The murmurs press in on him tonight, soft yet relentless, a tide of hushed voices slinking through the narrow aisles of the bookstore. He closes his eyes, trying to drown them out, but the words—half-formed, fragmented—seep into his skin like cold air through a cracked window. Each whisper, each quiet laugh, scrapes against his nerves, setting his teeth on edge.

Most people would be home by now. He should be home by now. But the thought makes his stomach tighten. The house isn’t a refuge anymore; it’s an echo chamber of absence, a place where silence folds itself around him like damp sheets.

It used to feel different. Once, the creak of the floorboards and the lingering scent of mothballs mixed with his father’s cloying cologne were just parts of the backdrop, things that meant home. Now, they carry a weight he can’t shake. The air feels too still, too hollow, pressing into his chest like an unspoken demand.

Since his mother’s hospital shifts stretched long into the night and his father started working late, Quynten has had the house to himself. At first, the solitude was a novelty. A quiet, unsupervised freedom. But now, the walls seem to breathe around him, exhaling the ghosts of routines that no longer exist.

There was a time when his mother’s voice was the first thing to greet him after school, her smile a soft landing. Then, sometime around third grade, his father took over pick-ups, his presence a sharp contrast—less warmth, more structure. And then, by middle school, Quynten walked home alone. The greeting upon arrival became a gamble. Sometimes his mother’s embrace. Sometimes his father’s unreadable glance. More often, nothing at all.

Now, he unlocks the door to an empty house, the air thick with the absence of voices. He makes dinner in silence, lets the TV murmur in the background, and stays up later than he should—out of defiance, maybe, or just to prove he can. Most nights, sleep wins. But on the nights it doesn’t, he waits by the window, watching the streetlights flicker, listening for the shift in the wind that signals someone, anyone, coming home.

The sound of the front door creaking open always sends a jolt through his chest, some fractured mix of relief and dread. He rushes to bed, pressing his face into the pillow, pretending to be asleep. His mother never falls for it. She brushes his curls from his forehead, her whisper a thread of comfort in the dark.

“Sleep tight, little dove.”

His father lingers in the doorway instead, a silent silhouette in the dim hall light. He never says anything. Just watches. And then the door clicks shut, leaving Quynten alone again.

Tonight, the thought of returning to that empty house grips him like a fist around his throat. He doesn’t want to go back. Not after the day he’s had.

School was its usual drudgery, an endless loop of lessons and empty chatter. But in between the dull moments, there were reminders—sharp and deliberate—that he didn’t quite fit. The taunts had been a constant, woven into the fabric of his life. Most of them bounced off. But some cut deeper.

Today, it was Gerard Vincente, all height and arrogance, his voice dripping with casual cruelty. The words burned, a slow rot beneath Quynten’s skin, even as he kept his face blank.

For a fleeting moment, he’d escaped it all—on the volleyball court, where his body moved in sync with the rhythm of the game, where his name was called in praise instead of mockery.

“Nice one, Summit!”

Coach Lacey’s voice had been a balm, however brief. But triumph never lasted long. The loneliness always found him again, curling around his ribs, squeezing.

The jokes about his hair had started when he was small. Too long. Too thick. Too much. They followed him home, slithering under doors, creeping into dinner conversations that weren’t meant for his ears.

“He’ll be a laughingstock, Kalana. Look at him!”

His father’s voice, rough with frustration. A sharp gesture in Quynten’s direction.

His mother, unwavering. “He is fine just the way he is.”

But it was her final words that struck the deepest, a line in the sand she refused to cross.

“The men of my people wear their hair long. It is his right. If he chooses to cut it when he is older, so be it. Until then, let him be.”

And that had been the end of it.

Sometimes, Quynten wondered if his mother took more pride in her culture than she let on. She never spoke Samoan at home, never pushed traditions on him. But she carried her heritage on her skin—her tattoos inked into her legs, silent reminders of where she came from.

