Eli didn't speak much—at least, not out loud.
He learned early that words could be twisted, misunderstood, or used against him. So, instead of sharing them, he wrote them. In a black notebook with frayed edges and a broken spine, he kept everything: every moment he wished never happened, every silence that felt louder than yelling, every time someone said something that made his stomach twist. The diary wasn't a comfort; it was a necessity. If he didn't write, he'd explode—or worse, disappear completely.
At school, Eli passed as just another quiet kid. The type teachers appreciated for not causing trouble. The type classmates forgot existed until they needed a group project partner who wouldn't argue. He had people around him—friends, technically—but he never held them close. He knew the difference between having people around and having people who saw you.
No one really saw Eli.
He had a girlfriend, too. Mia. She laughed a lot and touched his arm when she talked. She liked how he listened and how he didn't try to be someone he wasn't. But Mia didn't know. She didn't know how Eli's brothers made him feel like an outsider in his own home. How they used their mom like a weapon—smiling in her face while quietly building stories that made Eli the villain. Mia didn't know that sometimes, Eli would lock the bathroom door, stare at himself in the mirror, and wonder if anything about him was worth defending.
She'd ask, "You good?"
And he'd smile just enough and say, "Yeah. Just tired."
Tired. That word worked for everything. It meant "I don't want to talk about it," and "If I open my mouth, I'll break." It meant "This is bigger than you can fix," and "Please don't look too closely."
His diary knew the truth. In it, he named names. He mapped out patterns. Who said what. When they laughed. How they looked at him like he was too sensitive, too weird, too much. He documented every slight like evidence for a trial no one would ever hold.
Most nights, he wrote with his headphones on, pretending the music drowned out the thoughts. But the thoughts were always louder. Like a second voice in his head, narrating his own detachment.
He wasn't trying to be dramatic. He wasn't begging to be rescued.
He was just recording.
Just surviving.
Just making sure that, even if no one else noticed what was happening, he wouldn't forget.