Josh stands in the kitchen like he belongs there now.
That thought catches me off guard.
He is barefoot, leaning against the counter, eating cereal straight from the box like milk is a commitment he is not ready to make. The overhead light hums softly. The sink holds a single mug. Mine.
He glances at me, then back at the box.
"You know," he says, "you've gotten weirdly quiet."
I shrug. "I've always been quiet."
"No," he says, shaking his head. "You've always been loud inside. This is different. This is curated silence."
"Did you just call my personality a museum exhibit?"
He grins. "I am an artist. I use words irresponsibly."
I reach for a glass of water. The bottle is still on the counter where I left it. I did not move it last night.
That feels like a mistake now.
Josh's eyes flick to it. Not dramatically. Just a glance. The way you notice a crack in a wall you pass every day and file it away.
"Huh," he says. "Didn't know we were stocking alcohol now."
"It was on sale," I say.
"That is never the reason."
I snort despite myself. "You live off instant noodles and ambition. Don't start judging my purchases."
"I'm not judging," he says quickly. Too quickly. "I'm observing. Like a concerned documentarian."
"About what?"
He tilts his head, studying me. The smile stays, but it softens around the edges.
"You don't write anymore," he says, lightly. "You edit strangers for eight hours, come home, stare at a screen, and drink like you're waiting for something to happen."
My shoulders tense. "I had one glass."
"I know," he says. "That's the part that worries me."
I turn toward the sink and run the faucet. The water sounds too loud in the small kitchen.
"It helps me read," I say. "That's all."
Josh lets the silence stretch. He always does. Lets people trip over their own explanations.
"Okay," he says finally. "Just checking."
"On what?"
"On you," he says, casual again. "I like you alive and functioning. It's very inconvenient to replace siblings."
I look back at him. "You'd miss me."
"Obviously," he says. "Who else would tell me my third act is trash without apologizing?"
He tosses the cereal box aside and grabs his jacket.
"Hey," he adds, pausing at the door. "If you ever want to talk instead of collecting background coping mechanisms, I'm here."
I nod. "Noted."
He leaves. The apartment settles again.
The bottle stays where it is.
So does the quiet.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
The conference room smells like burnt coffee and dry paper.
The table is too long. Everyone sits with laptops open, notebooks stacked, pens uncapped like weapons they forgot to put away. I take the chair closest to the wall. The kind that signals I am here to listen, not exist.
The meeting begins without ceremony.
Sales numbers flicker onto the screen. Someone sighs. Someone else scrolls through emails like this is happening to them by accident.
"We need something louder," an editor says. "The market's fatigued."
"Readers want urgency," another adds. "High concept. Clear stakes."
A third voice follows. "Romance performs, but only if it's hooky. Trauma is fine. Subtle trauma is not."
I do not write anything. I listen.
Manuscripts slide across the table in neat stacks. Titles are mentioned and discarded in the same breath.
Then someone pushes a printed copy toward the center.
"This one," she says. "The prose is beautiful."
I look up.
I recognize it immediately. I read it last week. A beautiful story of a woman who writes letters she never sends. No twists. No villains. Just absence, rendered with care.
"It's too restrained," someone says. "Nothing really happens."
"It's internal," another agrees. "Hard to position."
A pause.
"It won't sell," the head editor says gently, like delivering a diagnosis. "We should pass."
No one argues.
The manuscript is moved aside.
I feel it in my chest. Not anger. Recognition.
This is not cruelty. This is machinery.
Stories arrive here hopeful and fragile. Then they are weighed. Measured. Reduced to potential.
I look around the table. These are not villains. Just tired people trying to keep the lights on.
Still, something shifts inside me.
I realize art does not survive on truth alone. It survives on compromise.
And love stories suffer the most.
Because love, when it is quiet, unresolved, and unredeemed, makes people uncomfortable.
"Next," someone says.
The meeting continues.
I remain very still, learning how the world decides what deserves to exist.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
The apartment is quiet in the way only night can manage. Not peaceful. Just emptied out.
Josh is asleep on the couch, one arm hanging off the edge, his notebook on the floor where it must have slipped from his grip. The city hums through the thin windows. Sirens in the distance. Someone laughing too loudly on the street, like they are trying to prove something.
I sit at the small desk we argued over and pretend it belongs to me.
My laptop screen glows, too bright for the hour. I tell myself I am only checking emails. I delete a few. Archive the rest.
Then, without deciding to, I open a folder I never touch on weekdays.
Untitled_Draft_7.
The document loads slowly, as if hesitating. The first line waits for me, unchanged for months.
She used to count her steps when she was nervous, like the ground might disappear if she didn't keep track.
My fingers tighten on the edge of the desk.
I read the paragraph. Then the next. The writing is careful. Too careful. Every sentence measured like it might break if I breathe wrong.
It is not her name on the page. I never let myself use it. But it is her posture in the sentences. Her pauses. Her silences. The way the character avoids mirrors. The way she dances alone in kitchens and calls it exercise so no one asks questions.
My chest tightens, but the pain feels distant, like it belongs to someone adjacent to me.
I scroll.
There is a section I forgot about. A line where the character thinks love is not something you lose. It is something that loses you.
I close my eyes.
For a moment, I imagine submitting it.
Attaching the file. Writing a short, polite cover letter. Watching it leave my outbox and land somewhere anonymous, where no one knows what it cost.
My cursor hovers over the email icon.
This could be the one, a hopeful voice whispers.
Another voice answers immediately.
If they accept it, they will read it. If they read it, they will touch it. If they touch it, it will stop being mine.
And worse than rejection would be misunderstanding.
I think of the meeting earlier. The word too quiet. The way the manuscript was pushed aside without malice.
I think of her as a child, counting steps, believing precision could save her.
My hand drops from the mouse.
I scroll back to the top and read the first line again.
She used to count her steps when she was nervous.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
Then I close the document.
Not in anger. Not in grief.
Just firmly.
The folder slips back into the dark corner of my hard drive. The laptop hums as if nothing important happened.
I sit there for a long time, hands resting uselessly in my lap.
The thought settles into me, heavy and calm, like a rule I will live by without questioning.
The stories that matter most should never be told.
I shut the laptop.
Outside, the city keeps going.