As they walked toward the car, the world around them moved in slow motion for her.
She didn't know why.
Maybe it was the morning light falling softly through the trees, or the silence between them that didn't feel awkward… just quiet.
She wasn't used to quiet that didn't hurt.
Kalix walked ahead and reached the car first. Without saying a word, he opened the door for her. A small gesture, but one so rare in her life that it tugged at something buried.
She stepped forward, and just as she leaned to sit down, his hand instinctively reached up—hovering protectively above her head so she wouldn't bump it. That simple, unconscious gesture. That care.
She noticed.
She noticed everything.
Not just now. Always.
She was the kind of girl who noticed things people didn't say. The cracks in their voice. The shift in their eyes. The sudden silence in the middle of a joke.
At college, she'd notice who secretly liked who in just a glance. She knew the unspoken love stories, the hidden tears in the washrooms, the people who smiled the brightest because they cried the hardest.
She even knew the gossip.
But never once did she use it against anyone.
She held secrets like they were sacred. She held people's pain even when no one held hers.
Back then, she was always surrounded by people—friends, laughter, noise.
And then one day… silence.
They turned their backs.
No explanations. No fights.
Just… nothing.
And her world ended quietly.
But even in the wreckage, she didn't scream.
She whispered to herself, maybe they're right.
Maybe I talk too much.
Maybe I care too deeply.
Maybe I'm too much.
Maybe… I'm not enough.
She didn't even realize when the word "maybe" became her safety net—and her chain. A doubt she wore like perfume. A guilt she swallowed like medicine.
She sat in the car, hands on her lap, eyes looking ahead but mind somewhere deep in the ruins of her past.
Beside her, Kalix got in too. Silent.
But she wondered... Would he notice her the way she notices everyone else?
Or would she remain what she always had been—just another girl who knows too much and says too little?