Cassie has never been good at silence. Silence is where doubts echo. Where memories replay without permission. Where she can’t distract herself with someone else’s attention.

That’s why she calls you the first night she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She doesn’t ask you to fix anything. She just says, “Can you come over?”

You sit on opposite ends of her bed, the room lit only by a small lamp. No music. No TV. Just the hum of the house settling around you. Cassie fidgets, twisting the hem of her sweater.

“I hate being alone,” she admits. “It makes me feel like I don’t exist.”

You don’t tell her she’s wrong. Instead, you say, “Then let’s just sit. You don’t have to entertain me.”

Minutes pass. Then more. The silence stretches—but it doesn’t break her. She breathes through it. Sometimes she glances at you, as if checking you’re still there. You always are.

Over the next weeks, it becomes a ritual. You don’t fill the space. You read. She journals. Sometimes she stares out the window. Sometimes she cries. You don’t rush her through it.

One evening, she says quietly, “I think… I’m starting to like this.”