Chapter 1The Voiceless Echo

Ethan told the teacher he wanted some peace and quiet, and asked to sit alone.

"Mr. Davis, Ethan says he can't survive without me, so we need to be desk partners."

Ethan told my mom he wanted his bedroom painted black, with smaller windows.

"Mrs. Hayes, he said he wants floor-to-ceiling windows with pink curtains because he loves feeling the sunshine."

Ethan told me he hated me.

I assumed he was just playing hard to get, shoved a piece of cake into his mouth, and told him I didn't believe a word of it.

"So, who do you like then? The new transfer student?"

He shot me a look, violently shaking his head, and quickly signed to me:

"Of course not. I don't like her type."

I let out a massive sigh of relief and went right back to chasing after him.

That was, until the day I was doing classroom cleanup duty and found a crumpled note on the floor addressed to the transfer student. It read:

"I only said that because I was afraid she'd mistranslate my words and make things difficult. Please don't be mad."

"You're my favorite person. Let's go to the same college, okay?"

It was then I finally realized: walking away from a mute person is incredibly easy.

All I had to do was close my eyes, or simply look away.

The broom slipped from my hands. I instinctively picked up the crumpled note and smoothed it out.

Ethan had spent years practicing calligraphy. His handwriting was unmistakable—elegant, sharp, and confident.

An image instantly flashed into my mind: the soft, effortless smile that always played on his lips whenever he wrote something down.

But the moment I remembered these words were written for Chloe, a profound, suffocating sense of displacement washed over me.

After all, just an hour ago, I had asked him:

"Why is the new girl always following you around? I think she likes you."

Ethan hadn't said a word. He just pressed his lips into a tight line, his gaze shifting to something behind me.

I followed his eyes and saw Chloe standing on her tiptoes, struggling to erase the top of the whiteboard.

Without a moment's hesitation, Ethan stood up, walked to the front of the room, rolled up his sleeves, wet a paper towel, and meticulously wiped down every spot she couldn't reach.

When he sat back down, I focused intently on changing the blade in my exacto knife, pretending I didn't care as I asked:

"Do you like her?"

Ethan's eyelashes were incredibly dark and thick—the kind of long, sweeping lashes that even girls envied. In his clear, bright eyes, I saw a flicker of profound exasperation.

"I don't like her. She is absolutely not my type," he signed to me.

I finally breathed a sigh of relief. My tense muscles relaxed, and without realizing it, my grip on the knife slipped.

The blade sliced across my finger. I hissed in pain, watching beads of blood well up on my skin.

The color instantly drained from Ethan's face. Without a single wasted movement, his brow furrowed in distress as he gently, meticulously wiped the blood away.

The familiar warmth of his touch and the scent of his laundry detergent instantly soothed my racing heart.

I blinked, a quiet voice whispering inside my head:

See? Ethan likes me.

...

But now, staring at the note in my hand, it read:

"I was afraid she'd cause trouble and target you."

"Don't listen to her. I only want to go to college with you."