Chapter Four: Things Not Meant to Be Rewritten

Zaniah stayed up past midnight writing the letter.

She sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, surrounded by crumpled drafts, trying to find the right words — not too clingy, not too cold, not too obvious. Just real. Honest. A soft bridge back to the girl who used to braid friendship bracelets with her in the back of math class.

"I don’t know what changed, but I miss you.

I miss the way we used to laugh.

I miss being your safe place, and you being mine.

If I did something wrong, I’m sorry.

But I don’t want to lose what we had just because we both got quiet."

She folded it neatly, tucked it into a lined envelope, and slipped it into Stella’s locker the next morning before anyone else showed up.

Zaniah didn’t expect magic. Just… a chance.

But the next day, Stella didn’t speak to her.

Or look at her.

Or even blink in her direction.

The day after that, it got worse.

At lunch, a note was waiting for her in her own locker. Unfolded, unsigned — but the handwriting was familiar. Stella's cursive was always precise, like her.

Zaniah opened it expecting softness. Forgiveness. A start-over.

Instead, it read:

“You don’t get to guilt me into being your friend again.

You were always more into me than I was into you.

I just felt bad for you.

This thing between us? It’s done. Move on.”

Zaniah didn’t move.

Not right away. Not even for class. She just stood there in the middle of the hallway, reading the letter over and over like maybe the words would rearrange themselves into something less cruel.

They didn’t.

So she walked.

Past her class. Past the cafeteria. Past the bathrooms where the girls talked loud and wore their hurt like armor.

She walked straight to the library, her steps automatic, her face blank. Sat in the farthest corner behind the last bookshelf, tucked between the fiction and forgotten encyclopedias. She didn’t cry. Not one tear.

She just sat.

Still.

Silent.

Breaking on the inside, but quiet on the outside, the way she’d been trained.

“Zaniah?”

She didn’t look up. Not even when she heard her name again, softer this time.

Then a shadow slid beside her. She turned slightly — not all the way — and found James crouched down, worry swimming in his eyes.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Zaniah blinked, throat tight. “Why?”

He shrugged, gently. “Because you didn’t show up to English. Because your locker was open and your stuff was still in it. Because… I guess I noticed you were gone, and I didn’t like that.”

That did it.

Not the words — but the kindness behind them.

She looked away, jaw clenched. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” he said. Not like an accusation — more like a truth he could feel on his own skin.

Silence stretched.

Then, cautiously, he sat beside her, cross-legged on the cold floor, elbows on his knees.

“I saw Stella with Vivian and them this morning. They were laughing. She showed them something. A note.”

Zaniah’s heart dropped.

He looked at her. “Was it yours?”

She didn’t answer, but the look on her face said everything.

James nodded slowly, like puzzle pieces were clicking together. “That’s messed up. I’m sorry.”

She swallowed. “I shouldn’t have written anything. I thought I could fix it.”

“She didn’t deserve that kind of kindness from you,” James said. “She let go of something good, not the other way around.”

Zaniah turned to him, really looked at him for the first time. “Why are you even here?”

He gave a quiet half-smile. “Because you don’t deserve to be alone when your heart breaks.”

They sat there for a long time, saying nothing, just breathing in the stillness of the library, surrounded by stories — the only place where pain had a plot and even sad endings made sense.

For now, that was enough.

But something had changed.

Zaniah wouldn’t be the same after this.

And maybe, that was the beginning of something too.

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