Liam didn't speak much in the mornings.
Emma learned this quickly, during their quiet walks to school. On most days, they would meet at the corner of San Rafael and Mabini, right beside the peeling billboard advertising a tutoring center no one really went to. Emma always arrived first, earbuds in, pretending to scroll through something on her phone while she waited. Liam usually showed up five minutes later, hands in his jacket pockets, his ever-present messenger bag slung across his chest.
"Morning," he'd say.
And that would be it.
At first, Emma tried to fill the silence. She would talk about homework, about teachers she couldn't stand, or the latest gossip from their class group chat. Liam would nod, occasionally mutter a reply, but he mostly let her talk. There was no awkwardness in his silence, no expectation that she needed to entertain him. It was like he'd made peace with the quiet, and maybe that was why it didn't feel as uncomfortable as it should have.
Eventually, Emma stopped trying to fill the spaces. She started to enjoy them.
There was a kind of peace in walking beside someone who didn't need noise to prove they cared. Sometimes, their arms would brush as they crossed streets. Sometimes, they'd catch each other's eyes and smile — small, quiet moments that spoke louder than any word could.
One morning, about three weeks after Liam transferred, Emma noticed something different in his expression. He was staring ahead, but his jaw was clenched, his brow slightly furrowed.
"You okay?" she asked.
He blinked and looked at her like he'd forgotten she was there.
"Yeah. Just… stuff."
Emma waited. She'd learned that silence, when used right, could pull things out of people better than questions.
Liam sighed. "My mom and I had a fight. She wants me to focus on engineering schools. I told her I want to write."
Emma raised an eyebrow. "You mean like, full-time? As in, be a writer?"
"Yeah," he said quietly. "She thinks it's a joke. Says I'll starve."
Emma frowned. "That sucks."
"It's not like she's wrong," he added, kicking at a loose stone on the sidewalk. "Writing isn't exactly… practical."
"But it's yours," she said, without thinking.
He stopped walking. Looked at her.
"What?"
"It's yours," she repeated, her voice more certain now. "It's the one thing that feels like it belongs to you. You're good at it, Liam. Like, really good. And if that's what makes you feel alive, who cares if it's practical?"
He looked at her for a long time. There was something unreadable in his eyes — not surprise, not gratitude, but something deeper. A kind of quiet awe.
"No one's ever said that to me," he murmured.
Emma looked away, suddenly self-conscious. "Well… now someone has."
That afternoon, he gave her another poem.
It was handwritten again, folded neatly and slipped into her notebook without a word. She unfolded it as soon as she got home, lying on her bed with the fan whirring overhead.
> *You said it's mine.*
> *So I wrote about you —*
> *Not in name,*
> *But in the spaces between words.*
> *The pause before you laugh.*
> *The way your fingers drum against your books.*
> *The way you say goodbye like you're still unsure it's the end.*
Emma read it twice. Then three more times.
He never mentioned the poem afterward. And she didn't bring it up. But something between them shifted again — subtly, like the slow turn of a season. They weren't just classmates anymore, not just walking companions or accidental friends. They were starting to orbit each other in a way neither of them had expected.
One Thursday, during lunch, their group was crowded around a table in the library, trying to cram for an upcoming chemistry test. Emma sat between Carla and Mico, her notes spread in front of her. Liam sat across from her, flipping through his own binder without really reading.
Carla nudged Emma. "Hey, you and the new guy getting close, huh?"
Emma looked up, startled. "What?"
"I mean, you walk home together. Sit together. You laugh at his jokes and everything. Just saying," Carla smirked.
Emma felt her ears grow warm. "We're just friends."
Liam didn't look up from his notes, but Emma noticed the slight stiffening of his shoulders.
"Sure," Carla said, drawing out the word in a sing-song tone.
Emma turned her attention back to her notes, but the words blurred together. She was painfully aware of Liam's silence.
Later that day, as they walked home, Emma hesitated before speaking.
"Did that… bother you?" she asked, eyes fixed on the sidewalk.
"What Carla said?"
"Yeah."
He was quiet for a moment. "I don't know."
She glanced at him. "That's not really an answer."
He exhaled. "I guess… I don't want people to start talking and ruin whatever this is."
"This?"
"This thing we have. I don't even know what to call it yet, but… I like it. And I don't want it to get weird because of rumors or expectations."
Emma nodded slowly. "Me too."
They walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence, but both of them were more aware of the space between their hands, the way their steps matched unconsciously. It felt like standing at the edge of something — a line neither of them was ready to cross, but both could see clearly now.
That night, Emma stared at her ceiling long after midnight. Her phone buzzed.
**Liam**: "Hey. I was thinking… maybe we're just really late."
She frowned.
**Emma**: "Late to what?"
**Liam**: "To noticing each other."
She stared at the message, heart thudding louder than she cared to admit. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
**Emma**: "Maybe. But I think we're right on time."
He didn't reply after that.
But the next morning, when she met him at the corner, he didn't just say "Morning."
He smiled, and for the first time, reached out to take her hand.
And just like that, the silence between them wasn't empty anymore.
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