Chapter 4 – The Notebook by the Lake
After school, most students would head straight home.
But for Bairon and Isla, the day never really ended.
They had a small world of their own that stretched all the way to sunset: a narrow path behind an empty lot two blocks from school, an old bike trail, and finally… the lakeside.
That little lake, hidden and forgotten by everyone else, was their secret.
Leaves floating gently on the water's surface, the occasional ripple from a passing fish… and silence.
But it wasn't the kind of silence Bairon was used to. It didn't suffocate—it soothed.
Everything felt lighter when Isla was there.
That day, Isla pulled a small, purple-covered notebook from her backpack.
"Dream journal," she said excitedly. "Not for real stuff… for the things we wish were real. Whenever you imagine something, write it in here, okay?"
Bairon took the notebook in his hands.
The cover was a little worn, but the pages were clean.
On the first page, Isla had drawn a crooked, oversized sun.
Beneath it, she had written:
"One day, we'll travel the world together. We won't need plane tickets—because we'll have wings."
Bairon stared at the page for a moment.
Then he picked up the pen lying beside it and wrote just underneath:
"I wish I could walk on water. Quietly, leaving no trace."
Isla laughed. "Of course you'd write something like that. It's so weird… but kinda beautiful."
Then they fell quiet for a while, sitting side by side, listening to the wind over the lake.
"Sometimes I envy you," Isla said suddenly.
Bairon turned to her. He had never heard her say anything like that before.
"Why?"
"Because you… carry everything in silence. You don't burden anyone. You don't hurt anyone. Most people don't get you, but I do.
You have a whole world inside you.
But no one knows it."
Bairon couldn't answer.
The words were stuck in his throat again.
But Isla went quiet too—like she had already heard everything she needed.
She closed the notebook carefully.
"Let's hide it somewhere," she said. "Just for us."
They tucked it gently into the hollow of an old, rotting tree by the shore.
It felt like they were leaving behind more than just a childish notebook—
as if they'd sealed away something growing, something unnamed,
shaped by the weight of what they couldn't say.
On the walk home, Bairon realized something for the first time:
Thinking of Isla felt like breathing.
Silent—
but essential.