"You don't have to scream to be in pain. Sometimes, it's just the silence that's too loud."
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The group chat had 218 unread messages.
Aira stared at the screen while her cereal turned soggy. The message thread was a blur of inside jokes, memes, location pins, plans for the weekend. Her name didn't appear once.
Not even a "where's Aira?"
She set the phone down and stared out the window, watching raindrops draw quiet paths down the glass. The world was busy outside — people with umbrellas, laughing in pairs or trios, the sound of life moving forward.
Aira felt like she was standing still. Again.
In her mirror, she practiced her smile.
Pull up the corners of your lips.
Relax your eyes.
Not too wide, or they'll ask if something's wrong.
It had become muscle memory now. Aira's smiles had started as real ones once, years ago. NOW, they were like band-aids slapped over wounds no one could see.
She walked to class alone, like always.
Hana passed her in the hallway. Aira opened her mouth to say hi, but Hana didn't even glance her way. Just kept walking, arm-in-arm with Izzati, their laughter echoing against the tiled walls.
Aira stood frozen for a moment before forcing her legs to keep moving.
In class, she sat near the window. Far enough to be invisible, but close enough to hear the people she called friends laugh together two rows ahead.
She didn't hate them. That was the worst part.
She just hated how small she felt next to them.
Her phone vibrated with a message from Ray.
[ Hey. Just wondering how you're holding up. I'm skipping the lecture today. Needed to breathe ]
She stared at it for a while.
Then typed back:
[ I wish I knew how to breathe too ]
He replied almost instantly.
[ It's okay if today's heavy. Just don't carry it alone. I mean that. ]
Aira didn't reply. But for the first time that day, she didn't feel like crying.
In her journal that night, she wrote:
"I exist in the gaps between conversations.
I'm there, but not enough to be noticed.
Not enough to be missed."
"Is this what friendship feels like when you stop being useful to them?
Or did I imagine it all from the start?"
"It's strange, isn't it?
How you can be surrounded and still feel alone.
But maybe — just maybe — alone isn't forever.
Maybe it's just a quiet place before the right people arrive."
She remembered Mira again.
How Mira used to call her "soulmate," how she used to wait outside Aira's dorm with coffee and stories and big, boisterous hugs.
And how one day, Mira just… stopped.
Started pointing out how "clingy" Aira had become. How she "overreacted" when left on read for two days. How she should "be more chill" or "learn to be alone."
Mira's words keep her alive: "You're lucky to have me, you know."
And Aira had believed her.
That night, Aira couldn't sleep.
Her thoughts were too loud.
"You're not good enough."
"You're just background noise."
"If you disappeared, they'd laugh louder."
She sat up, gasping. Her chest hurt. Her hands were cold. Her mind felt like it was caving in on itself.
Panic attacks are cruel in how quietly they arrive.
She fumbled for her notebook in the dark, fingers trembling.
"You don't have to be okay all the time.
You don't have to be strong in silence.
Sometimes, breaking down is how we learn where it hurts the most."
The next morning, she didn't go to class.
Instead, she sat in the university's counseling waiting room.
It smelled like mint tea and dust and something warm. A shelf full of donated books lined the wall. She picked one up, just to have something to hold. Her name was called after a few minutes.
She didn't know how to start, so she just said:
"I think I forgot how to be… a person."
And the counselor nodded gently.
"That's okay," she said. "We can remember together."
Aira's eyes filled with tears.
Because no one had said that to her before.
Later that evening, Ray found her sitting alone in the garden behind the library. The sky was bruised with purple clouds, but the rain hadn't come yet.
He didn't ask what was wrong. Just sat beside her with two cups of green tea.
"Bad day?" he asked.
"Every day feels like a rerun," she whispered.
He nodded, then said softly, "You know… I used to think I had to earn my place in people's lives. That… I had to be useful, or funny, or easy. But… turns out, the right people never needed me to prove I belonged."
Aira stared at him.
"You ever feel like…you're just… noise…people put up with?"
Ray looked at her with something like understanding.
"All the time."