1 Ethan told the teacher he wanted some peace and quiet, and asked to sit alone. "Mr. Davis, Ethan says he can't survive without me, so we need to be desk partners." Ethan told my mom he wanted his bedroom painted black, with smaller windows. "Mrs. Hayes, he said he wants floor-to-ceiling windows with pink curtains because he loves feeling the sunshine." Ethan told me he hated me. I assumed he was just playing hard to get, shoved a piece of cake into his mouth, and told him I didn't believe a word of it. "So, who do you like then? The new transfer student?" He shot me a look, violently shaking his head, and quickly signed to me: "Of course not. I don't like her type." I let out a massive sigh of relief and went right back to chasing after him. That was, until the day I was doing classroom cleanup duty and found a crumpled note on the floor addressed to the transfer student. It read: "I only said that because I was afraid she'd mistranslate my words and make things difficult. Please don't be mad." "You're my favorite person. Let's go to the same college, okay?" It was then I finally realized: walking away from a mute person is incredibly easy. All I had to do was close my eyes, or simply look away. The broom slipped from my hands. I instinctively picked up the crumpled note and smoothed it out. Ethan had spent years practicing calligraphy. His handwriting was unmistakable—elegant, sharp, and confident. An image instantly flashed into my mind: the soft, effortless smile that always played on his lips whenever he wrote something down. But the moment I remembered these words were written for Chloe, a profound, suffocating sense of displacement washed over me. After all, just an hour ago, I had asked him: "Why is the new girl always following you around? I think she likes you." Ethan hadn't said a word. He just pressed his lips into a tight line, his gaze shifting to something behind me. I followed his eyes and saw Chloe standing on her tiptoes, struggling to erase the top of the whiteboard. Without a moment's hesitation, Ethan stood up, walked to the front of the room, rolled up his sleeves, wet a paper towel, and meticulously wiped down every spot she couldn't reach. When he sat back down, I focused intently on changing the blade in my exacto knife, pretending I didn't care as I asked: "Do you like her?" Ethan's eyelashes were incredibly dark and thick—the kind of long, sweeping lashes that even girls envied. In his clear, bright eyes, I saw a flicker of profound exasperation. "I don't like her. She is absolutely not my type," he signed to me. I finally breathed a sigh of relief. My tense muscles relaxed, and without realizing it, my grip on the knife slipped. The blade sliced across my finger. I hissed in pain, watching beads of blood well up on my skin. The color instantly drained from Ethan's face. Without a single wasted movement, his brow furrowed in distress as he gently, meticulously wiped the blood away. The familiar warmth of his touch and the scent of his laundry detergent instantly soothed my racing heart. I blinked, a quiet voice whispering inside my head: See? Ethan likes me. ... But now, staring at the note in my hand, it read: "I was afraid she'd cause trouble and target you." "Don't listen to her. I only want to go to college with you." 2 I gripped the crumpled note in my pocket, my fingertips digging into my palm. I had never been the type of girl to swallow my pride and suffer in silence. I immediately called Ethan over, demanding an explanation. A million questions bottlenecked in my throat. The words "What the hell does this note to Chloe mean?!" were literally on the tip of my tongue. But Ethan paused. His long, elegant fingers lifted slightly, signing a simple question. His eyes dropped to the Band-Aid on my finger, his gaze impossibly earnest and soft: "Does your hand still hurt?" I swatted his hand away. My tone was sharp, fueled by the bitter, stinging betrayal bubbling up in my chest: "If you think I'm annoying, you can just say it to my face." "There's no need to sneak around behind my back." Ethan's eyes shifted, landing on the crumpled piece of paper in my hand. There was no panic in his eyes. Instead, a wave of profound exhaustion washed over his face—the exact expression of a man who fully anticipated I would throw a tantrum over something "trivial." "I didn't mean it like that," he signed. "But, Maya... don't you think we're a little too close?" Ethan hesitated, as if the next words were agonizingly difficult to force out, unsure if he should even say them. "Say it. If you don't tell her, how is she supposed to fix her behavior? If she's doing something wrong, she needs to change—" A bright, clear voice sliced into the conversation. I had no idea when Chloe had walked up, but she gently nudged Ethan's shoulder, a gesture dripping with supportive encouragement. There it was again. That exact phrasing. Every instinct in my body screamed in discomfort. I had always been incredibly stubborn. Once I committed to something, I never backed down easily. Just like when I first met Ethan. An accident had stripped him of his voice, leaving him withdrawn, depressed, and completely isolated. When kids bullied him at school, he never fought back. I couldn't stand it. Relying on the fact that I was a head taller than the other kids, I got into a brutal fistfight with a group of neighborhood boys, making them swear they would never lay a hand on Ethan again. Even after that, Ethan remained a passive, silent punching bag, letting people walk all over him. It