Echoes in the Silence
269 Words
CHAPTER 16: Echoes in the Silence
The rain had stopped, but the air still held its weight—thick and humid, clinging to Lena’s skin like the ghosts of everything she’d tried to forget.
She sat by the window in Jay’s apartment, staring into the streetlights that painted the pavement in golden shadows. Jay had left without a word after the phone call—one that had changed his entire demeanour in a heartbeat. Now she was alone again, her thoughts a storm louder than any thunder outside.
She traced a finger across the condensation on the glass, trying to remember how it had felt when he touched her—when his voice dropped low and dangerous, yet somehow made her feel safe. Why did safety feel so much like danger when it came to him?
Her chest ached, not just with confusion, but with the memory of his eyes locked on hers as if he saw more than she was willing to show. As if he already knew.
The door creaked. Her body tensed.
Jay stepped in, soaked from the rain, his dark eyes unreadable.
“You shouldn’t have waited up,” he said quietly.
Lena turned to face him. “You left without explaining.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he crossed the room and stopped just inches away, his breath warm and laced with something Lena couldn’t define—pain, maybe. Or guilt.
“Some truths,” he whispered, “are better in the silence.”
But silence didn’t soothe her. Not anymore.
Not when she was starting to need his voice to keep the ghosts away.
- Writer
