4-Still Hiding Behind Silence?

The new school wasn’t magical.

But it was quiet.

Quiet enough to feel like maybe the world had finally let me breathe.

No one here knew what I had escaped.

No one knew who I used to be—or who I used to be with.

And for a while, that felt like safety.

On my second day, I met Rhea.

Sharp-tongued, quick-witted, always carrying a pen like it was a weapon.

She didn’t ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

She just said, “You don’t seem like the small-talk type. Good. I’m allergic to it.” Then there was David.

Soft-spoken. Gentle.

The kind of boy who never made sudden moves.

He had this quiet charm—always helping teachers pack up, always giving up his seat for someone else.

Rhea called him “the campus saint.”

I laughed. It fit.

He was never loud, never pushy.

He started by walking beside me after class, then showing up near my locker, then quietly asking if I’d like to join him in the library after school.

He never crossed lines.

Never made me feel unsafe.

And maybe that’s why I let him in.

We talked about books first.

Then music.

Then the kind of loneliness that doesn’t go away even when you’re surrounded by people.

He seemed to understand.

Or at least he pretended to.

But something about him always felt too perfect.

Too controlled.

I started to notice how Rhea changed around him.

How her laugh grew tighter. How she’d leave as soon as he arrived.

When I asked her why, she just muttered, “Be careful who you think is harmless.”

I brushed it off.

David had only ever been kind.

Kind in the way I needed.

Until one day, he asked a question—one I never told anyone the answer to.

A name.A place.A detail from a life I had buried.

And that’s when I realized—

David didn’t stumble into my life.

He walked in with purpose.

And he knew exactly who I was.

Now – the present.~

“Still hiding behind silence?”

The voice—sharp, low, laced with that same bitter amusement—cut through everything.

I froze.

My mind snapped back from the past like a rubber band pulled too tight.

Ian

His voice hadn't changed.

Still smooth. Still venom dressed in velvet.

And in that instant, the room, the walls, the years—collapsed into themselves.

My past stood right in front of me.

Breathing. Smirking. Watching.

And I wasn’t sure what terrified me more—

The boy who once broke me…

Or the part of me that still remembered who he used to be.

I hadn’t heard that voice in years.

But my body remembered it.

The way your skin remembers fire.

He stepped closer, not enough to touch, but enough to be felt.

His presence filled the space like smoke.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said, head tilted, eyes scanning me like a threat disguised as curiosity.

“But then again... you still have that look.”

That look. The one he used to mock.The one he once called “pathetic.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

I wasn’t that girl anymore. At least—I hoped I wasn’t.

“Ian,” I said.

Just his name. No fear in it. Not out loud.

But inside?

Everything cracked.

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