Chapter 28: The Weight of Silence

The next morning, the sky was painted in soft grays, the kind that came before rain but carried no urgency. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, of flowers waking up slowly.

You stood by the wooden railing, staring at the sky like it held the answer to something. I leaned against the doorway, watching you, waiting.

"You ever notice," you said finally, "how silence has weight?"

I stepped forward, my hands sliding into my pockets. "What do you mean?"

You turned your head slightly, your gaze finding mine. "Sometimes it's heavy. Like a pause before something breaks. Other times, it's light like this." You gestured at the space between us, at the quiet that wasn't empty, wasn't lonely.

I nodded, understanding more than I could put into words. "Some silences speak louder than anything else."

Your lips curved into a small smile, but there was something softer in your eyes. "Like now?"

I took another step closer, closing the last of the distance. "Like now."

Neither of us spoke after that, but we didn't need to. The silence held everything the understanding, the history, the kind of love that didn't need to be spoken to be felt.

And as the first drop of rain kissed the earth, I realized sometimes, the heaviest words were the ones left unspoken.