Fourteen was supposed to be an in-between year — too old for dolls, too young for love. But for Cara, it became the year everything changed.

When her brother’s best friend, Callum Adler, starts spending more time at their house, Cara notices things most adults ignore. The bruises. The quiet. The way their mother starts folding extra laundry like it’s second nature. Callum's broken home becomes a secret the whole family carries, and Cara — wide-eyed, overlooked, and quietly growing — starts to fall for him in all the ways she shouldn’t.

But Callum is four years older. Eighteen. Off-limits. Almost a man. And despite their quiet moments — the almosts, the shared glances, the night she asked to kiss him — he walks away without a goodbye, leaving her in the silence he helped create.

Years pass. Cara grows. Builds a life. Finds herself. By eighteen, she’s no longer just Kaden’s little sister. She’s her own person — confident, loved, maybe even happy. But everything tilts when she runs into Callum again at a skating rink. Older, composed, and entirely unexpected.

He’s not the same boy who used to sleep on her couch with bruises on his ribs — and she’s not the girl who watched him leave.

But unfinished things have a way of circling back.

Told in alternating perspectives of Cara and Callum, What We Never Said explores the slow burn of first love, the ache of timing, and what it really means to grow up — and grow apart — before finding your way back.

Too many kids. Too many memories. Too many ghosts skating under fluorescent lights like they hadn't grown up.


But Kaden had insisted. Said we all needed a break. Said I'd been "brooding like a Victorian widower," whatever the hell that meant.


And for a while, it was fine. Laughter, music, some dumb arcade competition. Just enough noise to keep my head busy.


At first, I wasn't even sure it was real.


She was skating slowly, tucked between some guy and another couple. Her hair was longer now, wavy and half-tied back. She wore a soft blue hoodie, sleeves too long, her fingers barely poking out — same as always. Her legs moved confidently, fluid across the rink, and I caught flashes of pale skin between the hem of her hoodie and denim shorts.


But it wasn't just her body that stopped me.


Wide, unguarded, tilted up at the guy skating beside her. He said something, and she laughed — loud, open, no hesitation. That laugh used to be mine. That light in her eyes. That gentle, knowing tilt of her head.


Not clinging. Not faking it. Just… happy.


He skated close, hand brushing hers. She didn't pull away.


Because all this time, I'd convinced myself that what we had — what almost was — had faded out clean. That she'd forget. Move on. That I could tell myself leaving was the right thing, and mean it.


Not the wide-eyed, quiet girl who used to sit on the stairs listening to me and Kaden talk like our words mattered more than they did. Not the girl who asked if she could kiss me in the dark when she thought I was bleeding out from more than just bruises.


And instead of looking away, she held my gaze.


Bold. Steady. Like she knew exactly who she was and didn't need my permission anymore.


And then that guy — her guy — skated over and took her hand.


I swallowed the heat crawling up my throat.


The kind that seeps into your bones and sets up camp.


Because I'd left to protect her. To let her live a life untouched by the mess I carried. I told myself she'd be better off if I stayed gone.


But I never expected her to look right through me like that.


And now I wasn't sure what was worse — that she moved on.


Chapter 13 - Callum