Chapter Three: Somewhere We Don't Have to Lie
The weekend crept in like fog—quiet and slow, wrapping itself around the edges of everything.
Kira barely left her room.
She spent Saturday curled up in her window seat, sketchbook open on her knees, watching the light shift across the walls as the day passed in gradients of gray. She drew the way she always did—instinctively, hungrily. But nothing came out clean. Every face was Mina's and not Mina's. Eyes too wide, lips pressed like secrets, hands reaching for something just out of frame.
She tried to read, but the words blurred.
She tried to listen to music, but it all felt too loud.
Her father didn't ask why she skipped dinner. Her mother hadn't emerged from her bedroom in days.
By Sunday morning, the stillness in the apartment had turned heavy—like the quiet had grown teeth.
And then her phone buzzed.
Kira stared at it for a second like it was a foreign object.
[Mina P]
Do you want to get out of your house? Just… get air? I'll come to you. No pressure.
Kira read it three times.
She didn't answer right away. She stood up slowly, walked to the mirror above her dresser, and stared at herself.
There was a softness in her face she hadn't seen in a long time. A sort of question written between her eyebrows.
She picked up her phone.
[Kira J]
Okay.
Mina showed up thirty minutes later in an oversized hoodie, black jeans, and her hair in a loose braid over one shoulder. She didn't knock right away. She stood outside the building, leaning against her bike, chewing the inside of her cheek like she was nervous.
Kira watched from the hallway window for a long moment before heading down.
They met at the entrance without words.
"Hey," Mina said, voice soft.
"Hi," Kira answered, her hands stuffed into her sleeves.
Mina looked up at the apartment building behind her. "Is it okay if we don't go in?"
Kira nodded quickly. "Yeah. It's better if we don't."
Mina smiled like she understood that without needing to ask.
They walked with no clear direction.
Through side streets. Past shuttered bookstores and empty bus stops. Past the abandoned train tracks where vines had taken over, curling around rusted metal like something alive. The air was crisp with the smell of distant rain. Their footsteps made soft sounds against the pavement.
"You okay?" Mina asked after a while.
Kira didn't answer right away. She kept her eyes on the sidewalk, on the cracks and the tiny tufts of grass pushing through like rebellion.
"I don't know how to be around people," she finally said.
Mina didn't flinch.
"That's okay," she said. "I don't know how to be alone."
Kira looked at her.
Mina glanced sideways, her expression unreadable. "At school, everyone thinks I've got it figured out. Like I'm confident or something. But when I'm alone, everything feels... loud. Like my brain won't shut up."
Kira frowned. "Mine gets quieter when I'm alone."
Mina smiled faintly. "Must be nice."
They passed a small garden tucked between two brick buildings—overgrown, wild, forgotten. Kira slowed.
"Can we sit?"
Mina nodded, following her in.
The bench was worn and a little wet from morning dew. Neither of them minded. They sat side by side, legs not quite touching, the silence between them soft instead of heavy.
"I used to come here," Kira said, surprising herself. "Before my mom got worse."
Mina turned toward her, eyes gentle. She didn't speak, didn't press.
"She used to like flowers," Kira continued. "She'd tell me the names of all of them. Even the ugly ones. She said every plant wanted to be seen."
Mina smiled. "She sounds like a poet."
Kira looked at her hands. "She's sick now. The kind that takes away who you are."
Mina's hand moved slightly, resting close to Kira's but not touching. "I'm sorry."
Kira didn't say thank you. She didn't know how to say me too without it sounding wrong.
They sat in silence again, listening to the wind move through brittle stems and dry leaves.
Then Mina asked, "Do you ever imagine disappearing?"
Kira blinked. "Like dying?"
"No. Just... being somewhere else. Somewhere no one knows you. No pressure to talk or smile or answer anything."
"All the time," Kira whispered.
Mina nodded. "What would it look like?"
Kira hesitated. "Big windows. Soft lights. Music that only plays at night."
"Would I be there?"
The question came quietly.
Kira turned toward her, her throat tight.
"Yes," she said.
Mina's shoulders relaxed a little. Like she hadn't realized she was holding tension until it released.
"Then I think I'd want to go there too."
They stayed in the garden until the sun started to slip behind buildings and the chill began to bite.
Mina stood first, brushing off her jeans.
"We don't have to be normal, you know," she said.
Kira looked up.
"We don't have to do the thing where we pretend we're just partners for an assignment, or that we don't see what this is." She paused. "I like being near you."
Kira felt like her ribcage had turned to glass.
"I like being near you too," she said, barely audible.
Mina smiled. "Good."
And then, without asking, she reached out and brushed a strand of hair behind Kira's ear.
Her fingers lingered for half a second too long.
It was the gentlest touch Kira had ever felt. And somehow, the loudest.
That night, Kira drew until her hand cramped.
She drew Mina's hands. Over and over.
The way they held a coffee cup. The way they fiddled with the drawstring of her hoodie. The way they didn't quite touch but always wanted to.
And when the page was full, she turned to a blank one and started drawing something new:
Two girls sitting in a garden no one else knew about, surrounded by flowers too stubborn to die.
They weren't touching.
Not yet.
But they were close.
And in the space between them, something soft and sacred was starting to grow.