Never Noticed Novels & Stories

ORION He noticed it on the final morning of the summit. Not for the first time if he was honest with himself it had been happening since the first night in the valley but for the first time, he noticed that he was noticing. There was a distinction. The first was something that happened. The second was something you were doing. He was aware of where she was in the room.

“They’re easy to adore.” Logan nodded, still watching. “I guess I knew that about you, but I never really noticed it much before.” I raised an eyebrow, unsure how to respond. His sudden attentiveness felt almost foreign, like a reminder of the conversations we never had. “Well, there’s a lot you never noticed, Logan.”

But on the drive home, alone in the back of the car while the city moves past the windows, I think about that pause. The small pause. The fast one. The one she covers so smoothly that most people would not have noticed it at all. I notice most things. I have simply, for a very long time, chosen not to.

she said, grinning. My eyes went wide. "What? Wait, how do I not know about that?" I asked. "You had plenty of chances, but you didn't notice. The night I brought you home, you were too out of it to notice that I'd stopped right after your house. The day I saw you at the grocery store is the day I noticed that you are my neighbor. I saw you leave. I was standing by the window which was open. You would've seen me if you had looked up"

NATE I noticed it first on a Wednesday. This is not entirely accurate. I had been noticing it for weeks before the Wednesday, in the specific and background way that you noticed things when your attention was primarily on something else and the thing you were noticing was not yet loud enough to require the foreground. It had been accumulating in the peripheral and unexamined way of evidence that had not yet reached the threshold of a conclusion, the particular and incremental quality of a case being built by a part of your brain that had not yet seen fit to brief the rest of it.

Didn't react. Completely unfazed.

Not this time. Not ever.

It was a small treat, a brief break from all the things bothering me. While I was enjoying my unexpected feast, I noticed someone entering the store from the corner of my eye. I looked up, but they were looking in a different direction, so I couldn't see their face clearly. They didn't wait to be served and just walked ahead, which was kind of unusual and caught my attention.

"Well, I noticed that your face lit up every time you ate something strawberry-flavored." He noticed that? My breath hitched, released in a soft, uneven exhale. The grip around the box tightened. I hadn’t realized he was observing me that closely. It wasn’t just something he saw once—it was a pattern he picked up on. Something small. Something I never said aloud.

I felt uncomfortable watching her press her breasts to his biceps like that. “I feel like I never see you around these days,” the girl pouted and I scowled. Barf. Acting cute while looking like a giant... Why do I care? “Hmphf.” We passed by each other in that hallway and never once did he look my way. He was so focused on that girl, he didn't notice me… not that I wanted him to. It’s just that... how could he not notice me? I was literally just there beside him. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something was making me absolutely livid.