Novel & Cerita I Was Quiet But I Was Not Blind

I just stared at the words until the screen dimmed and my reflection appeared in the black glass—tired, older, smaller. Maya whispered, “He’ll come around.” I nodded, but my heart didn’t agree. Outside, thunder rumbled far away, rolling across the sky like a warning. And as I sat there, holding my phone in the dark, I realized silence could hurt louder than any sound.

The impact sends me stumbling two steps back. “Are you blind?” a sharp voice snaps.

I said softly "we do not miss again.” He nodded once. “Yes, my Lady.” The door shut. I was alone again. My hand rested lightly on my stomach. I listened to the quiet. I listened to the silence where certainty used to live. For the time in a long while. I let one thought surface. Not spoken. Not written. Barely acknowledged. Small. Sharp. Like glass, under my skin. What if I am losing? The question sat there. Ugly. Breathing. Real. I closed my eyes.

Without mirror. Hard. But mine. I closed my eyes. Not to sleep. To rest. In the dark, I saw nothing. Not blindness. Not emptiness. Just the space where something new could grow. Something I would make. Not find. Make.

Quiet. “She’s been quiet all day.” “You don’t think she—” “She’s blind, Elara.” A small laugh. Easy. Certain. “She wouldn’t notice if I painted the walls.” I stood in the kitchen with a slice of bread in my hand and I did not move and I did not breathe and I let it sink all the way down into the cold place where I kept things. Then I made two lunches, the way I did every night, and I put them in the fridge, and I went up to bed.

He goes very still. I go very still. And the car is absolutely, completely, deafeningly quiet.

I stood at one side. He stood at the other. The distance between us felt smaller than it should have been. Neither of us spoke. The elevator began to move. The quiet stretched. Uncomfortable. Heavy. Then “You are unusually quiet.” I blinked, glancing at him. He was looking at me now. Calm. Observant. “I am usually quiet,” I replied. One of his brows lifted slightly. “No,” he said. “You are not.” I looked away. “I am learning,” I said.

The silence between us was deafening, even louder than the sound of the gunshots. “I said I’m not interested,” I repeated when he still didn’t walk away. He hummed. “You keep saying that,” he said, “but you forget I’m not blind to the way your body reacts towards me.” My hand tightened around the gun. “You think you can read me or something?” “You’re an open book, Isla.”

And somewhere within that quiet glow, a whisper rose like a heartbeat. “Not this time.”

Everything turned dark and silent. *********