Fourteen was supposed to be an in-between year — too old for dolls, too young for love. But for Cara, it became the year everything changed.

When her brother’s best friend, Callum Adler, starts spending more time at their house, Cara notices things most adults ignore. The bruises. The quiet. The way their mother starts folding extra laundry like it’s second nature. Callum's broken home becomes a secret the whole family carries, and Cara — wide-eyed, overlooked, and quietly growing — starts to fall for him in all the ways she shouldn’t.

But Callum is four years older. Eighteen. Off-limits. Almost a man. And despite their quiet moments — the almosts, the shared glances, the night she asked to kiss him — he walks away without a goodbye, leaving her in the silence he helped create.

Years pass. Cara grows. Builds a life. Finds herself. By eighteen, she’s no longer just Kaden’s little sister. She’s her own person — confident, loved, maybe even happy. But everything tilts when she runs into Callum again at a skating rink. Older, composed, and entirely unexpected.

He’s not the same boy who used to sleep on her couch with bruises on his ribs — and she’s not the girl who watched him leave.

But unfinished things have a way of circling back.

Told in alternating perspectives of Cara and Callum, What We Never Said explores the slow burn of first love, the ache of timing, and what it really means to grow up — and grow apart — before finding your way back.

I shut my bedroom door gently, like if I made a sound, I'd break something between us.


Not mean. Not cold. Just... careful. Like he knew he was walking a line and couldn't afford to fall.


I stood there in the dark for a second, fingers on the door handle, forehead against the wood.


That's what he was probably thinking. That I didn't get it. That I didn't really understand what I was doing, standing barefoot in the kitchen in the middle of the night, trying to tell him I saw him when I barely even understood what it meant to be seen myself.


Not just the parts he tried to hide—like the way he winced when he sat down too fast or how he went quiet when someone raised their voice.


The way he always made sure I had the remote, even when he and Kaden were arguing about what to watch. How he rinsed his plate without being asked. How he said my name like it mattered.


I crawled back into bed, pulled the blanket up over my head like that would block everything out.


Because his voice was still echoing in my head.


You matter. I see you, Cara. Even if I shouldn't. Even if it scares me.


I knew he didn't say that lightly. He wasn't the type to say anything just to make someone feel better.


Because I didn't want to be something scary to him.


I didn't want to be something he had to push away.


But I also didn't want to make things harder for him than they already were.


So I lay there, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, wishing I were older. Wishing the world were simpler. Wishing hedidn't have to hurt just to survive.


I didn't cry. Not really. Just lay still for a long time, letting the ache settle in my chest like something I'd have to carry quietly.


Because that's what you do with things you're not allowed to say out loud.


Chapter 4 - Cara