CHAPTER 3: THE SILENCE BETWEEN US

Silence.

It had become Firenze’s oldest companion—soft, suffocating, and always faithful.

It filled the empty spaces in her mind, curled beside her on school benches, and tucked itself under her ribs where laughter used to live.

She sat at her desk, pretending to write something—anything—just to pass the time before class.

Her pen scratched nonsense onto the paper, a secret code between her and the quiet.

Five minutes before the bell, the teacher walked in with a smile that tried too hard.

"Firenze?" she asked gently.

"Why are you sitting alone? Why not join your classmates?"

Firenze blinked, startled, and gave the only answer she could summon:

"I'm fine, teacher."

But the teacher wasn’t convinced. She turned to the group of girls by the door—bright, polished, popular.

"Girls," she called, "she's new here. Shouldn’t you welcome her?"

The girls exchanged glances, all sweet smiles and empty hearts.

"We thought she liked being alone," one shrugged.

"She’s always like that. Quiet. It’s not our fault."

And maybe it wasn’t.

But it also wasn’t the whole truth.

Ever since Firenze had entered that classroom, those same girls had laughed behind cupped hands.

"Why is your nose shaped like that?"

"Do you eat a lot of junk food?"

She didn’t understand the cruelty, so she just replied softly, "No… I don’t. Why?"

"Well, because you’re fat."

The silence after that hit harder than the insult itself.

Words clotted in her throat. Her mind, blank. Her soul, smaller.

So yes, maybe Firenze did prefer being alone.

Because loneliness didn’t mock her.

Didn’t giggle after every word she spoke.

Didn’t measure her worth by the angle of her nose or the width of her waist.

---

There were moments, rare and precious, when the world didn't feel so heavy.

On days when Daisy’s new friend was absent, the golden girl would return to her side.

Firenze would follow her like a shadow, and for those brief hours, they were a pair again—watching birds flit through trees and rabbits dart through the academy garden.

And Firenze, fragile thing that she was, clung to those memories like lifelines.

Because at night, the tears would come again.

Whispers in the dark. Questions she couldn't answer.

What’s wrong with me?

Why am I always the outcast?

Is it because I’m boring?

Not funny enough? Not pretty enough?

Is it because I’m just...  A nerd?

Or maybe I wasn’t born an introvert—maybe they made me one.

Years passed.

Nothing changed.

But she never hated Daisy.

Even when she should have.

Even when it would have been easier to carry hate than the ache of being forgotten.

Firenze only blamed herself.

Because obsession doesn’t need logic. It only needs a heartbeat and someone to anchor it to.

But on the last day—when the walls felt less like prison and more like memory—she stood a little taller.

She turned to Daisy with a bittersweet smile, tears tucked behind her eyes like unsent letters.

"Let’s turn over a new leaf," she whispered.

And hugged Daisy, one last time.

Not for forgiveness.

Not for closure.

But for herself.

The letter firenze never sent

Before she walked away from the chapter that never truly belonged to her,

Firenze wrote a letter.

Not to the Daisy everyone admired.

But to the Daisy who once sat beside her in the garden, catching butterflies with ink-stained fingers.

> I don’t want to wait for you\,

Not if I’m the only one waiting.

When this winter melts into summer,

I hope you become nothing but a fading echo in my heart.

She didn’t want to hold onto the illusion anymore—

The one where Daisy would return,

Laugh the way she used to,

Look at Firenze like she was enough.

> I don’t want to keep standing in the past\,

Lonely, hoping you’ll turn around.

I don’t want to be ignored anymore.

If forgetting you means peace,

Then I’ll let the seasons wash you from my skin—

Even if it hurts.

The years had changed them.

Both of them.

And while everyone else seemed to move forward with new versions of themselves,

Firenze only wished one thing remained unchanged:

> I just wanted you to be the same Daisy you were in our childhood—

Before the world crowned you its sun.

Before I became the shadow trying to keep up with your light.

She could have blamed Daisy.

For forgetting. For replacing. For breaking promises made beneath the innocence of youth.

But she didn’t.

> You were just a child\,

Still trying to find your place in a world that already adored you.

And me? I was the broken one—too quiet, too much, too little.

I can’t blame you.

My love for you won’t let me.

And in her final breath of ink and aching honesty, she wrote:

> If childhood could bloom again—

If the springtime of us could return—

I’d still choose you.

Even knowing you wouldn’t choose me back.

Even for just one more day beside you.

> May your smile always burn with love and passion—

Even if I’m not there to witness it.

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