Ellen’s room is quiet in a way that doesn’t feel empty. It smells faintly like old books and instant coffee, the curtains half-drawn to keep the afternoon light from being too harsh. There’s no music playing, no television humming in the background. Just the soft scratch of pens on paper and the occasional rustle of pages turning.
We sit across from each other at her small desk, knees almost touching, both bent over our notes.
For a long time, neither of us speaks.
I like it that way.
The silence here doesn’t press on me. It doesn’t ask questions or demand explanations. It just exists, steady and unjudging. Ellen flips a page in her book, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“You rewrite everything,” she says suddenly.
I glance up. “Is that bad?”
“No,” she replies. “Just… interesting.”
“I can’t leave things half-right,” I admit. “It makes my skin itch.”
She nods like that makes sense. “I usually stop before I ruin it.”
I tilt my head. “Ruin what?”
“Anything,” she says. “If I try too hard, I start noticing all the ways I’m bad at it.”
I look down at my notes again. Her words settle somewhere uncomfortable in my chest.
We keep studying. Time passes without me checking my phone once, which feels like an accomplishment in itself.
After a while, Ellen closes her book and leans back in her chair.
“Can I say something weird?” she asks.
“Please,” I say. “I live for weird.”
She snorts softly. “I never thought I’d be good at anything.”
The sentence is simple. Flat. Not dramatic. And yet it hits me harder than most confessions ever have.
“What do you mean?” I ask quietly.
She shrugs. “I mean… I assumed I’d just exist. Float through. Be forgettable. People like me don’t usually get praised. Or noticed. Or encouraged.”
I swallow. “People like you?”
She gestures vaguely at herself. “Quiet. Awkward. Not pretty in the right way. Not loud enough to be charming.”
I feel something twist in my chest.
“That’s exactly how I felt,” I say before I can stop myself.
She looks at me then, really looks. “You?”
“Yes,” I say. “For a long time.”
“But you’re…” She trails off, frowning. “You’re confident.”
I let out a short laugh. “I’m convincing.”
She considers that. “There’s a difference.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m starting to realize that.”
The room goes quiet again, but it’s a different kind of quiet now. Heavier. More honest.
Ellen glances back at her notes. “Studying with you doesn’t make me feel stupid,” she says after a moment. “That’s new.”
“I’m glad,” I reply. “Studying with you doesn’t make me feel like I’m performing.”
She smiles at that, small and genuine.
When we finish, the sun has dipped lower, casting long shadows across the floor. I pack my things slowly, reluctant to leave.
“You coming tomorrow?” she asks.
“If you’ll have me.”
She snorts. “I already claimed you.”
On my way back to my room, my phone vibrates. I don’t have to look to know who it is.
Chase.
I hesitate before opening the message.
You still mad?
My chest tightens.
I’m not mad, I type, then delete it. That’s not true.
I’m tired, I write instead.
Three dots appear almost immediately.
Can we talk later? he asks.
I stare at the screen longer than necessary. My mind flashes back to Ellen’s words. I never thought I’d be good at anything. To the way she said it without drama, without trying to make it sound noble.
Later, I type finally.
He sends a thumbs-up.
I drop the phone onto my bed like it might burn me.
That night, I try to read for class, but the words blur together. I hate that even now, part of me wants to apologize for wanting more.
The next afternoon, Ellen and I sit together in the library, the long wooden table between us scarred with years of carved initials and coffee rings. We study in near silence again, broken only by the occasional whispered question.
“Can I ask you something?” she says eventually.
“Sure.”
She hesitates. “You don’t have to answer.”
“Okay.”
“What’s Chase like… really?”
The question makes my stomach drop.
“He’s…” I start, then stop. “He’s complicated.”
“That’s not an answer,” she says gently.
I sigh. “He’s intense. He feels things deeply. But he also avoids them.”
She nods slowly. “Does he make you feel safe?”
The word safe echoes in my head, uninvited. Calm. Capable. Adult.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes isn’t nothing,” she says. “But it’s not everything either.”
I close my notebook. “I feel like I’m always choosing my words carefully around him. Like if I phrase things wrong, I’ll lose him.”
“That sounds exhausting,” she says.
“It is,” I whisper.
She watches me for a moment. “You don’t have to decide anything right now.”
“I know.”
“But you are deciding,” she adds. “Every time you stay quiet.”
The truth of that lands hard.
When I get back to my room, Chase is waiting outside my door, leaning against the wall.
“We need to talk,” he says.
I nod. “I know.”
We sit on my bed, space between us like a fault line. He fidgets with the hem of his hoodie.
“I don’t want to lose myself,” I say.
He looks up sharply. “Is that what you think is happening?”
I think of my presentation. Of the way my excitement dimmed when he didn’t show up. Of the relief I felt studying with Ellen, breathing without pressure.
“I think,” I say carefully, “that I’m growing. And I don’t know if you want to grow with me.”
He scoffs. “You think you’re better than me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you mean.”
I shake my head. “No. I just don’t want to keep pretending my life is smaller than it is.”
He goes quiet, jaw tight.
After he leaves, I sit alone in the dark, knees pulled to my chest, Ellen’s words echoing again.
You stop asking permission.
I don’t know how to do that yet.
But for the first time, I can imagine a version of myself who learns.