She stares at me with these heartfelt eyes. “Thank you, that’s so sweet.” Then her gaze drops to the notebook in my hand. Thepen. The scratched-out lines are visible even in the dim glow of my phone light.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
She’s waking up now, curiosity replacing the sleepy fog. A smile tugs at her lips. “Is that… Are youwritinga poem?” She says it like an accusation, delighted and teasing. “You’re writing poetry outside my door in the middle of the night. Do you know how romantic that is?” She grins, and it tugs at my heart.
She’s already leaning closer, trying to get a better look, and her scent hits me like a wave. Lemon zest and honey and wildflowers, stronger than usual, wrapping around me until I can barely think straight.
“Did you write something for me?” Her voice drops softer, the tease gone. There is something unguarded behind her eyes, like she forgot to lock the door on it.
I crouch back down in the dark hallway outside her bedroom with the notebook in my hand, feeling ridiculous for even having it out. I glance toward her door, then back to the floor.
“I’ll be here,” I say, careful. “If you need me.” I mean it as an escape hatch for her, a way to let her step back without making it a thing. I mean it for me too.
I don’t add anything else or try to joke it away. The silence takes over.
June doesn’t move.
“Can I read it?”
“It’s not finished. It’s crap, honestly. I was just messing around.”
“I was going to get water,” she says, quietly.
I wait for her to head down the hallway. Instead, she lowers herself to the floor beside me.
Not across from me. Not safely distant. Beside me, close enough that if I moved, our shoulders would touch.
My chest pulls tight, and I keep my eyes forward because I don’t trust what my face will do if I look at her too long.
“But now,” she adds, settling in like she belongs here, “I want the poem more.”
The hallway seems to narrow. The air feels different. Not loud, not dramatic, just… charged, like the house noticed we stopped running from each other.
Her bare knee is a few inches from my thigh. I can make out the freckles across her nose even in the dim light. Her lashes shadow her cheeks.
“It’s really not good,” I say.
“Let me decide that.”
I swallow, and slowly I angle the notebook toward her and hold up my phone so she can see.
The poem is short so far. A blank space where I couldn’t find the right words. It isn’t clever or polished. It’s just the truth I couldn’t say out loud.
You make the quiet louder—the kind I used to drown out.
Now I want to sit in it, if you are sitting there too.
June reads it once. Then again, slower. Her lips move with the words like she’s trying them on, like she wants to know how they feel.
When she glances up, something in her has shifted. Softer. Open. Like she made a decision and it scared her a little.
“Carter,” she whispers.
“I told you it was crap.”
“It’s not.” Her voice catches on the last word. “This is how you see me?”