drove me insane. So, when the teacher announced seating reassignments and asked for Ethan's preference, he just sat there in silence, holding up a single finger. I instantly threw my hand in the air: "Mr. Davis! Ethan says he absolutely cannot endure being separated from me for even a second. We're going to be desk partners for the rest of our lives." During AP Calc, the department head wrote a brutally difficult equation on the board and asked if anyone could solve it. I looked down at Ethan's scratch paper, completely filled with complex formulas. Confused as to why he always turned in blank tests, I happily raised my hand: "Mr. Davis! Ethan has three different ways to solve this!" ... Eventually, Ethan wasn't sitting next to the trash can in the back corner anymore. Between classes, people actually started walking up to his desk to ask him for help with homework. The department head recommended him for the National Math Olympiad. The day he was accepted into the elite magnet high school via their specialized STEM track, I was genuinely thrilled for him. But that day, with red-rimmed eyes, he held it in all day before quietly sliding a note onto my desk. "I'll tutor you. Let's get into the magnet school together, okay?" His face was flushed bright red, but he stared at me with stubborn, unwavering intensity. That was the first time my heart ever skipped a beat for him. I honestly believed our feelings were mutual. But that delusion only lasted until Chloe transferred to our school. One afternoon, I was nagging Ethan to come with me to see a movie screening downtown. He offered a helpless, apologetic smile and signed that he wanted to go to the library to organize his notes. I defaulted to my usual, playful whining: "Oh~ so you and I are on the exact same wavelength! You want to go see Interstellar too, right?!" This was our standard dynamic. It was completely normal to me; I never thought anything of it. But Chloe's brow furrowed. Her gaze locked onto me, her tone laced with serious, genuine disapproval: "Can you please respect him a little bit? He clearly signed that he wanted to go to the library. Why do you constantly, intentionally ignore what he actually wants?" The air in the room went dead silent. I was completely bewildered. Me? Bullying Ethan? But the most devastating part was that Ethan seemed to be violently awakened by her words. He looked at Chloe, gave a firm nod, and signed "Thank you" to her. In that single instant, the unspoken understanding I thought we shared—the intimate, playful bond I thought we had built—was completely shattered. Suddenly, Chloe was the protagonist in a rescue fantasy. She was the one teaching Ethan how to establish boundaries, how to advocate for himself, how to say no. Just like right now. Under Chloe's watchful, encouraging gaze, Ethan seemed to muster every ounce of courage he possessed to slowly, deliberately sign to me: "I think... I need some space." 3 After that day. I spent hours agonizing over whether I was actually the villain in his story. Maybe Ethan really did like the color black. I was just the one who decided he needed to be in the sun, refusing to let him hide in his room all day. Maybe he actually preferred being entirely alone. I was just the one who arrogantly forced my way into his life, assuming he needed me when he really didn't. No. Ethan was a genius. Even without me, he probably would have eventually become the brilliant, healthy, confident person he was today. Looking at it through that lens, I was nothing but a domineering, selfish, irrational nuisance who ruined his peace and quiet. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling until the sky grew dark, and a steady, freezing rain began to fall. The damp, misty wind blew through my open window, the icy droplets hitting my face and bringing me back to reality. It suddenly hit me—today was the day of Ethan's monthly speech therapy appointment. Ethan's inability to speak wasn't permanent. The trauma of the accident had triggered a psychosomatic block. His parents had taken him to a dozen specialists. Finally, an older, distinguished neurologist just shook his head and said, "Psychological wounds are the hardest to heal." He explained that Ethan's vocal cords were perfectly healthy. The trauma simply made him refuse to speak. He recommended an elite speech therapy clinic downtown, suggesting monthly sessions to break the psychological barrier. At first, Ethan absolutely refused to go. He signed that he hated talking to strangers. I nagged him relentlessly, negotiating terms. "Just go! Please? I promise I'll sit through every single one of your boring math lectures if you go." "I really, really want to hear what your voice sounds like." "You're so good-looking, your voice is probably amazing. Please~" One time, I caught a terrible flu and passed out in a bed at the campus clinic. When I woke up, Ethan was sitting beside me. He was using his hands to warm the freezing IV tube, staring at me with a face full of absolute panic. I asked him why he wasn't at his therapy appointment. He shook his head, and traced three letters onto the palm of my hand. I. M. Y. (I miss you.) His face flushed deep red as he signed to me: I am going to make absolutely sure you are the first person to ever hear my voice. Thinking about that, I couldn't stay in bed another second. A mix of anxiety and a sweet, desperate hope flooded my chest: Ethan is definitely waiting for me. ... The wet asphalt reflected the glaring streetlights. The damp air felt like breathing through a wet sponge. I stood under an umbrella outside his apartment building. The freezing rain slid down my collar, sending a violent shiver down my spine. The next second. I saw Chloe touching Ethan's throat. 