Chapter 3
907 Words
Seyra POV
When I first saw Melina, I thought she looked like someone who didn’t belong anywhere.
She was standing a little apart from everyone else, her posture stiff, her eyes lowered as if she didn’t want to be seen. There was nothing loud about her—no bright clothes, no exaggerated expressions, no curiosity flickering openly on her face. If anything, she blended into the background so well that I wondered how long she had been standing there before I noticed her.
But the moment our eyes met, I knew.
She wasn’t invisible.
Her eyes were strange—not empty, but heavy. Like someone who had seen too much, felt too much, and decided that feeling nothing at all was safer. They didn’t wander around the room the way most people’s eyes did. They stayed still, guarded, alert in a quiet way.
I couldn’t look away.
At first, I thought she didn’t like me. She avoided my gaze immediately, turning her head as if I had done something wrong. I remember feeling a small sting in my chest—not pain, exactly, just disappointment.
I didn’t understand why it mattered so much.
Maybe it was because she looked lonely in a way I recognized.
I grew up in a warm family. Not perfect, but full of noise, laughter, and attention. Yet even with all that, I sometimes felt like there were spaces inside people that no amount of love could fill easily. Melina felt like one of those spaces made human.
So I walked up to her.
I introduced myself first, because I had a feeling she never would.
Her voice was quiet when she spoke her name, almost like she was afraid saying it out loud would invite something unwanted. But she was polite. Careful. Distant.
That night, when she ate alone in her room, I noticed.
Most people wouldn’t have. But I did.
My mother noticed too. She told me not to push her, not to overwhelm her. “Some people need time,” she said gently.
I agreed.
Still, I watched.
Melina moved like someone who expected to be ignored. She didn’t take up space. She didn’t ask for anything. She didn’t complain. That worried me more than if she had.
The next morning, when I saw her sitting alone near the workshop, something inside me decided for me.
I asked her if she wanted to be friends.
I expected her to say no.
She looked at me like she was searching for something—maybe a trick, maybe a reason. When she said she wasn’t fun, my heart squeezed. Who had made her believe that?
When she finally agreed, I felt a strange kind of happiness. Not the loud kind—the soft kind that settles quietly in your chest.
From that day on, I started paying attention.
Melina didn’t talk much, but when she did, her words mattered. She chose them carefully, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing. She listened more than anyone I had ever met. When I talked, she looked at me—not past me, not through me, but at me.
It made me want to keep talking.
I learned quickly that silence didn’t scare her. In fact, she seemed more comfortable in it. When we sat together under the tree and said nothing for long minutes, she didn’t fidget or look away. She simply existed beside me.
That was rare.
Most people get nervous when things are quiet. Melina didn’t.
Sometimes, I wondered what she was thinking. Her expression often looked distant, like her thoughts were somewhere far away. But when I spoke her name, she always came back immediately.
It made me feel… noticed.
I liked that.
When I visited her room for the first time, I wasn’t surprised by how empty it was—but I was saddened. There were no personal touches. No decorations. No signs of childhood. It felt more like a place someone stayed in, not lived in.
When she read to me, her voice was soft and steady. She stumbled a little over some words, then apologized even though she didn’t need to.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” I told her.
She looked confused.
I don’t think anyone had ever said that to her before.
As days passed, I noticed small things.
Melina liked walking in the early morning.
She liked places with wind.
She liked sitting beside someone rather than across from them.
She rarely initiated anything, but she never refused when I asked. It was like she was waiting for permission to exist.
That bothered me.
One day, when I teased her during our pebble game and she laughed—really laughed—I almost froze.
The sound was so quiet, so brief, but it felt important. Like I had been trusted with something fragile.
I didn’t tease her after that. I didn’t want to scare it away.
Sometimes, I caught her watching me when she thought I wasn’t looking. Her gaze wasn’t intense or uncomfortable—just focused. As if she was memorizing something.
I didn’t mind.
In fact, I found myself looking for her too.
When she wasn’t around, the house felt different. Quieter. When she was there, even silence felt fuller.
I realized then that Melina didn’t know how much space she occupied in my thoughts.
She didn’t know how easily she stayed there.
And maybe… that was okay.
For now.
- Writer
