things we never say

By the time tenth grade rolled around, everything had changed—and yet nothing really had.

Elira still wore that same disarming smile. The one that made teachers pause mid-scold and classmates feel like they belonged. But behind it now, there was something else. A dull ache. A loss. Her mother had passed away earlier that year. One moment she was there, folding laundry and humming old movie songs, and the next, she wasn’t. Just like that.

Since then, her house had felt like an empty hallway filled with closed doors. Her father barely spoke unless it was to check if groceries were paid. Her little sister Lyra had buried herself in their father's warmth—something Elira had never been allowed to claim.

She didn’t cry in front of anyone. That was the rule. Elira was the one who made breakfast now. Who walked Lyra to school. Who paid attention to the dates on bills taped to the fridge. She smiled not because she was happy, but because it kept everyone else from worrying.

Darian noticed.

He didn’t say anything, of course. He wasn’t the type to talk when words weren’t needed. He just started walking beside her more often. Waiting outside her class. Leaving sticky notes with reminders in her notebook when she looked too tired to care about homework.

Their bond had shifted from something light and playful to something softer. Unspoken.

And then came the picnic.

The school organized it as a break from midterm pressures. There would be games, music, and food—but also a short, silly skit competition. One of their classmates had written a strange script about a lost prince, an evil queen, a timid peasant girl, and an accidental hero. Elira was immediately cast as the overly dramatic villain. She nailed the part effortlessly, putting on wild accents and hurling fake curses.

Darian, to his horror, was made the reluctant prince who saves the day.

“I don’t act,” he said flatly.

“You just have to say three lines and look mildly confused. That’s literally just your face,” Elira teased.

Skit practices started after school in the empty music room. At first, Darian barely said a word. He stumbled over the script, eyes on the floor. But Elira... she had this way of laughing without making fun of him. Correcting him without correcting him. Slowly, Darian eased into the rhythm.

It was during one of those rehearsals that Elina walked in.

She was the new girl. Soft brown hair, small voice, shy smile. She had been assigned to help with props, but when one of the main cast members got sick, she was pulled in to play the peasant girl—the one the prince ends up saving.

The change felt small at first. But Elira saw it. The way Darian looked at Elina when she whispered her lines. The softness in his eyes that wasn’t usually there.

She felt something twist in her chest.

Over the following week, Darian seemed a little more… aware. Of Elina. Of the space between scenes. And Elira hated that it made her stomach feel like it was shrinking.

Then came the last day of practice.

It was just the two of them. The others had left early, and Darian stayed behind to help Elira pack the props. She sat cross-legged on the dusty floor, folding a velvet cape, when he sat beside her and said it.

Not looking at her. Just… speaking into the room.

“I think I love you.”

The silence between them roared.

She looked up. “What?”

He shrugged, still not meeting her eyes. “I think I do. I don’t know. I just… when you’re not around, it’s quieter in a way I don’t like. And when you are, everything feels like it makes a little more sense.”

Elira stared at him, lips parting slightly.

But before she could say anything, he stood up, rubbed the back of his neck, and mumbled, “Forget it.”

And he never brought it up again.

Never clarified if he meant Elira or Elina.

Never looked her in the eye with that same softness again.

And Elira? She didn’t ask. She didn’t push. She smiled and joked and carried on like nothing had happened. But the space it left behind stayed with her. A strange, aching emptiness.

Because for all the people in her life—her distant father, her adored little sister, the laughing crowd of classmates—Darian had been the one person who made her feel like she wasn’t just someone in the background of everyone else’s story. He had been steady. Solid.

And now, she wasn’t sure if that was still true.

Days passed. Then weeks.

Elira convinced herself it hadn’t happened. Or if it did, he hadn’t meant it. After all, he never said it again.

And then she saw it. The way Darian watched Elina during class. The small half-smiles. The lingering glances.

It wasn’t the same as the way he was with her. With Elira, it was warmth. Familiarity. Trust built over years. With Elina, it was curiosity. Like looking into a mirror that softened his own reflection.

Elira never blamed him. Elina was sweet. And quiet. And safe.

She wasn’t burdened with grief or walls. She wasn’t loud with her laughter or exhausted from pretending she was okay. She wasn’t someone who carried an entire family’s emotional weight on her shoulders.

She was just… easier.

One day, while they sat under the old banyan tree near the school gate, Elira finally asked, “Do you like her?”

Darian didn’t answer right away. Then, softly, “She reminds me of me.”

She nodded, lips pressed tightly together. “That’s not a no.”

He looked at her then, and for a moment, she thought he might say more. That he might explain what that confession in the music room had meant. That maybe he’d tell her it had been about her.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he said, “I don’t know what I feel sometimes.”

Elira smiled.

That same damn smile.

“I know.”

And she never brought it up again either.

But it haunted her.

Not because he loved Elina. But because he had loved her, too. She was sure of it. She had felt it in the way he looked at her when she laughed mid-class. In the way he leaned closer when she whispered ridiculous thoughts during assemblies. In the way he remembered the tiniest details she never said out loud.

But it hadn’t been enough.

Not enough for him to choose her.

Senior year came with new uniforms and new pressures.

University brochures, entrance exams, last chances.

The hallway walls were cluttered with posters: Prom Night. Graduation Gala. Final Year Farewell.

People whispered. Giggled. Planned.

Elira wasn’t excited. She felt distant from the buzz.

One afternoon, Darian found her sitting alone in the art room, brushing careless strokes onto a canvas of blue and grey.

He sat beside her. Close, but not too close.

“You going to prom?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Might.”

“You want to go with someone?”