THE THINGS WE DON'T SAY
1692 Words
The bell rang to dismiss the last class of the day, but I stayed seated. Everyone else rushed out, laughing, talking, complaining about assignments, but I didn’t move. I watched the sunlight spill across the tiled floor, turning it golden. Days like this used to feel warm. Lately, they just felt loud. Too loud. Too bright. Too exposed.
I moved only when I noticed Adrian still sitting a few rows away—not leaving either.
He wasn’t looking at me. He was leaning back in his chair, tapping his pen slowly against his notebook like he was lost in a thought he didn’t want to return from.
Of course it had to be him still here.
He finally turned his head, and our eyes met. For a split second, I forgot to breathe. He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak. He just looked—and that somehow felt louder than any question.
“You’re not rushing home today?” he asked, voice casual, but quieter than usual.
I shrugged, grabbing my bag. “Not in any hurry.”
Truth was, I just didn’t want to go home yet. But I wasn’t about to say that.
He stood up, swung his bag over his shoulder. “Walk with me?”
There was no reason to say yes. But I did.
We walked out of the classroom, down the hall, past the courtyard where people were still loitering around in little noisy clusters. He didn’t try to fill the silence, and I was grateful for that. It surprised me—someone like him looked like he talked all the time. But he didn’t. Not with me.
We ended up near the back field, where the grass was uneven and the benches looked like they were older than both of us combined. I sat first. He sat beside me—not too close, but not far either.
The sky was turning soft orange.
“It’s quiet here,” he said, leaning back, eyes forward.
“That’s the point,” I murmured.
He nodded like he understood something that didn’t need explaining.
For a while, we just watched the sky.
Then he said my name. Soft. Like it was delicate.
“Hey.”
I didn’t look at him. “What?”
“You’ve been.. I don’t know… heavier lately.”
I stiffened. “Heavier?”
He exhaled. “Not physically, obviously. I mean—emotionally. Like you’re carrying something.”
I looked at him sharply. “You don’t know me.”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t backtrack.
“I know what it looks like when someone is pretending to be okay.”
That hit harder than I expected. Hard enough to make something in my chest tighten.
I tried to laugh it off. “Everyone’s pretending.”
He glanced at me then, and his voice came out low. “Yeah. But you pretend differently. You look like you’ve practiced it.”
My throat closed a little.
I didn’t respond.
It was stupid how quiet the world felt. Like something inside me was pressing against the surface, begging to c***k. I didn’t want to break in front of anyone. Especially not him.
He kept talking, but softer now. Careful.
“Did something… happen?”
A hundred memories flashed at once. Slamming doors. Raised voices. Nights pretending to be asleep. Words that left bruises without ever touching skin.
I swallowed.
“Everyone has something,” I said.
“That’s not an answer,” he murmured.
I hated that he noticed. I hated that he cared. I hated how much I wanted to talk and how much I refused to.
My fingers twisted in my sleeves, nails digging.
“Sometimes,” I said slowly, choosing my words like they were blades, “it’s easier to act strong than to admit something hurt you.”
He looked at me—really looked. No pity. No shock. Just… quiet understanding.
“Who told you you had to do it alone?” he asked.
I laughed then. A bitter, small, painful sound.
“No one had to tell me. Life did.”
The silence after that wasn’t uncomfortable. It was heavy. Real.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
“You know… you don’t have to pretend with me.”
I didn’t know him well enough to trust that.
But somehow… I believed him anyway.
I stared at the ground. The grass. A small yellow leaf. Anything but his eyes.
“It’s not one thing,” I said, voice low. “It’s been… building. For a long time. You get used to holding things. Even when they’re too heavy.”
He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t ask for more. He just listened.
My chest ached with the relief of not having to explain everything.
Then his voice softened.
“Can I tell you something?”
I nodded.
“I know what it’s like,” he said. “To hurt quietly. To hide it. To be the one who doesn’t break because everyone already expects you to hold yourself together.”
My eyes lifted to his.
There.
