class went like that. Small, quiet failures. The kind that don’t hurt enough to be interesting.
At one point the American girl said something perfect and everyone laughed, including the teacher, and I laughed too even though I didn’t fully get why it was funny. That felt like joining in a conversation by nodding.
When the class ended, I didn’t feel angry. Or inspired. Or motivated.
I felt tired in a very specific place behind my eyes.
Outside, Barcelona was doing its normal thing. Scooters. Sun. Someone shouting into a phone like it was personally to blame. I walked for a bit without knowing where I was going, then realised I was heading towards the sea out of habit.
I didn’t go. I stopped and got a coffee instead.
At least with waves, when you mess up, it’s just you and a lot of water that doesn’t care. Words remember.
I sat there and tried to do one of the exercises again. Got it wrong. Got it right. Then got it wrong in a different way.
Progress, apparently.
On the way back, I passed the school again and had the strange thought that I was already inside it, even though I was on the street. Like it had moved in somewhere.
I’m not a tourist anymore. But I’m not a person here yet either.
I’m something in between, with a notebook full of circles and arrows, trying to build sentences that can stand up on their own.
Tomorrow I’ll go back and do it again. Not because I’m confident.
Just because not going would feel worse.