1 Noah was silent. By a twist of fate and a decade of shared history, I was the only one who truly knew how to read his hands. When Noah said he wanted peace and preferred to sit alone, I was the one who told the teachers, “He says he can’t handle the back of the room; he needs to be right next to me.” When Noah wanted his bedroom painted black with the curtains drawn tight, I told his mom, “He wants a floor-to-ceiling window with sheer pink curtains. He says he’s tired of living in the dark.” And when Noah told me—with a sharp, jagged flick of his wrists—that he hated me? I chose to believe he was just being stubborn. I’d shove a piece of cake into his mouth and laugh. “I don’t believe you. If you don’t like me, who do you like? The new transfer girl?” He would look at me, his gaze flickering away, and sign with lightning speed: “Of course not. She’s not my type.” I’d breathe a sigh of relief and go back to being Noah’s shadow, his protector, his voice. Until the day I stayed late for hall duty and found a crumpled note tucked into the back of a locker. It was addressed to Serena, the new girl. “I only said that because I was afraid she’d sabotage the translation. Please don’t be mad.” “I like you more than anyone. Let’s try to get into the same university, okay?” That was when I realized that leaving a boy who doesn’t speak is the easiest thing in the world. All I had to do was close my eyes. Or simply stop listening. The broom slipped from my hand, clattering against the linoleum. I smoothed out the paper, my heart hammering a rhythm of pure, cold dread. Noah’s handwriting was unmistakable—clean, architectural, and deliberate. I could almost see the small, triumphant smile he wore when he wrote. But realizing these words were for Serena felt like a physical blow to the stomach. Only an hour ago, I had cornered him in the empty classroom. “Why is the new girl following you around like a lost puppy?” I’d asked, trying to sound casual. “It’s like she has a crush on you or something.” Noah hadn’t looked at me. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on something over my shoulder. I turned to see Serena struggling to reach the top of the whiteboard. Without a word, Noah stood up, walked over, and took the eraser from her hand, his movements fluid and gentle as he finished the job for her. When he sat back down, I fumbled with an X-Acto knife, pretending to be focused on my art project. “Do you like her?” Noah’s lashes were thick and dark, the kind of fringe girls would kill for. There was a flicker of what looked like weary frustration in his clear eyes. “I don’t like her,” he signed. “She isn’t my type at all.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, my grip on the knife loosening. The blade slipped, slicing clean through my index finger. I hissed in pain as blood began to well up. Noah’s face transformed instantly. His brows knitted together in genuine worry as he grabbed my hand, his touch light and familiar as he blotted the blood. The heat of his skin, the scent of his laundry detergent—it always had a way of grounding me. I watched him and told myself: See? Noah loves me. And now, the note in my pocket screamed otherwise. “I’m afraid she’ll start trouble again. I’m afraid she’ll target you.” “Don’t listen to her. I only want to be with you.” 2 I squeezed the crumpled note in my pocket until the edges bit into my palm. I’ve never been the type to suffer in silence. I found Noah by the bleachers after school, my throat tight with a dozen questions. What does the note mean? Why are you lying to me? But when he saw me, he just raised his hand, signing something simple and soft while looking at the Band-Aid on my finger. “Does it still hurt?” I shoved his hand away, the bitterness finally boiling over. “If you’re sick of me, Noah, you can just say it. You don’t have to play these double games.” His eyes shifted, landing on the corner of the note sticking out of my pocket. He didn’t look panicked. Instead, a look of profound exhaustion washed over his face—the look of someone who had expected me to make a scene over “something small.” “It’s not what you think,” he signed. “But Sadie… don’t you think we’re a little too close?” He hesitated, his fingers hovering as if the next thought was too heavy to carry. “Just say it,” a bright voice interrupted. “If you don’t tell her, she’ll never change. People need to know when they’re overstepping.” Serena appeared out of nowhere, her hand resting lightly on Noah’s shoulder in a gesture that looked intentionally protective. I felt a surge of nausea. I’ve always been stubborn. When I first met Noah, he had lost his voice after a traumatic accident. He was the quiet, broken boy everyone bullied. I was the girl who grew three inches over the summer and fought the kids who tripped him in the hallway. When the counselor asked where Noah wanted to sit, he just pointed to a chair. I stepped in. “He said he wants to sit with me. He said he can’t imagine being anywhere else.” In calculus, when the teacher asked who could solve the bonus problem, I saw Noah’s notebook filled with perfect equations, yet he sat there like a statue. I raised my hand. “Noah has three different ways to solve it, Mr. Harrison.” Eventually, Noah wasn’t the boy hiding in the shadows anymore. People started talking to him. He got into the Honors program. On the day he received his acceptance letter, he looked at me with red-rimmed eyes and handed me a slip of paper: “I’ll tutor you. Let’s go to the same college, okay?” That was the first time my heart skipped for him. I thought we were a “we.” Until Serena arrived. A few weeks ago, I had begged Noah to go see a revival screening of Interstellar. He’d