That was the first real c***k in the mask he always wore.
We weren’t the same.
But we recognized the same kind of pain.
He exhaled, a shaky, small breath that most people wouldn’t have noticed.
But I did.
“You don’t have to say anything else,” he said.
“Just… if it ever gets too heavy, you can sit with me. Like this. No talking required.”
Something warm and painful spread in my chest.
I looked at him.
And then it happened.
A small smile.
Not forced.
Not practiced.
Not the one I used to fool everyone.
A real one.
The kind you don’t mean to show.
He noticed instantly.
“There it is,” he said softly.
I looked away quickly. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” he whispered. “That’s why it matters.”
The wind blew. The sky darkened into twilight.
We sat there
until it got cold.
Not talking.
Not pretending.
Just existing.
Side by side.
Holding our own broken pieces silently.
But somehow—
Less alone.
We didn’t notice how long we stayed there until the field lights flickered on, buzzing faintly. The world around us had dimmed into something quiet and bluish, like evening was swallowing everything slowly. I pulled my sleeves over my hands when the wind got colder, and I could feel him watch the movement even if he didn’t comment.
He didn’t have to.
He saw everything without needing to say much. And that scared me. And… soothed me. Both at once.
“You get like this often?” he asked, voice light, testing the weight of the question.
I shook my head. “No. I don’t let people see me like this.”
“So why me?” he asked, genuinely, not arrogantly.
And the truth came before I could stop it:
“Because you don’t ask me to be okay.”
His shoulders softened, something in his expression went unguarded, and I realized nobody ever said that to him either. Maybe we were both walking around being strong for people who didn’t notice we were breaking.
He leaned back again, head tilted up to the darkening sky. “You ever feel like you’re just… tired? Even after sleeping?”
The question hit too close.
“It’s not the kind of tired sleep fixes,” I answered quietly.
He nodded once. Slowly. Like that sentence sat somewhere familiar inside him.
Another silence settled, but this one wasn’t heavy — it was shared.
Like we were sitting inside the same memory even though we never spoke about it.
After a while, he stood up. I blinked, surprised at the suddenness of it. He held out his hand toward me, casual but steady.
“Come on. I’m walking you home.”
I stared at his hand, at the simplicity of the gesture. It shouldn’t have meant anything. It was just a walk. Just a hand. Just a moment.
But it meant too much.
I didn’t take it — not with my hand. But I stood up beside him, close enough that our arms brushed.
That was enough.
We walked down the main road, streetlamps humming overhead. Cars passed. Someone shouted something in the distance. Two bicycles rolled by. Life went on around us like normal. But none of it touched us.
We were in our own quiet.
Halfway to my street, I spoke without thinking:
“There used to be someone who knew everything. About me. Before I learned to hide.”
He didn’t look surprised. “What happened?”
“She left,” I said. “Or maybe… I let her leave. I didn’t want to be a burden.”
His footsteps slowed. “You were never a burden. Someone just made you believe you were.”
My breath caught.
He said it like it was fact. Like he saw the truth I spent years burying.
I swallowed. “You talk like you know.”
He didn’t say anything at first. Then:
“I do.”
We reached my street corner — the place where I always say goodbye to everyone. But I didn’t want to say goodbye right now. Not yet.
He didn’t move either.
We stood there — streetlight shadows stretching long, the world quiet except for distant traffic.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.
It wasn’t casual. It wasn’t a question to fill silence.
It was a request to still exist in each other’s world.
“Yes,” I said. No hesitation.
He smiled — not his charming, effortless one. A smaller one. A sincere one.
The kind you don’t mean — but can’t hide.
“Goodnight,” he murmured.
“Goodnight,” I whispered back.
I walked inside with a heart that felt bruised but warm — like something long-frozen had just started to thaw.
And somewhere behind me, Adrian didn’t walk away immediately.
He stayed.
Like he didn’t want to leave the moment either.
Like
we were both afraid that stepping away from this quiet might make the world loud again.
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- Writer
