Chapter 17 – Halfway to Saying It
It wasn't instant.
Reconciliation, that is.
Whatever lived between Amelia and David wasn't built for speed. It wasn't something that could be stitched shut with a hug and a "my bad." It was slower. More tentative. Like walking barefoot on glass just to get close enough to hold someone's hand.
But they were walking.
Together.
That mattered.
Rehearsals resumed with more intensity. The school play was still a few weeks away, but Ms. Parker had stopped treating it like a class project. She was directing now—fully, intensely, and like the entire world would end if her students didn't learn how to feel.
"Again," she'd bark after a half-hearted scene. "I want to believe you two love each other and are terrified of ruining it."
Amelia would nod, breath heavy. David would wipe his palms on his jeans. The rest of the class would look at each other, unsure whether they were watching a rehearsal or something dangerously close to real life.
Because it felt real now.
The script—the lines they'd memorized weeks ago—no longer felt like fiction.
They were them.
Two people trying to get it right.
Two people standing at the edge of something big and scary and beautiful.
Outside of rehearsal, the space between them began to shrink.
David started walking with her from class to class—not every day, not consistently, but enough that people noticed.
Amelia didn't mind.
She even laughed once when he tripped over a tree root and nearly dropped his math textbook into a puddle.
It was the first time he'd heard her laugh since the diary incident.
He didn't say anything about it.
Just smiled like someone holding a tiny miracle.
One afternoon, after school let out and rehearsal had been cancelled due to Ms. Parker's migraine, David found himself sitting with Jonah under the bleachers.
Jonah was scribbling notes for a music theory assignment while chewing the end of a pencil.
David stared up at the sky.
"Do you ever feel like… I dunno," he started. "Like you're falling for someone and you're terrified that you're the thing that's gonna break them?"
Jonah stopped writing.
Looked over slowly.
"You mean Amelia."
David blinked. "Did I say her name?"
Jonah laughed softly. "You didn't have to. The way you look at her? It's like a confession every time."
David exhaled. "She's… she's not just someone I like. I feel like she sees me. You know? And that should be amazing. But instead, it's like—what if being close to me hurts her?"
Jonah looked at him for a long moment, then back at his notes.
"Maybe it's not about whether or not you hurt her," he said eventually. "Maybe it's about whether or not you're willing to be careful with her."
David thought about that all the way home.
Amelia was writing more now.
Not just in her diary, but in the margins of her notebooks, on sticky notes, even on the back of her hand.
Small phrases.
Things like:
"The quiet is less scary when he's near."
"I still dream of sunflowers and stupid boys."
"He's learning how to stay."
She didn't know what any of it meant yet.
But it helped.
So she kept writing.
Ms. Parker returned with more fire than usual. Her migraines had passed, and with them came a fresh urgency.
She pulled Amelia and David aside after class.
"I'm giving you two the final scene," she said. "The one that closes the entire play."
David blinked. "Wait—we're the leads now?"
Ms. Parker nodded. "You earned it."
Amelia's heart thudded. "What's the scene?"
Ms. Parker handed them a packet—newly printed script pages. "It's not finished yet. I'm still rewriting it. But the gist is: Two people. One stage. A final conversation. She's dying, and he doesn't know. But she's smiling. Always smiling."
Amelia stared at the first line on the page.
It read:
"You don't have to lie to me anymore."
She looked up sharply. Ms. Parker's expression was unreadable.
David read it over her shoulder. His jaw clenched.
"This feels… familiar," he said quietly.
Ms. Parker smiled faintly. "Art imitates life. Or maybe it's the other way around."
That night, David didn't sleep.
He sat with his own journal open, the words taunting him.
"She smiled for the world.
Then for me.
Then for herself.
That's all I've ever wanted."
He hadn't shown her that page yet.
Hadn't shown anyone.
But now?
Maybe it was time.
The next day during rehearsal, Amelia stood alone on stage while David waited in the wings. The lights were low. The class sat in the dark, watching.
Ms. Parker whispered, "Start when you're ready."
Amelia closed her eyes.
Took a breath.
Spoke.
"You don't have to lie to me anymore."
David walked on stage.
Met her in the middle.
"I'm not lying."
"You smile like you're okay."
"And you smile like you're not dying."
Silence.
Her voice cracked slightly.
"Is it easier that way? Pretending this isn't ending?"
He swallowed. "It's easier pretending you'll stay."
Amelia stepped closer, her hands trembling.
"But I won't."
"I know."
"Then why are you still here?"
David looked at her. Really looked.
"Because being here with you is worth the pain of losing you."
The lights faded slowly.
But no one in the room breathed.
Not even Ms. Parker.
Because for a second—
For one suspended moment—
Everyone forgot it was just a play.
After rehearsal, neither of them said much.
David walked her halfway home.
At her gate, she paused, her fingers tightening around her bag.
He waited.
Finally, she spoke.
"I wrote something yesterday," she said.
David's heart skipped. "Yeah?"
Amelia nodded, then pulled a folded slip of paper from her pocket.
She handed it to him.
Then walked away without waiting for him to read it.
He unfolded it slowly under the porch light.
It said:
*"You were right.
I smiled for the world.
Then for you.
But now?
I think I finally smile for me."*
David folded it back.
Placed it inside his journal.
And for the first time in weeks, he felt like maybe—just maybe—he hadn't broken everything.
Some things were still alive.
Still possible.
Still waiting to bloom.