Static
207 Words
*Chapter Three — Static*
Rain tapped against the studio window like a ticking clock, quiet but constant. The city outside blurred in grey. Inside, it was Eliana’s laughter that filled the room,rare, unfiltered, like a secret she didn’t know she’d shared.
Kai caught himself smiling.
She was lying across the rug, tangled in a nest of worn cables, trying to detangle her headphones. Her hair, a mess. Her cheeks flushed from laughing at her own clumsiness. And Kai thought *this* was music too.
“Why do you always look at me like that?” she asked suddenly.
Kai blinked. “Like what?”
“Like I’m about to disappear.”
He didn’t know what to say. Because that’s exactly what he was afraid of.
They were close, emotionally, rhythmically, but not together. They danced around something real, both pretending it didn’t matter. But it did.
“It’s just…” he began, looking away. “You remind me of something I don’t want to forget.”
Eliana sat up slowly. The static between them, the unspoken, grew louder than anything else in the room.
“You don’t have to forget,” she said softly.
A beat passed.
Then she added, “I don’t want to disappear, Kai.”
- Writer
