Chapter 3: The Unspoken Words

The box in the closet

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He had discovered it on a soggy Sunday afternoon—a dusty old cardboard box lying at the far back of his mother's closet. He had not opened the box since the day she was buried. Brittles tape wrapped the lid over. When Chen peeled it, the scent of jasmine and stale paper filled up the room. Inside lay pieces of her life: faded photographs, a stack of handwritten letters, a silk scarf she'd worn during chemotherapy, and a small red notebook with his name on the cover.

His hands were shaking as he flipped through the pages. The notebook was full of her cursive script, entries dated only weeks before she died.

"Chen made me laugh today. He tried to cook congee and burned the rice. I pretended it was perfect. How will he manage without me?"

"I told him to live, but I'm so afraid he'll spend his life mourning."

The words gutted him. He pressed the notebook to his chest, tears soaking into the pages. For months, he had clung to the sound of her voice in his memories. Now, here she was, alive in ink.

The Assignment That Broke Him

Ms. Alina's essay deadline loomed. The class had been tasked with writing about "a moment that changed everything," but Chen's draft remained blank. How could he reduce his mother's death to 1,000 words? How could he explain the suffocating guilt of surviving, of eating breakfast at the table where she once sat, of breathing air she no longer could?

During a free period, he locked himself in a bathroom stall, his knees pulled to his chest. The walls felt like they were closing in, his mother's notebook burning a hole in his backpack. When a knock came, he expected a teacher. Instead, Jia's voice slipped through the crack.

"Chen? You in there?"

He didn't answer.

"I'll sit here until you open the door," she said, her voice firm but soft. "I've got time."

Minutes ticked by. At last, Chen unfastened the door. Jia slid down beside him, ignoring the grimy floor. She didn't ask questions. She just handed him a packet of tissues and waited.

"I found her journal," Chen choked out. "She was scared. For me."

Jia rested her head on his shoulder. "She loved you. That's why she was scared."

The Fight with Miguel

Miguel's optimism began to grate on Chen. Every "You've got this!" and "Stay strong!" felt like a dismissal of his pain. It boiled over during a study session at Miguel's house.

"Stop acting like everything's fine!" Chen snapped, slamming his textbook shut. "You don't get it! You still have both your parents!"

Miguel winced as if hit. "You think I don't know how lucky I am? I'm trying to help!"

"Pretending this isn't hell? Pretending I'm not broken?"

"You're not broken," Miguel whispered. "You're just hurt."

Chen stormed out, his anger dissipating into shame with every step.

The Night of the Storm

That night, the thunderstorm caused the windows in Chen's apartment to rattle. He clutched his mother's journal and lay on the bed while his phone was filled with video calls. It was his father, haggard and with a stubbly beard and dimly lit construction site at Dubai as background.

"Chen," he said, and his voice is raw. "I need to tell you something."

Chen braced for another excuse or deflection but what came after would shatter him.

"After your mother died… I wanted to disappear," his father admitted, tears streaming down his face. "I work these double shifts because if I stop, I'll have to feel it. And I'm… I'm not as brave as you."

For the first time, Chen saw his father not as a distant provider, but as a man drowning in the same grief.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there," his father whispered. "I'm sorry I left you alone."

Chen's tears fell freely. "We'll figure it out. Together."

The Race

The school's annual charity 5K arrived, a fundraiser for cancer research. Luna had convinced Chen to sign up, but as he stood at the starting line, he felt numb. The crowd's cheers faded into static.

Then he saw them—Jia, Miguel, Sophia, Rafi, and Luna—holding a banner painted with his mother's name. Ms. Alina stood beside Mr. Tan, who gave him a thumbs-up.

"You're not running alone," Luna said, squeezing his arm.

The starting gun fired. Chen ran.

He raced past the tree where his mother first taught him how to ride a bicycle. Passed the hospital where she spent her last days. Past the fear, guilt, and unspoken words.

When he approached the finish line, falling onto Miguel's chest, he didn't care what his time was. He cared about the feeling in his chest, as if he'd out-ran the storm inside him, at least for a while.

The Essay

Chen submitted his essay late that night. It wasn't polished. It wasn't perfect. But it was true.

Grief isn't something to be won. It is a language we learn to speak, awkward and broken, in the empty rooms between memories. My mother taught me how to make congee, but she didn't teach me how to miss her. No one does. You simply wake up one day and realize the ache has become a part of you, like another heartbeat. And that might be all right. Maybe it means she's stayed in there.

Ms. Alina read it twice, her own tears staining the margins.

The Notebook in the Closet

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Chen sat on his mother's closet floor for hours, cradling the red notebook in his lap. The entries ran the gamut from mundane details to gut-wrenching confessions. One page described her secret trips to the hospital, hidden from Chen in order to "protect" him. Another told the night she cried in the shower, muzzling her sobs so he wouldn't hear.

