Chapter 14 – The Things We Weren't Meant to Know
David didn't plan to open the notebook.
He really didn't.
It had sat on the edge of his desk all night, untouched but too loud in its silence. He couldn't sleep—not with those four words she'd left behind echoing in his chest.
"Do it from a distance."
The thing was, he'd been doing that his whole life—loving things from afar. People. Places. Emotions. Always toeing the line, never crossing it. He used to think that was safer. Cleaner. Like love only counted if it didn't leave fingerprints.
But Amelia wasn't someone you could care about passively.
She had this gravitational pull. Quiet but constant. Like the moon—distant but able to move oceans. And lately, David was drowning.
He stared at the notebook again.
It wasn't the one she used in class. This one had a red cloth spine, slightly frayed edges, and a small ink blot near the corner that looked like a fallen star. He remembered the moment it fell. How her hands trembled just slightly when she picked it up. How her voice cracked like she'd been holding in too many unsaid things.
He told himself he'd only read a line. Just enough to make sure she was okay.
But one line became two. Two became a paragraph.
And then he was flipping.
---
> _"There are days I wake up and feel like a lie.
Not a person—just a performance I've memorized to protect the world from the truth of me.
Every smile is a tick. Every laugh, a second gone.
I'm not supposed to feel happy. Not because I don't want to.
But because happiness is the one thing I was born to avoid."_
_"Emotional Catalytic Disorder.
ECD.
A ridiculous name for something so cruel.
The more joy I feel, the faster I go. It's like my soul has a speed limit, and I don't know where the brakes are.
I used to think I'd beat it.
That I'd find a way to cheat the system.
But then I met you.
And for the first time, I wanted to feel everything.
Even if it killed me."_
---
David's hands were shaking.
He blinked back something in his throat that felt a lot like grief.
She'd smiled so much.
She always smiled.
And every time she did, she died a little more.
He flipped another page. Then another.
Some were poems, others were thoughts she'd scribbled like she was arguing with herself. Regret. Hope. Panic. A list of dreams she'd crossed out, then rewritten with less ambition, less joy. It was like watching someone scale back their entire life just to survive it.
He closed the book and held it to his chest like it might steady his heartbeat.
This wasn't something he could unknow.
This wasn't just a sickness.
This was Amelia—the real her. The part no one else saw. The part she kept buried beneath her curated expressions and half-jokes and polite distance.
And he'd stolen it.
He couldn't go back.
---
The next morning, he saw her in the courtyard. She was wearing that oversized hoodie again, the one with the frayed sleeves she always chewed on when she was anxious. Her eyes had shadows beneath them, not the kind makeup could hide.
He walked over, notebook in hand.
She looked up—and stilled.
"Hey," he said softly.
She already knew.
The way her jaw locked. The way her breath hitched like a punch to the ribs. She didn't even have to ask. It was written all over his face.
"You read it."
It wasn't a question.
"I… I had to."
"No, you didn't."
"I was scared for you."
"You were curious."
David flinched. "That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" Her voice cracked. "You took something I never gave. Something I wasn't ready to give."
"I know. I messed up. But—"
"You didn't mess up, David. You chose. You chose your need to know over my right to breathe."
The words hit harder than he expected. Because she was right.
He'd wanted to help. But more than that, he'd wanted clarity. Wanted to make sense of her silence. Wanted to fix something that wasn't his to fix.
"I just… I didn't understand why you were pulling away."
"Because I had to." Her eyes were shining now. "Because I was finally happy, David. And it terrified me. And you—you made me want more of it."
He didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know how to apologize for making someone feel something beautiful when beauty was killing them.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
But Amelia just shook her head. "I don't want sorry. I want space."
And just like that, she turned and walked away.
Not dramatically. Not with tears or shouting or one last look.
Just… gone.
---
Drama class was a graveyard after that.
Amelia showed up, but only barely. She did her lines without inflection. Sat as far from David as possible. And Ms. Parker? She didn't interfere. She let the silence settle like dust on an old stage.
David hated her a little for that. But he also understood it.
Some lessons couldn't be directed. Some wounds needed to be felt.
Ms. Parker waited until after class to approach him. Everyone else had left. Even Amelia.
"You broke it," she said, like commenting on a shattered vase.
"I know."
"And you don't know how to glue it back."
He shook his head.
She sighed, setting her clipboard down. "She was starting to open. I saw it in her posture. Her tone. You were getting through. And then…"
"I got impatient."
"You got selfish."
That landed harder than he expected.
"She trusted you," Ms. Parker continued, not unkindly. "She doesn't do that with many people. Do you know why?"
He didn't answer.
"Because trust is her currency. And she's bankrupting herself trying to stay alive."
David swallowed hard. "I just wanted to help."
"Then let her breathe. Let her decide how much of herself she can give. And if she never comes back?" She looked at him evenly. "You still have to live with how you left her."
---
That night, David didn't sleep.
Again.
He sat on his floor with a pen in hand and a blank notebook on his knees.
And he wrote.
Not to fix anything.
Not to explain.
Just to be honest.
> _Amelia—
I read what I wasn't supposed to. I saw parts of you I didn't earn. And I'm not writing this to ask for forgiveness.
I'm writing because I need you to know something.
You were right. I was selfish. I wanted to understand because not knowing scared me. Not being close to you scared me.
But what scares me more is knowing I made you feel unsafe.
You said happiness kills you.
But you never looked more alive than when you smiled at me.
If I could take it back, I would.
Not because I regret knowing.
But because I hate that you didn't choose to tell me.
I hate that I stole that choice.
I miss you.
That's all._
He didn't sign it.
He didn't deliver it.
But it was the first page in a new notebook.
And someday, he hoped she'd read it.
When she was ready.