UNWRITTEN BUT FELT

Chapter Three: The Unnamed Spark

She didn't know what she was expecting.

Maybe a flicker. Maybe a frown, a double take, a small gasp of memory catching in his throat. Maybe a hesitation in his flawless stride as recognition took hold and broke against the walls of all the years between them.

But when Derek Royce's eyes met hers… nothing.

No spark of familiarity. No hint that he’d once handed her marigolds through the cracks in her mother’s flower cart. No sign he remembered the girl who used to stammer her name while hiding behind tulips.

He blinked once. Extended his hand.

“Ms. Brown. I’ve heard excellent things.”

His voice was smooth. Polished. Edged with that practiced warmth, men like him wore it like a tailored jacket. She took his hand and felt the heat of his skin. Familiar. Unfamiliar. A contradiction in palm lines and silence.

Her heart knocked against her ribs.

“I’m excited to be here,” she said.

She let him go slowly. Her fingers tingled. His eyes stayed, but not because he remembered her—because he was studying her, weighing, measuring, assessing.

Her smile stayed.

He didn't remember her.

But something in her stomach twisted anyway—because she remembered everything.

—

In the glass conference room, the sun spilled across the floor in softened designs. The kind of room intended to intimidate through velvet murmurs. The chairs were aerodynamic, the table was chill to the touch than its appearance, and the floor-to-ceiling windows made her feel like she was trying to pitch her tale to the entire city.

Sharon pulled at the collar of her green jacket and sat upright.

Gia nodded at her from the sidelines, a signal that everything was cued, the slideshow timed, the figures firm. She'd practiced this presentation in her mirror, in her sleep, in the middle of old dreams where flower stalls merged into boardrooms.

But now the real deal was here.

And Derek Royce was looking at her.

His interest was silent but focused, eyes darting back and forth between her and the screen as she started to talk. He didn't interrupt. He didn't smile. But something in the way he c****d his head made her nerves wind a little tighter.

The GrowBold platform began as a frustration," she said. "Frustration that communities like mine were spoken of but rarely spoken to. That data was extracted from us, but rarely returned to us. That voter engagement was a seasonal performance instead of a long-term investment."

She clicked to the next slide.

Derek leaned forward slightly.

We started with a goal to register 10,000 first-time voters in low-turnout districts. That goal was met in three weeks. Not because we spent millions, but because we listened. We spoke the languages of community, of rhythm, of genuine trust. The app didn't just work. It belonged to people.

She kept her tone even. Confident. But underneath, her brain still caught on him—on the way his eyes never wavered. On the way, his hands were folded together, but his fingers twitched now and again, as if some part of him was not as at ease as his posture promised.

He was in a dark navy suit, nearly black, with a slate-colored shirt that brought out the hollows in his jaw. And when he looked at her, looked—there was a strange smolder at the depths of his eyes.

No recognition.

But maybe… curiosity.

When she finished, there was silence. That instant just after you jump, before you hit the water.

Derek tapped his fingers once on the table. "You built a digital building from the ground up. And it's working."

Sharon nodded. "It is."

"What do you do when it expands too fast?"

"We anticipated that. The app's infrastructure is modular. It scales with volume. Our backend already has localized servers. We beta-tested that in the Louisiana runoff cycle—"

"I saw that," he interrupted, gently. "That was smart."

Their eyes locked.

Something fluttered between them.

And then it wasn't there.

Talia, seated near Derek, broke the moment. "You said earlier that the platform is owned by the people using it. But how do you keep control while being so open?"

"It's not control," Sharon answered smoothly. "It's clarity. The data is public and anonymized. We let people see themselves. That gets you more trust than any logo would."

Talia tilted her head, considering. "You sound like a strategist."

"I am," Sharon said, smiling. "But I don't lead with strategy. I lead with a story."

Derek's lips curled—half a smile, maybe, or maybe something else. Something less simple to categorize.

"We'll be in touch," he said finally. He stood.

The meeting was over.

Just like that.

Sharon rose too, calm and peaceful, but her legs felt strange beneath her, like she was still frozen in that instant when he looked at her and didn't see her.

He extended his hand again.

"Thank you, Ms. Brown."

She took it.

And this time, as their palms met, her skin burned.

Not from memory. Not from the past.

From the present.

—

Gia smiled and whispered, "You killed it," in the hallway outside.

Sharon nodded absent-mindedly, her eyes fixed on the way Derek's back disappeared into his private office, suit jacket flowing behind him like a shadow made of ambition.

"I didn't expect him to be…" She allowed the sentence to trail off.

Gia raised an eyebrow. "Didn't expect him to be what?"

"I don't know." Sharon shrugged, though she did know. "More withdrawn. Less polished. More… human."

"Girl, he's got a Wikipedia page longer than my resume and a dad who used to govern half the state. You don't get human without burning something first."

Sharon laughed.

But not her eyes.

Because now that she'd met him—really met him—her brain wouldn't quit whispering things she'd buried. Wouldn't quit rewinding to that last summer at the market.

His hands cradling a bunch of marigolds.

His voice called out after her when she had spilled her notebook.

He said to her, "You talk like your words are dancing."

And now? Now he did not even remember her name.

—

Later that evening, in her temporary apartment, Sharon was cross-legged on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through her phone.

She was not looking for anything.

She was looking for him.

She typed: Derek Royce childhood photo. Nothing useful.

Then she typed: Royce family, Jefferson market. Still nothing.

She closed the tab. Let her phone fall onto the couch beside her.

Why should it even matter?

She hadn't signed up for DOME to go ghost hunting. She'd signed up to suggest a collaboration, to expand on her work, to build something real.

But… her fingers moved of their own accord.

She pulled her sketchbook into her lap. It was battered—something she used for notes, storyboards, the occasional bout of poetry she never showed anyone.

This time, without hesitation, she drew a face.

Square jaw. Deep-set eyes. The promise of a smile that never materialized.

And beneath it—a marigold.

Tiny. Orange. Delicate in the corner of the page.

Sharon stared at it for a long time.

Then whispered to the empty room, "You don't have to remember. I still do."