"I'm not ready to leave him," she'd written. "How do I say goodbye to someone who is my entire world?"

Chen's tears fell onto the page, smudging the ink. He traced her handwriting, imagining her sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling these words while he slept. He hadn't realized how much she'd hidden—not just her pain, but her fear.

He almost didn't even look up from what he was studying to check his phone. But then he typed:

Chen: Found my mom's journal. Can you come over?

Twenty minutes later, Jia arrived, her backpack soaked from the rain. She didn't ask questions. She just sat beside him, reading the entries he pointed to, her own tears silent but steady.

"She loved you so much," Jia whispered. "Even her fear was about you."

Chen nodded, his throat too tight to speak.

The Assignment That Broke Him

Chen's essay draft was a mess of crossed-out sentences and inkblots. He'd tried to write about the day his mother died, but the words felt hollow, like a eulogy written by a stranger.

Ms. Alina pulled him aside after class. "Writing about grief is like holding a mirror to your soul," she said. "It's uncomfortable. But it's also how we make sense of the senseless."

Chen stared at his shoes. "What if I can't?"

"Then write about what you can," she replied. "The smell of her perfume. The sound of her laugh. The way she burned congee.

That night, Chen tried again. He wrote about the jasmine-scented hugs, the lullabies she'd hummed in Mandarin, the way she'd saved every doodle he'd ever drawn. The essay became less about her death and more about her life—a celebration instead of a eulogy.

The Fight with Miguel

The ruckus of their argument was still reverberating. Miguel stopped texting, and Chen stopped going to the diner where they used to haunt. But in gym class, as Chen sulked on the bleachers, Miguel tossed a basketball at his chest.

"Play," Miguel said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

They shot hoops in silence until sweat dripped down their backs. Only then did Miguel speak: "You think I don't get it because my parents are alive? Fine. But don't push me away because you're scared."

Chen missed a shot, and the ball clanged against the rim. "I'm not scared. I'm just… tired."

Miguel grabbed the rebound. "You're allowed to be both.

They didn't hug. They didn't apologize. But by the end of the game, the tension had eased.

The Night of the Storm

Chen couldn't sleep after the video call with his father. He pulled on his mother's old cardigan—the one that still smelled like her—and wandered into the living room. The storm raged outside, lightning splitting the sky.

He opened her journal again, reading an entry dated a month before her death:

"Chen brought me a dandelion today. 'Make a wish, Mom!' he said. I wished for a thousand more days with him. Just one thousand."

The soreness in his chest was intense. He clutched at his phone to call his dad again, oblivious to the hours.

"Dad," he said when it connected. "Tell me something about her. Something I don't know."

He stopped, his blue eyes blinking. "She detested roses. Thought they were too finicky. But loved wildflowers-said they grew bold."

Chen smiled through his tears. "Yeah. That sounds like her."

The Race

The morning of the 5K, Chen's hands shook as he pinned his bib to his shirt. The banner his friends had made-"For Li Wei, Forever Loved"-fluttered in the wind.

Luna jogged over, her usual confidence softened by concern. "Stick with me. We'll pace each other."

But when the race began, Chen surged ahead, his legs carrying him faster than he'd ever run. He passed the park where his mother had taught him to ride a bike, the library where she'd read him fairy tales, the corner store where she'd bought him ice cream after every school triumph.

By mile three, his lungs burned and his vision blurred. Luna caught up, matching his stride. "You're not alone," she reminded him.

At the finish line, his friends swarmed him, their cheers drowning out the announcer. Ms. Alina handed him a water bottle, her eyes glistening. "She'd be proud," she said.

Chen didn't need to ask who.

The Essay

Chen's essay was typed on plain paper-no frills, no decorations. Ms. Alina read it aloud to the class-anonymously, as Chen had requested.

The room was silent once her voice filled the air. When she finished, Rafi-the class clown, never one for seriousness-raised his hand.

"Who wrote that?" he asked, uncharacteristically quiet.

Ms. Alina cast a glance at Chen, who gave a tiny nod.

"Chen did.

No one clapped. No one needed to. The respect in their silence was louder than applause.

The Letter

Chen's unsent letter grew into a stack of pages - apologies, regrets, memories, promises. One night, Jia found him folding them into origami cranes at the courtyard picnic table.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"She loved cranes," Chen said. "Said they symbolized longevity. Kinda ironic.

Jia sat beside him, folding a crane of her own. "They also symbolize hope."

Together, they strung the cranes onto twine and hung them from the magnolia tree. When the wind blew, they danced like fragments of a prayer.

The Phone Call

A week later, Chen's father surprised him with a visit. He stood in the doorway, duffel bag in hand, his flight from Dubai clearly unplanned.

"I quit the job," he said, voice trembling. "I'm staying. If… if you'll let me."

Chen didn't hesitate. He pulled his father into a hug, the first they'd shared in years.

"Welcome home," he whispered.