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Chapter Two: First Light
It started with a notebook.
A small, spiral-bound one with a blue cover, lying half-open on the stairs like someone had dropped it in a hurry. I might have walked past it like everyone else if I hadn't recognized the handwriting — neat, precise, slightly slanted. I'd seen it before. Once, when the wind had lifted the curtain in Daniel's room and I caught a glimpse of a page filled with writing.
Without thinking, I picked it up.
Inside were pages and pages of thoughts — not diary entries, not poems, not exactly letters. Just… fragments. Like puzzle pieces from a dream someone was trying to make sense of.
> "Some days I feel like I'm watching myself live. Like I'm not inside my body, just floating somewhere above it, waiting to come back down."
> "I don't hate them. I just don't think they see me. Not really."
> "If people knew how loud silence could be, they'd never stop talking."
I closed it, heart thudding in my chest.
This wasn't something I was meant to read. And yet, somehow, it felt like it had been left there on purpose. Or maybe that was just what I wanted to believe — that I'd been chosen to see what he never showed anyone else.
I didn't return it right away.
I sat with it. Not for long — just one afternoon. Enough to realize Daniel's silence wasn't emptiness. It was full. Full of things he didn't know how to say. Or maybe he did — just not out loud.
When I finally knocked on their door, it was Mrs. Owolabi who answered. Her smile was quick but cautious, like someone trying to hold a mask in place.
"I found this on the stairs," I said, holding the notebook out.
She blinked, confused. "Oh. That's Daniel's, I think. He's… upstairs."
She didn't invite me in. Just took the notebook with careful fingers, thanked me, and closed the door.
The next morning, there was a knock on my door.
It was Daniel.
He didn't say anything at first. Just stood there, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, shoulders drawn up like armor.
Then, quietly, he said, "Thank you. For the notebook."
His voice was just like I remembered — soft, careful, as if he was still getting used to hearing it.
"You write really well," I replied, before I could talk myself out of it.
He looked at me, really looked this time, and I saw it — that flicker. Surprise, maybe. Or something softer. Something close to hope.
"You read it?"
I hesitated. "Only a little. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"
"It's okay," he interrupted, eyes dropping to the floor. "Most people wouldn't care enough to even pick it up."
We stood in silence, not the awkward kind, but the kind that says more than words can.
And then, like it cost him something to say it, he added, "You can read more, if you want."
That was the beginning.
Not of a friendship, exactly. Not yet. But of something.
Something new. Something real.
Sometimes, people don't crash into your life like storms. Sometimes, they arrive quietly — like light through a window — changing everything without making a sound.