Chapter 4 – The First Quiet
1128 Words
She didn’t know what she expected when she opened the door.
Maybe guilt. Maybe apology.
But not him—standing there, drenched from the rain, hands in his coat pockets like he hadn’t been waiting at all.
“You called,” he said simply.
Sabrina stepped back without a word, letting him in.
She closed the door quietly, the soft click echoing louder than any gunshot.
The silence between them was no longer sharp. It was heavy. Tense. Like something unspoken had entered with him and refused to leave.
He didn’t ask why she’d called. She didn’t explain.
Isaac shrugged off his coat and set it on her dining chair. He walked toward the window, looking out into the night like it held answers he hadn’t yet found.
Sabrina leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching him.
“You always make a habit of showing up when people are at their worst?” she asked.
“No,” he replied without turning. “Only the ones worth it.”
She hated that her heart stuttered at that.
Hated more that she let him see it.
“Do you want tea?” she asked suddenly.
He turned, brow raised slightly. “You drink tea?”
“I pretend to,” she muttered, walking toward the kitchen. “It makes me feel like I’m trying.”
Isaac followed without hesitation, leaning on the doorway as she moved with practiced indifference—grabbing mugs, boiling water, pretending her hands weren’t trembling slightly.
“Do you always act like you're fine?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t answer right away.
Then: “It’s better than acting like I’m broken.”
“You’re not broken.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he said. “Because broken people don’t fight as hard as you did to survive.”
The kettle clicked.
Steam rose.
And for a moment, neither of them spoke.
When she turned, holding out the mug to him, their fingers brushed.
Just barely.
But it was enough to make her chest tighten.
They sat across from each other at the small kitchen table, the space between them filled with heat neither of them wanted to name.
He watched her in silence. Not the way men usually watched her—no hunger, no pity. Just curiosity. Like he was still trying to figure out what made her keep going.
She didn’t know how to look at that kind of gaze.
So she focused on her tea. “You’re staring.”
“You’re not used to that?”
“Not like this.”
“How do they usually look at you?”
“Like they want something,” she said. “Or like they think they already own me.”
He tilted his head. “And me?”
She finally met his eyes. “You look at me like I’m dangerous.”
“You are,” he said. “Just not in the way they think.”
She let out a quiet breath. “What way, then?”
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice low. “You’re dangerous because you make people want to be something better than what they are.”
She looked away.
Because if she didn’t, she might fall into him—and she wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
“You have a way with words,” she said. “You should’ve been a writer.”
“Writers don’t get shot at,” he smirked.
“Depends what they write,” she countered.
That made him laugh. Soft, unexpected.
The sound surprised her. It didn’t belong in this room, in this story. But it felt right.
And terrifying.
She stood abruptly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He stayed seated. Calm. Unbothered. “But I am.”
“I mean in my life.”
He didn’t answer right away.
Then: “I never asked for space in your life, Sabrina. You gave it to me. The night you saved mine.”
“That was duty.”
“No,” he said, rising to his feet. “That was choice. You looked at me and didn’t flinch.”
“I didn’t have time to flinch.”
“You still haven’t.”
She backed up a step, breath shaky. “I don’t do this. Whatever this is.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then why are you here?”
He took a slow step forward. “Because the world I live in—it’s nothing but violence and silence. But when I was bleeding out on that table, you looked at me like I was still human.”
“And you looked at me,” she whispered, “like you could see right through me.”
“I did.”
Another step.
Close now.
Too close.
“I saw someone who was hurt, not weak. Closed off, but still breathing. Still fighting. You wear your trauma like armor, Sabrina.”
She swallowed. “And you wear yours like a crown.”
He didn’t deny it.
“I’ve buried more people than I’ve saved,” he said. “But I’ve never wanted someone to *choose* me before.”
She stared at him. “Then don’t.”
“I already did.”
The words fell between them like a match in gasoline.
And yet… he didn’t reach for her. Didn’t touch her. He just stood there, eyes on hers, waiting.
Letting her choose.
Sabrina took a breath.
Walked past him.
Opened the door to her bedroom.
He followed silently.
Not for s*x. Not for lust.
For quiet.
For safety.
For something neither of them could name yet.
She curled into one side of the bed, facing the wall. He laid down on the edge, leaving space between them. Careful. Still. Respectful.
Minutes passed.
Then her voice, barely audible: “Do you know what it’s like to question your own memory?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“To wonder if what you remember is real… or just what someone *told* you to remember?”
“Yes.”
She turned her head slowly, eyes meeting his.
“Then stay,” she whispered.
“I wasn’t planning to leave.”
They didn’t touch that night.
But something did shift.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just two souls, lying next to each other in the dark, breathing in rhythm.
And for the first time in a long time, both of them slept without ghosts in their dreams.
Elsewhere, Dr. Emilio Linarez sat in a glass-walled office, flipping through files with a bored expression.
A name caught his eye.
Sabrina Aleya Cuevas.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“So you’re still alive.”
He closed the file slowly.
And reached for his phone.
- Writer