smiled that weary smile and signed that he wanted to go to the library to organize his notes. I did what I always did. “Oh, so we’re on the same page? You want to see the sci-fi flick too!” It was our routine. I never thought twice about it. But Serena had been standing there, her brow furrowed. “Can’t you just respect him for once?” she asked, her voice dripping with “sincere” concern. “He clearly signed that he wanted to go to the library. Why do you constantly choose to ignore what he actually wants?” The air went still. Me? Hurting Noah? The worst part was Noah’s reaction. He looked like a man waking up from a trance. He nodded at Serena and signed a slow, deliberate “Thank you.” The unspoken bond, the shared jokes, the years of “protecting” him—it all shattered in a second. Serena became the heroine of his story, the one teaching him “boundaries.” And now, standing by the bleachers under her watchful eye, Noah found his courage. He signed, one slow movement at a time: “I think… I need some personal space.” 3 That night, I stayed awake staring at the ceiling, wondering if I was the villain in someone else’s movie. Maybe Noah really did love the dark, and I had forced him into the sun. Maybe he truly preferred being alone, and I was just an intruder he didn’t know how to evict. But Noah was brilliant. He would have been fine without me. I was just bossy, selfish, and loud. I was a nuisance he had been too polite to get rid of. I lay there until the sky turned a bruised purple and the rain started to knock against my window. The chill finally snapped me back to reality. I realized with a jolt that today was Noah’s appointment at the Speech Rehabilitation Center. His mutism wasn’t permanent. It was a “psychological block,” the doctors said. A “heart sickness.” He hadn’t spoken a word since the accident, but his vocal cords were fine. I was the one who had dragged him to every session. “Go,” I used to plead. “I’ll go to those boring math competitions with you if you just go. I really want to hear your voice, Noah. You’re too handsome to be silent.” Once, when I had a high fever and was stuck in the school infirmary, Noah stayed by my side. He held the IV tube to keep the fluid from being too cold against my skin. “Why aren’t you at rehab?” I whispered. He didn’t sign. He took my hand and traced three letters into my palm: Y-O-U. Then he signed: “I want you to be the first person to hear me speak.” Thinking about that made me bolt upright. My heart ached with a mix of desperation and hope. He’s waiting for me, I thought. He must be. I grabbed my umbrella and ran. The asphalt was slick and black, reflecting the streetlights. I stood outside the rehab center, the wind biting at my neck, scanning the entrance. Then I saw them. Serena was standing close to him, her fingers gently tracing the line of Noah’s throat. 4 Noah hated being touched. It wasn’t because he was antisocial; it was a reflex from the trauma. When we were kids, before the “incident,” he was the most vibrant boy in the neighborhood. I was the chubby kid nobody wanted to play with. Noah was the only one who let me play the Knight in our make-believe games. “Knights have to be strong,” he’d say. “That way you can protect the Princess.” “Are you the Princess then?” I’d asked. He’d blush furiously. “I guess… but you have to keep me safe.” Then, Noah disappeared. The adults said he’d been taken. Kidnapped. I was there the day the police brought him back. He was covered in dirt, his eyes vacant and hollow. I had been so happy to see him that I reached out to grab his hand. Noah screamed. He pushed me away with a strength that terrified me. His mother, her face white as a sheet, whispered a tearful apology to me. “He’s having nightmares, Sadie. He’s not himself.” They moved away shortly after. When we met again in middle school, he was silent. He let kids push him around like he didn’t even exist. Seeing him like that—knowing how bright he used to be—felt like a physical pain in my chest. I decided to pick up my “Knight” persona again. I watched him get better, watched him lean on me, and I felt a secret, dark pride in it. I wanted him to need only me. Under the moonlight, Serena’s hand stayed on his neck. Her lips were moving—she was probably coaching him, telling him how to feel the vibrations, how to find his voice. I wiped a stray tear, but Noah caught my eye. For the first time, I saw a flicker of guilt in his expression. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” I asked, my voice trembling with the last of my hope. Noah started to sign a response, but Serena stepped in front of him like a shield. “Why does it bother you so much when anyone else gets close to him?” she asked. Her voice was soft, but her eyes were venomous. “You don’t actually want him to have friends, do you?” “That’s not—” “You think you’re so noble,” she cut me off. “But if it wasn’t for you, Noah would have had a normal life years ago. You’ve kept him small so you could feel big. You just want to control him.” I looked at Noah, my eyes stinging. Please. Tell her she’s wrong. You know it’s not like that. Noah didn’t move. He didn’t defend me. His fingers moved, and Serena smiled a satisfied, triumphant smile. “Sadie,” he signed. “I think I want to try living a life without you in it.” The rain felt like needles against my skin. I didn’t say another word. I turned and ran into the darkness. In my peripheral vision, I saw Noah instinctively reach out to stop me, but Serena caught the edge of his jacket. He hesitated. And for the last time, he didn’t choose me. Fine, I thought, my heart going numb. I’m done being the Knight.
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