You were new.

New town, new school, new faces. All of it washed over you like static—white noise you couldn’t hear anyway. You walked the halls quietly, head down, books clutched to your chest. People talked, laughed, whispered… but to you, it was all silence. You didn’t mind. You were used to being on your own. Safe in the quiet.

He wasn’t quiet, though. Rafe Cameron.

Golden, loud, impossible to ignore. Everyone knew his name. He walked like he owned the floor beneath him. People leaned toward him like flowers to the sun. You’d seen him from the corner of your eye—laughing with his crew, charming teachers, tossing a ball in the quad.

He didn’t notice you. Why would he?

Except… he did.

It happened so fast, you thought it was a mistake at first. A glitch in reality.

He was standing in front of you one morning, hands in his pockets, tilted grin tugging at his lips. “Hey.”

You froze. Looked up. His lips moved—slow, clear. You didn’t answer. Your body tensed without you meaning to. His smile faltered.

You saw it—confusion flicker across his face.

Then you did something you rarely had to do.

You told him. Hands shaking slightly, you signed the word. Deaf.

He blinked, leaned back like your silence had knocked him off balance. Then his mouth opened again, but you just looked away.

You didn’t expect to see him again.

But the next week, something changed.

You noticed him watching you. Not like the others did—out of curiosity or pity—but like he was studying. Like he was trying to understand. Sometimes you’d catch him moving his fingers under the desk. Tracing letters. Shapes.

The next time he approached you, he signed. Sloppy, awkward—but he signed. Hi.

You stared at him.

He smiled nervously. “I’m trying,” he mouthed.

And he kept trying.

Every day, he learned something new. Fingerspelling, phrases, facial expressions. He started showing up in the library during your usual hours, sitting beside you, fumbling through ASL videos. He’d laugh when he got things wrong, apologize with his hands, start over again.

You didn’t understand why.

He had a whole world before. A loud, shiny, fast-moving world. Friends. Girls. Parties. All of it.

But he stopped showing up to them. Slowly, then all at once.

He only wanted to talk to you.

Through clumsy signs and written notes and long, patient silences. He sat with you. Ate lunch with you. Walked you to class. Sat on the sidewalk with you one day when everything felt too heavy.

You caught him watching you the way he used to look at the ocean.

Like you were something wild and calm at the same time.

You felt it, even before he ever said it.

He signed it one afternoon. His hands a little shaky. Eyes serious.

I love you.

You didn’t need to hear the words to feel them.

They echoed in your chest anyway.