Chapter 5 — The Weight of Quiet
Mara had never liked attention.
Not the kind that made rooms spin and voices shout, not the kind that demanded you perform to prove you existed. She preferred corners — quiet corners where she could breathe, think, and observe without anyone realizing she was there.
That night, after replying to Milo's last message, she stayed by her window, the city below glimmering wet and tired. Streetlights pooled orange on the sidewalks, and somewhere, a cat argued with a gutter.
She thought about her childhood.
How the orphanage smelled of bleach and old shoes, how some nights she had cried herself to sleep on a mattress so thin she could feel the floor breathe underneath her. How she had learned to fold sadness into neat squares and hide it behind a smile.
It had made her strong, in a quiet, invisible way.
And it had made her a good listener.
Because she knew what it felt like to be unheard.
Her phone buzzed. Another message from Milo.
Milo:
I wish I could see your face.
Mara's fingers hovered over the keys. She didn't want to lie. But she also didn't want to step too close, too fast.
R.:
Some faces are best discovered slowly.
She pressed send. The truth of it weighed in her chest — an invisible tether connecting her to someone she had never met.
Milo read her reply in the dark of his room. His walls were lined with books he didn't have time to read, papers scattered like abandoned thoughts. He stared at the phone, feeling the tether tug him toward a stranger he had never seen.
Milo:
I don't want slowly. I want… now.
Mara almost laughed, almost cried. She typed carefully, breathing through each word:
R.:
Then tell me what you see when you close your eyes.
Milo closed his eyes. He pictured the river he walked by earlier, imagined her standing across it, umbrella in hand, hair wet with rain, watching the water listen. He felt foolish for imagining it, but it hurt less than being alone.
Milo:
I see… someone who cares without needing to fix me.
Mara read that line and felt a strange, sweet ache. She wanted to tell him that she had once been a child who had begged for someone to care. But she didn't. Instead, she typed:
R.:
Then maybe that's enough for tonight.
Outside, the city breathed around her, alive but quiet. She realized something she had avoided admitting: she had been waiting for this. Waiting for someone who needed her words the way she needed to give them.
Milo, in his lonely room, pressed the phone against his chest and whispered into the dark:
Thank you.
And Mara, miles away, whispered back to no one in particular:
You're welcome.
For the first time in a long time, two strangers felt less alone.