Aleah's POV
A few weeks passed, and something unfamiliar began to bloom in my chest — not loud or dramatic, but steady, like warmth spreading through frozen fingertips. I had someone to call friend.
It still felt fragile, that word. Like something I wasn't sure I was allowed to hold. But Ivy never made me question it.
I told her everything — about Yasmin, about the letter, about the hollow that followed. How Yasmin seemed to drift around me now like a ghost who'd made peace with never speaking again. As if avoiding me was her way of protecting both of us from something that had already broken.
I told Ivy how it felt to come undone in front of someone, only to be left behind again — how exhausting it was to feel like love had to be earned, begged for, like a seat at a table I was never really invited to.
Ivy listened. Always.
She sat with the kind of stillness that made you feel like your words had weight, like she was gathering each one and tucking it into some safe place inside her. But sometimes, I'd glance at her and see it — the distance in her eyes, a kind of held breath. Like she had oceans of her own but didn't know where to begin.
One afternoon, while we were talking about schoolwork and deadlines and everything ordinary, I reached out. I gently held her hand — it was a quiet gesture, a bridge instead of a question — and I asked, "Do you have anything you want to talk about?"
My voice was soft, but the space between us had never felt more open.
She looked down at our hands, then up at me, and something in her face shifted — like a door cracked open, just enough to let in a breeze.
She told me about her best friend — a boy — how he'd been her safe space, her history, her laughter, and one day… he just stopped talking. No warning. No goodbye. Just distance.
And she didn't want to move on. She wanted to understand.
I squeezed her hand and said, "Then I'll help you. We'll figure it out."
Because for the first time in a long time, I wanted to stay. Not because I was trying to be chosen — but because I had chosen her.