SOMETHING IN SILENCE
787 Words
Chapter 8 – Something in the Silence
Zion sat in the bleachers alone, bouncing his basketball with a steady rhythm. The echo of it filled the empty gym like a heartbeat—loud, constant, impossible to ignore.
He hated this.
The silence between them. The guessing. The way Kaira had folded into herself like a book mid-sentence—something half-written, half-read, never finished.
He dribbled the ball harder.
Why did it feel like they were fighting without even having a fight?
He replayed the last week in his head. Her short replies. Her cold shrug. Her eyes—God, those eyes—always looking away when he got too close.
Zion wasn’t good at emotional stuff. He was the fix-it-later kind of guy. The laugh-it-off type. But Kaira wasn’t letting him off easy. And the truth was, he didn’t want easy anymore.
He wanted real.
That night, under a sky bruised with sunset, Zion sent her a message:
“Can we talk?”
No explanation. No emoji. Just that.
She replied ten minutes later:
“Where?”
---
They met by the courtyard steps behind the science building. It wasn’t dramatic or romantic. It was awkward. And quiet. The way most real things started.
Zion shoved his hands in his pockets. “So…”
Kaira leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Her expression unreadable.
He exhaled. “Can I ask you something?”
She didn’t nod, but she didn’t walk away either.
He looked at her straight. “What happens if you like me?”
Kaira blinked. “What?”
“I mean… what happens if you like me?” he repeated. “Or if you got jealous? Or if you hated seeing me with someone else? What happens then?”
She stared at him, silent.
“Because I don’t like how we’ve been acting,” he said, softer now. “I don’t like this… fake polite thing. This silence. It’s like we’re playing defense when there’s no game.”
Kaira swallowed. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because you matter,” he said. “And I want to know if I matter to you.”
Her lips parted slightly, as if a thousand words wanted out but none dared be the first.
But she said nothing.
And Zion nodded like he expected it. “Right.”
He stepped back. “Okay.”
She didn’t stop him as he left.
---
The next week, Kaira got attention she hadn’t asked for.
His name was Andre. New to their school. Tall, charming, with a smile that caught people off guard. He started joining her at lunch, complimenting her outfits, offering to carry her books.
People started talking.
They look good together.
Kaira’s glowing.
Zion who?
But none of them saw how she only laughed at Andre’s jokes out of politeness. How she looked over his shoulder every time Zion walked by.
Even Andre noticed. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Just tired.”
The same lie. Different day.
He grinned. “I know I’m not Zion, but I’m trying.”
That made her flinch.
He chuckled, mistaking it for flattery. “What’s he got that I don’t, anyway?”
And just like that, Kaira realized something brutal.
Zion didn’t ask that question.
He never tried to replace her.
---
That night, Kaira sat in her room with her notebook open and a pen hovering.
She didn’t write diary entries.
She wrote poems.
Messy, emotional, raw ones.
And this time, the words came like a flood.
---
Unspoken
You looked at me like silence was enough,
Like my heart didn’t speak in the way I walked past you,
In the way my fingers fumbled with the tripod,
In the way I didn’t laugh the way I used to.
You asked what happens if I like you—
As if it’s a choice,
As if I haven’t been losing sleep over the spaces
You leave between your words.
Yes.
I got jealous.
Not of her lipstick or laugh—
But of the ease you had
When I was falling apart in front of you
And you didn’t even ask why.
I want to scream I care.
But I don’t want to give you the match
If you’re not going to light anything with it.
So I smile at someone else,
Let him hold the edge of my sadness
Because you won’t.
But it’s not the same.
It’s never been the same
Since you stopped seeing me
Like I was more than
Just a girl in your frame.
---
She stared at the page.
Zion would never read it.
But somehow, writing it made her feel braver.
Maybe that was enough—for now.
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