(Where Viera breaks—not loudly, not violently—but in a way that finally lets Kade see the weight she's been carrying all along.)
"Not all wounds bleed. Some just echo, over and over, until someone listens hard enough to hear them."
Wednesday Morning
The sky was that blank, sleepy gray that made everything feel like it hadn't quite woken up yet. Kade sat by the window in homeroom, the side of his face pressed to the cold glass. The glass smelled like dust and stale fingerprints. Outside, kids streamed through the gates—hoodies up, voices low.
He watched the world, but didn't feel like he was in it.
Viera wasn't at school.
She hadn't texted. Hadn't shown up. Hadn't replied.
Just quiet.
The kind that made your chest ache because you didn't know if you'd done something wrong—or if the world just decided to be cruel again.
Tuesday Night, Rewind
They were on the phone.
She'd sounded tired.
More than tired. Frayed.
She said, "I think… I don't know. I feel like I'm doing everything wrong."
Kade had leaned back on his bed, stared at the ceiling fan spinning too fast.
"You're not."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
There was a silence.
Then:
"Sometimes I hate how much you believe in me," she whispered.
He sat up, heart thudding. "Why?"
"Because I don't know what to do with it."
Wednesday Afternoon
Kade waited after school. Just outside the courtyard, under the bare tree where she used to sit alone before they started talking. He stood there for twenty-three minutes, chewing the drawstring of his hoodie until it was wet.
Then he started walking.
The streets were quiet. A few cars. Birds. The wind tugged at his sleeves.
Her house was too big, too perfect. The kind of place that felt like it should have security gates and cameras. But her parents were never home.
He stood in front of the door, heart kicking against his ribs.
Then he knocked.
Once.
Twice.
No answer.
He almost left.
Then the door opened.
Viera stood there in a hoodie that didn't fit—his hoodie, stretched and oversized, the sleeves swallowed her hands.
Her eyes were puffy.
Not red.
Just tired.
She stepped aside.
He walked in.
Her Room
It was dark inside. Not pitch black. But quiet-dark. Lamps off. Curtains drawn. A single candle flickering on the windowsill. The smell of cinnamon and dust.
Viera climbed onto the bed and curled up like a question mark.
Kade sat beside her.
He didn't touch her yet.
She didn't speak yet.
For almost five whole minutes, nothing passed between them but the sound of their breathing.
Then softly—so softly it nearly got lost in the blanket folds—she said:
"I'm scared."
He turned to her. "Of what?"
Her voice cracked.
"That I'm not real."
He blinked.
"What?"
"That all this… everything I've been. This girl everyone thinks I am? The confident, smart, perfect Viera who always knows what to say? It's made up. And if I stop pretending, everyone will see it. Even you."
He watched her then. Her eyes wet, but not crying. Her lips trembling but trying to smile. Her hands digging into the blanket like they were the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
"You're not pretending," he said.
She shook her head. "You don't get it."
"I don't," he admitted. "But I want to."
A breath caught in her throat.
Then she sat up—slowly, like her ribs were fragile—and said, "My mom only hugs me when people are watching. My dad thinks love is a transaction. I got straight A's since I was five because I was scared if I didn't, they'd send me away."
She laughed, but it was hollow. "I used to have nightmares that my house would disappear. That I'd wake up and no one would remember I existed."
Kade didn't speak.
She went on, her voice rising—not louder, just sharper, like glass being cut.
"I tried so hard to be perfect that I forgot how to be anything else. I was so good at being what people needed that I forgot what I needed."
Her breath hitched.
"I don't know how to stop."
And then, for the first time since he met her—Viera broke.
Not screaming. Not sobbing. But shaking, shoulders quivering, the sound of her breath stuttering like a skipping record. She didn't look like a queen now. She looked like a girl whose armor had rusted from the inside out.
Kade pulled her in.
Held her.
Her head tucked beneath his chin.
And he said, "You don't have to be perfect. You can just be."
She didn't answer.
But her hand found his.
And didn't let go.
Later That Night
They lay on the bed in silence.
Her breath even now.
His fingers trailing over her wrist in lazy circles.
Then—quietly, suddenly—Viera rolled toward him and straddled his hips, pinning him down with her knees and a smirk that was still soft around the edges.
"You're sweet when you talk like that," she said.
"I wasn't trying to be sweet."
"You're also an idiot," she whispered.
And then—
She tickled him.
A full ambush. Her fingers under his hoodie, digging into his ribs, his belly, that spot right under his armpits that made him shriek and squirm like a kicked puppy.
He gasped. Laughed. Swore. Wheezed.
"I hate you," he managed, through tears.
She smiled, eyes warm now.
"No, you don't."
He didn't.
Not even a little.
Her Voice
Before he left that night, she stopped him at the door.
"Hey, Kade?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you really think I'm not pretending?"
He looked at her, just long enough to make her feel real again.
And said:
"When you're with me? You're the most real thing I've ever seen."
And for the first time in years—
Viera didn't have a single thing to say back.
End of Chapter 23 – The Day Her Voice Shook