Chapter One: Where Silence Learned Sound
I chose Philosophy for a simple reason. It asked the big questions. The kind no one in my house ever had time to answer.
Why do we hurt? Does life mean something, or do we just pretend it does to make the days easier? Is love a real thing you can hold, or just a word we use so we don't feel so alone in the dark?
I trusted questions. They were safer than people. A question wouldn't walk away. It wouldn't look at you with cold, impatient eyes. It just waited. You could turn it over in your hands anytime you wanted. No one got let down.
That Tuesday, the lecture hall smelled the way it always did. Like old paper, wet wool, and dust. I took my usual seat by the window, curling into the corner of the bench. My notebook was open. The page was blank and a little intimidating. Outside, the world was washed in gray. Bare tree branches scratched at the sky. A gentle rain streaked the glass. It was all very quiet. Very calm. I liked it that way.
My hair fell over my shoulder in a long, dark wave. It pooled on the wooden bench beside me, the ends almost brushing the floor. I had never once cut it.
My mother brushed it for me every night. I can still feel her hands. Gentle and sure, working through the tangles. She would hum a soft tune, something without words, just a melody to fill the quiet bedroom.
"Long hair holds memories, my Aira," she'd whisper, her voice like a secret. "Each strand remembers a kindness. A moment of love."
After the accident—after the sudden, smothering silence that took over our home—no one touched my hair again.
My father became a man on a television screen. He lived in a world of phone calls and closed doors. Politics was his real family. Power was the only language he spoke fluently anymore. My older brother, Lucas, learned that language fast. He became sharp. Focused. He learned how to be a Grace. He mirrored our father's ambition, his cool distance.
I didn't learn. I just stayed still. I stayed quiet.
So I let my hair grow. It was my last living connection to her. To cut it would be to lose her a second time. I couldn't bear it.
I didn't live at home anymore. The Grace house was a museum of echoes. All cold marble and vast, empty rooms. You could hear a pin drop in the hallway. Or worse, you could hear the heavy silence when no one was speaking at dinner. It wasn't a home. It was a showroom. There was no comfort there, only a silent demand to perform. To be the perfect, unobtrusive daughter.
My dorm room was small. A single bed with a scratchy blanket. A desk that wobbled if you wrote too fast. The bathroom was down the hall and always smelled faintly of cleaner. I could hear my neighbor's music through the wall. But it was honest. It was lonely, yes. But it was real. I didn't have to paste on a smile. I didn't have to make polite conversation over breakfast. I could just be the quiet girl with too much hair.
"Ahem."
The sound was right beside me. It broke my thoughts.
Someone slid into the empty seat next to me. She didn't ask if it was free. She just sat down, close enough that I caught the scent of her perfume. It was warm and sweet. Like a cup of tea with orange peel and a spoonful of honey.
"You're in my preferred existential despair seat," she announced. Her voice was light, teasing. "But I'll make an exception. You look like you need it more than I do today."
I turned to look at her, surprised.
She smiled. It was an easy, open smile, as if we'd known each other for years. She had kind eyes the color of dark honey, and a scatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her hair was a rich auburn, pulled up into a bun that was coming loose in little wisps. She looked… at ease. Comfortable in her own skin in a way I couldn't imagine being.
"Oh," I stammered, my face growing warm. "I'm sorry. I can move."
She laughed. It was a genuine, bubbly sound. "Don't you dare. Stay. You're interesting."
Interesting. The word echoed in my mind. No one had ever used it to describe me.
"I'm Sophia," she said, and held out her hand. "Sophia Royce."
I hesitated for only a second before taking it. Her hand was warm, her grip firm and friendly.
"Aira," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. "Aira Grace."
Her gaze dropped to my open notebook. I had only written one line in the center of the page.
Sisyphus: punishment or choice?
"Oh," she said, her face brightening with recognition. "I love this one."
At the front of the hall, the professor adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. The murmur of students began to fade. Class was starting.
Sophia leaned in close. She whispered like we were sharing a secret, not breaking a rule. "Let me guess. You don't buy it. How Camus says Sisyphus is happy."
I nodded, grateful she understood. "It doesn't make sense. An endless, pointless task. How is that anything but misery?"
She grinned. "It makes perfect sense. It's just really, really annoying."
I blinked, waiting.
"Look," she continued, her voice a low, conspiratorial hum beside me. "The gods think they've won. They gave him the most futile punishment imaginable. Forever pushing a rock up a hill, only to watch it roll down again. No progress. No point. But the joke's on them. The moment Sisyphus accepts it—the moment he looks at that boulder and says, 'Alright, this is my rock, this is my hill'—he takes their power away. He chooses to keep going. The struggle becomes his own. Not theirs."
She explained it so plainly. She wasn't showing off. She was just talking me through it, like helping a friend read a map.
"It's not about the boulder at all," she finished, tapping the page with the end of her pen. "It's about who owns the struggle."
Something tight in my chest began to loosen. Just a little.
For the rest of the lecture, Sophia was a quiet presence of clarity. She translated the professor's complex terms into simple words. She whispered funny asides that made me press my lips together to hide a smile. In the margin of her own notebook, she drew a little cartoon of a stick figure giving a thumbs-up next to a giant boulder. The bubble above its head read, "My rock, my rules."
She made the philosophy feel human. Tangible.
When the class ended, the hall erupted into noise. Chairs scraped, bags zipped, conversations swelled.
I stayed seated for a moment, slowly putting my own pen away, watching her. She packed up with an efficient, cheerful energy.
"Thank you," I said finally. The words felt inadequate. "You really didn't have to do all that."
She shrugged, a casual, graceful movement. "You looked like you needed someone to sit with you. Everyone needs a person to sit with, sometimes."
It was such a simple observation. Yet it felt profound. No one had ever seen my solitude and named it so clearly before.
"So," she said, standing and hoisting a well-loved leather bag onto her shoulder. "Dorms or apartment?"
"Dorms," I answered. Then, gathering a small bit of courage, I added, "I… I don't really like going home."
She didn't press. She didn't ask for the painful details. She just nodded, her expression softening with understanding.
"Good," she said, her voice gentle. "Me neither. Home is… a complicated word."
Then she did something that shocked me. She simply linked her arm through mine. As if we did it every day. As if it was the most natural thing in the world.
I froze for a heartbeat. The contact was unexpected, unfamiliar. But her arm was warm, and her hold was friendly, not confining. I slowly let my muscles unwind. I let my arm relax in the crook of hers.
We walked out of the lecture hall together, moving as a unit through the river of students. A strange, new warmth bloomed in my chest. It wasn't love. That was too big a word for a Tuesday morning.
It was simpler. It was the solid warmth of another person's arm linked with yours. It was the rhythm of matching steps on a linoleum floor. It was the quiet understanding that, for this walk at least, you weren't alone.
It was company.
For the first time in years, the silence inside me wasn't just an empty room. It wasn't just the ghost of my mother's humming or the echo of my brother Lucas's dismissive comments or my father's absent-minded nods.
It had learned a new sound. The sound of a friend's voice, explaining myths in a whisper. The sound of shared, easy silence. The sound of a heartbeat that wasn't just my own, echoing in my ears.
It was a good sound. A living sound.
And I didn't know it yet—I had no way of knowing—but this was where it all began. This ordinary, rainy Tuesday. This classroom smelling of dust and damp wool. This girl with the kind eyes and the easy laugh who took my arm.
This was the first, fragile page of everything that would come after.