What We Never Said

Numbers and Late Nights

It was a Saturday afternoon when it happened. I didn’t see it coming at all.

I was in my room, sketching in my notebook, the soft hum of the air conditioner filling the space, when my phone buzzed. At first, I ignored it, thinking it was just another random group chat notification. But then it buzzed again, and again. Curious, I picked it up.

Unknown number.

I frowned at the screen, hesitating. The first message read:

“Hi, Nana. It’s Charles.”

I just stared at it for a long moment. My chest tightened as though someone had suddenly lit a spark inside me. Charles. Charles.

How had he even gotten my number?

I wanted to reply immediately, but my fingers froze. What would I even say? I didn’t want to look too eager, but I didn’t want to seem rude either. After rereading his message about five times, I finally typed back, “Hey. How did you get my number?”

His reply came almost instantly: “From a friend.”

That made me pause. A friend? The only person I could think of was Jesse, my brother’s friend, who sometimes tagged along with them. Jesse had always been kind to me, asking about school or complimenting my sketches when he happened to see them. There was something gentle about him. A small part of me wondered if maybe Jesse had feelings he never voiced. But if that were true, he had kept his silence. And now, he had given Charles the key to step into my world.

I didn’t know whether to feel guilty about that or not.

“Oh,” I typed back. “Okay.”

It was simple, too simple maybe, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

Charles replied again: “Hope you don’t mind. I just thought it’d be nice to talk to you, too, not only your brother.”

That made me smile. My heart fluttered like it had wings. For so long, I had been the quiet shadow in the sitting room, the girl in the corner no one really noticed. And now, here was Charles saying he wanted to talk to me. Me.

I typed back, “I don’t mind.” And I meant it.

That was how it began.

At first, our messages were casual, harmless. He asked how I was doing, what I liked to do in my free time, and little things like that. I tried not to overthink my answers, but of course, I did anyway. I’d type, delete, and retype before sending anything, worried about sounding boring or awkward.

But Charles didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed genuinely interested.

“You like drawing?” he asked one evening.

“Yeah. Mostly random sketches, nothing serious.”

“Random sketches still count. Maybe one day you’ll show me.”

I remember staring at that message for so long, my heart pounding. The thought of showing him my drawings both thrilled and terrified me.

“Maybe,” I replied, adding a smiley face, something I rarely did.

The days rolled into nights, and soon texting Charles became part of my routine. I’d wait for his name to pop up on my screen, and when it did, I’d drop everything just to answer. Sometimes our conversations stretched long into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open.

We talked about everything—school, music, books, movies. He told me about his childhood, about how he once tried to build a kite that ended up tangled in a tree for weeks. I told him about the time I got lost on a school trip and pretended I wasn’t scared, even though I was crying inside. He laughed when I told him, not in a mean way, but the kind of laugh that made me laugh too.

It surprised me how easy it felt. With Charles in person, I was always too shy, too quiet, too scared of saying something wrong. But through texts, the words flowed. It was like the screen gave me courage I didn’t have otherwise.

One night, around midnight, he asked me something unexpected.

“Why don’t you ever talk when I come over?”

I froze, staring at the message. My secret was out. He had noticed me, after all.

I typed, erased, and typed again before finally sending: “I don’t know… I guess I’m shy.”

His reply came quickly: “I figured. But you don’t have to be. You’re actually interesting to talk to.”

I don’t think he’ll ever know what that message did to me. My heart felt like it could burst.

“Thanks,” I wrote back, trying to keep it simple, though my hands were shaking.

“You’re welcome,” he replied. Then, after a pause, “I like getting to know you, Nana.”

I lay there in the dark, staring at those words until the screen dimmed. No one had ever said that to me before. And in that moment, something shifted. It wasn’t just curiosity or quiet admiration anymore . It was something deeper, something I didn’t want to name yet.

The next few weeks passed in a blur of buzzing notifications and stolen smiles. Every morning I’d wake up to a “Good morning” text from him, and every night ended with a “Goodnight.” Little by little, he became part of my day in ways I hadn’t expected.

Sometimes, I caught myself replaying our conversations in my head, smiling at random moments like a fool. I didn’t care.

There was one evening, though, that I’ll never forget. We were talking about the future what we wanted, where we saw ourselves in five or ten years. I admitted, quietly, that I wanted to study art seriously, even if everyone else thought it was a waste of time.

He surprised me by saying, “I think that’s brave. Doing what you love, even if people don’t get it.”

No one had ever said that to me before. Not even my family.

And that was the night I realized—Charles wasn’t just my brother’s friend anymore. He was becoming something more. Something dangerous and beautiful