Raka didn't expect her to bring it up.
They were sitting in a corner of the park on a mild Sunday afternoon, the kind where the sky couldn't decide between sunshine and clouds. A guitar played softly somewhere nearby. The grass was damp, but they'd found a dry bench near a pond with swans floating lazily across the surface.
They were talking about random things his weird food combinations, her childhood dream of being a detective when Nayla suddenly asked, "Do you want to know why I'm like this?"
Raka turned to look at her. "Like what?"
She took a breath. "Closed off. Guarded. Distant."
He didn't respond right away. He wanted her to lead this one.
She stared straight ahead, voice quieter than before. "Everyone thinks it's just a personality thing. Like, 'Oh, she's just introverted.' But it's more than that."
He nodded, letting her continue.
"I wasn't always like this," she said. "When I was younger, I was… softer. I cried easily. Talked too much. Trusted people too quickly."
Raka didn't interrupt.
"Then middle school happened. Friends I thought were real… weren't. People I confided in used my words against me. I became the joke in a group chat I wasn't part of."
Her voice wavered, but she kept going.
"So I stopped sharing. I stopped feeling in front of other people. I learned to keep my reactions small. My words are fewer. I didn't want to give anyone anything they could use to hurt me."
He felt the ache in her words. She wasn't telling him this for pity. She was telling him because it mattered to her, and maybe to them.
"I built a wall," she said. "But I made it look like a preference. Like I liked being alone. Sometimes I do. But not always."
She turned to him.
"You broke through that without asking to."
Raka's eyes softened. "I never wanted to break anything. Just… understand."
"I know," she said. "That's why I let you."
He reached over, not for her hand this time, but just to touch her sleeve, a quiet gesture of grounding.
"I'm sorry people made you feel like your softness was something to hide," he said.
She nodded. "It took a long time to stop seeing it as weakness."
"You're not weak, Nayla. Not even close."
They sat there, swans floating silently behind them, the sound of children laughing in the distance.
Nayla looked at him again, more directly now.
"I don't say things easily," she said. "But I want you to know I care. About you. About this."
Raka blinked, as if absorbing the weight of those words.
"I care about you, too," he said softly. "I think I have, since you rolled your eyes at me during that group meeting."
She let out a small laugh.
"I wasn't rolling my eyes at you," she teased. "Just… around you."
"Still counts," he said, smiling.
And for once, Nayla didn't deflect. She just smiled back.
She had told her side of the story.
And for the first time in a long time, she felt like someone had truly listened.