I wasn't supposed to talk.
That's what I told myself.
Just go to class. Sit by the window.
Answer questions if you have to.
Don't get noticed. Don't let anyone in.
But she looked at me.
And I forgot all the rules.
Ginny.
She said her name like it was an offering.
Simple. Unafraid.
"Your handwriting leans left."
What a stupid thing to say.
And yet—she smiled, just a little.
Not the big, practiced kind.
The kind that starts in the eyes and doesn't need approval.
She reminds me of what I was before.
Before the house was too quiet.
Before I stopped picking up the phone.
Before all the flowers were at a funeral and not drawn in notebooks.
I didn't mean to mention her.
My mom.
But I saw the way Ginny looked at the paper—messy flowers curling in the corners like they were trying to bloom past the edge.
And it hit me.
How much I miss the sound of a pen scratching paper.
How much I miss her.
After class, I sat in the hallway for a few minutes longer than usual.
I told myself I was tired.
But the truth?
I didn't want to walk back to a place no one waits for me.
Ginny didn't ask questions.
She didn't push.
She just… sat there.
Wrote in the margins.
Passed the paper when it was my turn.
That silence was the first one I didn't want to run from.
I don't know what she sees in me.
I don't even know what I see in her yet.
But when she said her name,
something uncurled in my chest.
Just a little.
Like maybe
not everyone leaves.
August's Notebook – Page 53
I said too much.
Just one sentence. Seven words.
But it was seven more than I meant to give.
"Someone I knew used to draw them."
I could've lied. Could've said it was a random thing I saw online or that I liked Flowers.
But she looked at the paper like it mattered.
So I told the truth, and now I can't stop thinking about it.
She said her name.
I said mine.
Now we're not strangers.
And that feels dangerous.
What if she sees past the silence?
What if she asks where I go at lunch or why I flinch when I hear her laugh?
What if she becomes another reason to miss something?
She's not like the others.
She doesn't fill the air with noise.
She just… sits in it.
Like she knows it hurts less when someone stays.
I'm not ready.
But part of me wonders what would happen if I was.