Chapter Five: The Sound of Almost
421 Words
Mayah Idris
People say silence is safe.
But they’ve never lived inside it.
Because sometimes, silence screams.
And today, it screamed in Zayn Malik’s eyes.
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I saw him under the jacaranda tree during lunch. Sitting alone—where I usually sit—with a notebook open in his lap, his pen moving like he was chasing something invisible.
I panicked.
Did he know?
My first instinct was to run, but I made myself sit on the other side of the courtyard, pretending to read. My hands shook as I turned the page too quickly and tore the edge. I wanted to believe he was just writing his usual poems, the kind he posts online—the kind that made me start noticing him in the first place.
But he looked up. Not randomly. Not passively.
He looked up like he was measuring something.
Me?
---
In literature class, I kept my head down. Ms. Salma handed out our graded poem assignments, and I didn’t even look at mine. I couldn’t. Because Zayn was only two rows away, and every time I heard the rustle of paper or the click of his pen, it felt like the universe was breathing too loud.
And then it happened.
He dropped something on the floor—deliberately or not, I couldn’t tell—but when he bent to pick it up, a folded piece of paper fell from his book. Small, creased, familiar.
I recognized it.
My words.
From the library bulletin board.
> Even shadows get lonely when the light forgets their names.
He kept it.
He read it.
He carried it.
---
After class, I walked faster than usual. Not toward my next class—but to the rooftop garden, the one barely anyone visited except the student eco-club. I needed air.
I needed to breathe without the fear of being seen.
Because Zayn wasn’t just noticing me. He was connecting dots.
And that scared me in a way nothing else ever had.
---
I opened my journal and tried to write it away.
> He sees the pieces.
Not all, but enough to guess the shape.
What happens when the guess becomes truth?
What happens when I can’t hide anymore?
I didn’t have the answers.
Only the storm gathering inside me.
And in the distance—somewhere down the hall, past the doubt and the poetry—I swear I could still feel his eyes searching for me.
Not just in the way people look.
But in the way people hope.
- Writer