He had only heard her speak the language once. He was twelve, standing in his grandmother’s house, watching his mother argue with Grandma Lusia. The words, sharp and fluid, filled the air like the crack of a whip. He didn’t understand them. But he understood the weight.

Uncle Noah had pulled him outside before the tension could crush him. They sat in the thick summer air, the hum of crickets filling the spaces where words should have been.

“Can I have one like you?”

He had asked, his fingers tracing the dark ink that curled around his uncle’s arm.

Uncle Noah had laughed, ruffling his hair. “O’u tuagane,” he had said, voice warm. “When you’re older.”

Sixteen had felt impossibly far away then. He had groaned, dramatic, impatient. Uncle Noah had only grinned, promising to be there when the time came.

Less than a year later, they buried him.

After that, the family gatherings stopped. His mother stopped bringing them to Grandma Lusia’s. Calls to Aunt Sefina became strained, visits rare.

He never asked about the argument. But he could see the answer in the way his grandmother looked at him. In the way certain relatives stiffened when his father entered the room.

Even with his mother’s light brown eyes and soft features, Quynten knew he was different. Knew he would never fully belong.

And it wasn’t just the way they looked at him. It was the way he felt it—settling in his bones, wrapping around his throat, whispering in the back of his mind every time he stepped into a room filled with his mother’s family.

It was his dark complexion that set him apart. The hair they called unruly. The name they never quite said the same way twice.

A lifetime of trying to belong. A lifetime of knowing he never would.

Most would assume he’d share a closer bond with his father’s side—some secret tether to ground him. But that side of the family was little more than a myth, a shapeless fog he’d never managed to peer through.

No photos. No names. No stories.

Quynten had never met his grandparents—if they even existed. He didn’t know whether his father had siblings, cousins, anyone. The man kept his past under lock and key, and the few times Quynten dared to ask, he was met with a silence so heavy it felt like punishment.

When he was younger—seven, maybe eight—he still had questions. He’d ask gently, cautiously, unsure if this time would be different. But his father’s expression would harden, gaze narrowing in that way that made Quynten feel smaller than he was, as if curiosity was a defect.

“Why do you ask such dense questions?”

That word—dense—cut deeper than the tone. He hadn’t known what it meant then, not really. Just that it wasn’t something a good son should be.

He remembers one birthday in particular. He was eight. His father’s birthday landed on a Friday that year, and school let out with just enough time for him to dig through the pantry and bake. The cake turned out crooked, the icing uneven, but he had poured every ounce of himself into it—measuring, mixing, hoping.

He thought maybe, just maybe, this would be the thing to draw a smile from his father. A moment of connection. A flicker of pride.

Instead, when his father walked through the door that evening, sweat still clinging to his collar, his gaze landed on the cake like it was an insult.

“Why does it look like that?”

There was no raised voice, but the disgust clung to every syllable, sharper than a slap.

“You had time to make this instead of doing your homework?”

“It’s Friday, Dad.”

It was barely a protest. But that was all it took.

The strike came fast, open-palmed and sudden. His cheek stung, then numbed.

His mother stood there. Silent. She didn’t move, didn’t flinch. There was something hollow in her eyes, something he couldn’t name. He wanted her to speak. To intervene. But she didn’t.

Only after his father retreated upstairs—boots heavy against the steps—did she approach him. Her footsteps quiet, her hand a gentle weight on his shoulder.

“At least you tried, little dove,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to the swelling bruise blooming on his face.

Quynten hadn’t known what to feel then. Shame, confusion, hurt. They twisted together in his chest, impossible to untangle.

And now, even years later, he still doesn’t know how to unpack that moment.

But one thing became clear—he would never try again.

No more handmade gestures. No more reaching for approval with open hands. He stopped trying to impress the man with anything that came from his heart.

Now, birthdays and holidays were transactional. A bottle of cologne. A pair of boots. Whatever his father mentioned in passing, Quynten would buy.

But to create something—to offer a piece of himself in the hope of being seen?

Never again.