4 Ethan absolutely loathed physical contact. It wasn't because he was a cute kid who was constantly hugged and pinched by all the neighborhood moms and older girls. Back then, I was a chubby kid. No one wanted to play with me. Ethan was the only one who, when we played pretend, let me be the Knight. "The Knight has to be strong, so she can protect the Princess," he had told me. "So you're the Princess? Only a princess is as pretty as you." Ethan's face turned bright red, and he lifted his chin with a touch of childish arrogance. "I guess that works... Fine, then you have to protect me." We were inseparable. Our bond was so tight that his mom used to jokingly ask if I wanted to grow up and call her 'Mom' too. And then, the beautiful, bright Ethan suddenly vanished. The adults said he had been kidnapped. I was there the day the police finally brought him back. I saw Ethan covered in dirt and grime, only his face wiped clean, but his eyes were completely, terrifyingly hollow. At first, I was so happy I ran forward to grab his hand. The absolute second I touched him, Ethan used every ounce of strength in his body to violently shove me away, screaming hysterically. His mother's fingernails dug deep into her own palms. Her face was stark white as she whispered a quiet "I'm sorry" to me. She said, "He scared you, didn't he? He ran into some very bad people." "He's still trapped in a nightmare." Shortly after that, Ethan's family moved away. When I finally saw him again, he had completely lost his voice. When younger kids pushed him around in the hallways, he offered absolutely zero resistance. That was the first time I ever felt a physical ache in my chest. Maybe it was because the memory of the vibrant, radiant Ethan was so deeply burned into my childhood that seeing him broken and pathetic was something I simply couldn't accept. I decided to put the "Knight" armor back on. Watching Ethan slowly heal, watching him become more and more dependent on me, gave me an intense, secret sense of pride. But I also had my own dark, selfish motives. I wanted Ethan to depend on me, and only me. ... The moon broke through the heavy rain clouds, the sudden light momentarily blinding me. Chloe was tracing the line of Ethan's throat. Her lips were moving. She was probably teaching him how to vocalize, how to feel the vibration of his vocal cords. I wiped away my tears, and in that exact moment, my eyes locked with Ethan's. Our gazes collided. For the very first time, a flash of genuine panic and guilt flooded his eyes. "Why didn't you wait for me?" I discreetly wiped the moisture from my cheeks, forcing a light, casual tone. I probably still had some pathetic shred of hope, because my voice still carried that familiar, intimate, whining edge. Ethan opened his mouth, preparing to sign a response. But Chloe let out a sudden, mocking scoff. She stepped aggressively in front of him, adopting a blatantly protective stance: "Why do you get so defensive the second anyone else gets close to Ethan?" "Honestly, you don't even want him to have other friends, do you?" "Do you think you're some kind of saint? If it wasn't for you, Ethan could have had a totally normal social life." She stared at me with the most innocent, wide-eyed expression while delivering the most venomous accusations: "The truth is, you just want to control him. You want him isolated so you're his only friend, ensuring his entire universe revolves exclusively around you. Am I wrong?" The furious rebuttal was right on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't force my jaw to open. I stared dead at Ethan, my vision blurring with tears of absolute, suffocating betrayal. Just say something. Defend me. You know that's not true. I desperately, agonizingly needed Ethan to step forward and tell Chloe that her toxic psychological analysis was complete bullshit. But Ethan didn't move. His fingers moved in sharp, deliberate motions. Standing next to him, Chloe offered a smug, validating smile. He signed: "Maya, I want to try living... a life without you in it." ... I stared at the diagonal sheets of rain falling outside the awning. My feet felt like blocks of ice. I turned around and sprinted into the freezing downpour without looking back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ethan instinctively reach out, as if to stop me. But Chloe grabbed the hem of his jacket. And so, after a split-second of hesitation, he chose not to follow me. Again. In my mind, a single thought echoed. Fine. I'm done loving him. I didn't go to school the next day. I spiked a massive fever. Fighting through a blinding headache, I dragged a massive cardboard box into the center of my bedroom. I threw every single photo of Ethan and me, and every single gift he had ever given me since we were kids, directly into the box. As I was double-checking to make sure I hadn't missed anything, a text from Ethan popped up on my screen. "Did you catch a fever from being in the rain last night?" "We had AP Calc today. I wrote out a copy of the lecture notes for you." I didn't reply. I just slowly flipped through the pages of a vintage desk calendar sitting on my nightstand. Exactly four months from today was Ethan's final scheduled appointment at the speech therapy clinic. It was also the day of our final exams.
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