Chapter three:The note between them
1357 Words
Some people speak with their mouths. Others speak with their silence.
The next morning, Peculiar woke up before her alarm again. Not because she was rested. Her body still ached, and her dreams had been thick with noise. But her eyes opened, as if her spirit refused to stay in that room any longer.
She lay still for a few moments, staring at the ceiling. Tracing the water stain in the corner. Listening to the hum of the refrigerator downstairs. Listening for her mother’s footsteps. Listening for anything but herself.
Last night, she had written something — something small, but it felt like breaking through a wall.
I come from silence,
But I wasn’t born to be quiet.
I was born to echo—
Loud, flawed, and full.
She had whispered it to herself in the dark like a secret prayer.
Now, in the morning light, it felt fragile. Too beautiful to last.
She slid out of bed and reached for the paper. Folded it carefully. Pressed it into her notebook. Pressed her notebook against her chest — like maybe, if she held it tightly enough, it would stop shaking.
Downstairs, the house was quiet, but not peaceful.
The kind of quiet that suffocates.
Her mother was already in the kitchen, slicing yam again. She always sliced yam on Thursdays.
Same knife. Same board. Same expressionless stare.
“Morning,” Peculiar offered, but her voice came out unsure. Like it hadn’t warmed up yet.
Her mother didn’t reply. Just nodded — barely.
That was the thing with her mother. Her silence wasn’t absence. It was a kind of presence that pressed into Peculiar’s chest. Like saying the wrong thing would c***k something in both of them.
Peculiar watched her for a moment. There was a sadness in the slope of her shoulders. A story in the way her fingers gripped the knife.
She wondered what her mother had given up.
What song she’d buried.
What dream she left behind to become someone’s wife… someone’s silence.
“I’m heading to school,” Peculiar said softly.
“You haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Their eyes met for half a breath.
Her mother opened her mouth — like she might say something, anything. But then she closed it.
That small opening between them shut again.
The walk to school felt longer today. Like the world was dragging its feet.
Peculiar hugged her notebook to her chest as she moved through the streets. Past children in uniforms. Past women shouting prices in the market. Past men arguing at bus stops.
The noise outside didn’t bother her.
It was the noise inside she couldn’t quiet.
Her thoughts kept returning to Noah — to the way he looked at her yesterday, like he was seeing her voice even though she hadn’t spoken much.
No one had ever made her feel loud in silence.
She passed by the chapel and paused.
The choir inside was rehearsing — their harmonies pouring out the open windows in thick, golden waves.
She stopped walking.
A girl was singing lead, her voice trembling just enough to be human, but strong enough to carry the whole room. She sounded like she believed in what she was singing.
Peculiar closed her eyes and imagined herself in that choir. Not in the back. Not whispering.
Up front.
She could almost hear her own voice, rising with theirs — loud, flawed, and full.
But then the image broke. And she remembered: she hadn’t sung in public since she was thirteen.
Since her mother said, "You're not serious. Music is not a future."
Since her father said, "We don’t have time for noise in this house."
The ache came rushing back.
So she kept walking.
Noah was already in the library when she arrived.
Same spot. By the window.
Sketchpad open. Head bowed.
He looked up as she approached, and he smiled in that way that made her feel like maybe showing up was enough. That maybe she didn’t have to do anything more than just be here.
“You came,” he said, like it was a miracle.
“I didn’t want yesterday to be the end,” she replied quietly.
She took the seat across from him. Their knees almost touched.
She didn’t speak right away. Neither did he. The silence between them didn’t feel like the one she left at home.
This one… was gentle. Waiting. Safe.
Then she pulled the folded poem from her pocket and placed it on the table.
“I wrote this last night,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“It’s not a full song. But it’s something.”
He didn’t open it.
He just nodded, his eyes soft.
“I’ll read it when I’m alone,” he said. “Words like that need space to breathe.”
That almost made her cry. But she didn’t.
She just look down at the table, blinking fast.
“What are you drawing?” she asked eventually.
He turned the sketchpad around.
It was a drawing of a girl in a hallway surrounded by swirling winds, empty picture frames, and invisible noise. Her mouth was open, her hands reaching out.
Peculiar recognized herself, even though he hadn’t labeled it.
“That’s how I imagine your voice,” he said.
“Like something that wants to tear the walls down.”
She stared at it, throat tight.
“Do your parents know you sing?” he asked.
She hesitated. “They know I have a voice. But sadly they don’t know what it’s for.”
He nodded like he understood too well.
“My dad wanted me to be tough. Athletic. The kind of boy who doesn’t cry.”
“And?”
“I cried anyway,” he said. “Still do.”
A pause.
Peculiar smiled.
“Same.”
They talked more this time. About songs they liked. About the first time they ever felt proud of their voices. About how scary it was to want something badly.
Noah pulled out a tiny stone from his pocket and rolled it toward her. It was smooth, black, oval — warm from his hand.
“My grandfather gave me this,” he said. “He said it came from a river that never stopped flowing. Whenever I forget who I am, I hold it.”
Peculiar picked it up. It fit in her palm perfectly.
“I like that,” she whispered.
“You can keep it. If you want.”
Her eyes flicked up to his, startled.
“But it’s yours—”
“It’s just a rock. But maybe it can be something more to you.”
She stared at it again. Then nodded.
“Thank you.”
Before she left, he handed her a torn page from his sketchbook.
It was a drawing of her.
Eyes closed. Head tilted. Hair wild like waves.
She looked like someone who finally opened her mouth — not to ask for permission, but to claim space.
At the bottom, in his small, neat handwriting, he’d written:
Your voice is not a question.
It is an answer waiting to be heard.
Peculiar didn’t have words for what that meant to her.
So she smiled.and after some minutes she left.
That night, her room felt heavier than usual.
But her heart didn’t.
She sat on her bed, the sketch in one hand, the reminder stone in the other.
Her lyric notebook lay open in front of her — blank page waiting.
And this time, she didn’t hesitate.
She wrote like she was gasping for air.
She wrote like her life depended on it.
She wrote like her voice had finally come home.
I used to whisper like I was afraid the world would hear me.
Now I speak like the silence should fear me instead.
She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.
She didn’t know what her parents would say.
But she knew one thing:
She was done burying herself just to make others comfortable.
She was done hiding in the corners of her own throat.
Peculiar was singing again.
Even if no one else could hear it yet.
- Writer
