CHAPTER TWO:The First Pull
Elianah – Age 14
She had grown into her silence like a second skin — thoughtful, observant, and always a little... elsewhere. At school, her classmates called her the dreamer. She didn't mind. It was easier to live in her thoughts than in a world that always felt slightly out of focus.
Lately, she'd begun having dreams again.
A boy with dark eyes she couldn't name. A melody only he could hear. Sometimes he would reach for her hand, but right before their fingers met, she'd wake up gasping — as if she'd fallen from somewhere she was meant to stay.
In literature class, their teacher handed out a new reading list. She wasn't paying attention until she heard a name.
> Isaiah.
It struck her like wind on water. Not because it was strange — but because it wasn't. It felt familiar.
Like a word she had once loved, now tucked behind memory's curtain.
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Isaiah – Age 15
He didn't remember the girl's face anymore. Not clearly. Just the feeling of her — that day at the fountain, that glance, that question. But it had buried itself inside him like a seed.
He'd drawn other girls since. Real ones, imagined ones. None of them stayed in his mind like her.
At night, he dreamed of staircases with no end. Of running toward something in the rain. Of holding someone he couldn't see but knew.
And now, lately, he'd been seeing her again. Not in dreams — in hallways. In reflections. In crowds. A girl with curious eyes and the kind of quiet he could hear from across a room.
At first, he thought he was imagining it.
Until one day, she turned.
And their eyes met.
Across the school courtyard.
A moment stretched into eternity.
Neither of them spoke.
But the world fell quiet.
---
Narrator
It wasn't love yet. Not quite.
It was recognition. Soul-deep and sudden.
The kind of knowing that makes your chest ache for reasons your mind can't explain.
And from that day forward, they started seeing each other more. Not by choice. Not by plan. Just… constantly.
In dreams. In doorways.
In the kind of silence that speaks.