The Weight of Silence

Piper hadn’t left her dorm room in days. The once-cozy space now felt suffocating, the four walls pressing in on her. Textbooks lay untouched on her desk, and the sunlight streaming through the window only served to highlight the stillness around her. Her phone remained switched off, silencing the endless stream of calls and messages from Tom.

At first, she had held onto hope. Maybe he would show up, standing outside her door with that awkward smile she’d grown to adore. Maybe he would explain everything—tell her that the rumor was just that, a rumor. But as the days turned into weeks, that hope dwindled, replaced by a gnawing ache that settled deep in her chest.

She tried to distract herself. She tried reading, sketching, anything to keep her mind from replaying Mason’s words over and over. But every attempt ended the same way: her curled up on her bed, scrolling through her phone.

Each photo she saw was a dagger to her heart. There they were, Tom and her, laughing during one of their late-night study sessions. A text exchange popped up, and she read his words: “You’re the only one who gets me, Piper.” Her vision blurred as tears rolled down her cheeks, staining the screen. How could something that had felt so real now feel so hollow?

The loneliness was...