It was Elie's idea.

"I want to build a cat translator," she said one Friday afternoon, walking into the garage they'd unofficially claimed as their thinking space.

Calen looked up from a half-finished drone. "Like, 'meow' to 'I want food'?"

"More like 'meow' to 'I am contemplating the void but also kind of hungry.'"

He grinned. "I'm in. But only if I get to name it."

She gave him a playful side-eye. "What would you call it?"

He paused dramatically. "The Meowtrix."

Elie stared for a beat... then burst into laughter—real, chest-deep laughter that surprised even her. She covered her mouth, but the sound still spilled out.

"Okay," she said between breaths. "That's actually brilliant."

They spent hours surrounded by wires and scattered blueprints, their hands smudged with graphite and dust. The occasional pop of a stubborn capacitor or the smell of burnt plastic punctuated the air, followed by laughter—unrestrained and echoing off the garage walls.

They debated over pointless things, like whether cats had existential crises or if robots could dream in code. Calen would argue with a straight face, while Elie rolled her eyes dramatically, grinning behind her mug of instant coffee.

They didn't need loud music or a string of words to fill the space. The silence between them wasn't empty—it was full. Like a familiar song with no lyrics, playing just for them. Comforting. Steady. Theirs.

Even the quiet buzz of the soldering iron, the shifting rain outside, and the shared glances across the cluttered table felt like part of a rhythm only they knew how to dance to.

Here, in this secret corner of the world, they didn't have to explain themselves. They just fit—like matched threads in an invisible weave.

Sunday morning arrived quietly, Elie grabbed her worn purple umbrella —faded at the edges— with a bag full of tools and walked to their...uh —not-so-secret garage.

It was raining. Not the heavy, stormy kind. Just a soft, persistent drizzle that blurred the windows and made the world feel quieter than usual.

Elie sat cross-legged on the floor of the garage, her notebook open but untouched. A half-built circuit board sat in front of her, wires coiled like question marks, waiting for her hands to do something.

Calen was late.

Not that they had a set time. They never said meet me here at four or see you tomorrow. They just... showed up. And they always knew the other would be there.

But today, Elie had waited almost an hour.

She told herself it didn't bother her. She told herself she was just here to finish the Meowtrix prototype. That she didn't care if he came or not.

But when the door finally creaked open and Calen stepped in, damp from the rain, shaking water from his hoodie—she felt something shift in her chest. A little too relieved. A little too warm.

"Sorry," he said, brushing rain from his hair. "Got stuck helping my uncle with his truck."

Elie nodded, pretending she hadn't noticed the passing time. "It's fine. The cat translator isn't going anywhere."

He gave her a sheepish smile and sat down beside her without asking. The room filled again with the familiar quiet—rain tapping gently outside, tools clicking, wires rustling.

After a while, Calen asked, "You okay?"

Elie didn't answer right away. She rarely did.

"I don't know," she said finally. "I was thinking about... time. How we spend it. How some hours feel like minutes and some minutes feel like days."

He looked at her, eyes steady. "And today?"

"Today felt like... space. Not empty. Just... waiting."

Calen didn't respond with words. Instead, he picked up the circuit board and started working beside her—shoulder to shoulder, movements slow, deliberate.

Weirdly enough, sometimes, presence was the only answer they needed.

Was that the reason she kept gravitating toward Calen?
She shrugged off the thought—no one really knew.
It was just nice to have one person you could be quiet with, without judgment.

The soldering iron hissed as Elie pressed a connection into place. Her hands were steady, but her mind wasn't.

Across the garage, Calen was talking to someone. A girl.

A little earlier, while Calen was out grabbing snacks, Elie had stayed behind, tidying their workbench, lost in the quiet hum of their shared space.

When the door creaked open again, it wasn't Calen.

A girl walked in—bright-eyed, too enthusiastic, the kind of energy that demanded attention. She had been following him earlier, trailing him with a cascade of questions and a smile that stretched too wide, as if trying to catch something elusive.

"Hi!" the girl chirped when she spotted Elie.

Elie looked up, expression unreadable. She offered a simple wave—brief, polite, distant. Then returned her gaze to the circuit board in her hands, as if that was the only thing that needed her right then.

She wasn't part of their usual world—too bright, too loud, laughing like she belonged in sunshine, not in dim workshops that smelled like dust and melted plastic.

Elie didn't know her name. She didn't want to.

The girl leaned too close. Asked about Calen's projects with too much interest, touching a screwdriver like it was a foreign object. And Calen—he was polite. Friendly, even. The way he rarely was with people he didn't know.

Elie tried not to listen. But she did.

Tried not to look. But she did.

And when the girl finally left, bouncing away with one last wave, Elie's voice cut the silence without warning.

"She didn't know what a voltage regulator was."

Calen blinked. "Huh?"

"The girl. She didn't know what a voltage regulator was. But she acted like she did."

Calen tilted his head, studying her. "You don't like her."

"I don't know her," Elie said quickly. Too quickly. "I just don't like shallow conversations."

"Mmh."

He didn't press, but his gaze lingered. And Elie—she hated how warm her cheeks felt, how irritated she was at someone who hadn't actually done anything wrong. It didn't make sense. But emotions rarely ran on logic.

So instead of dealing with it, she said, "I need air."

And left.

She ended up in the local library. Her favorite spot: corner chair, second floor, right by the window. The sky was overcast, grey leaking into grey, like someone had erased the outlines of the world.

Elie opened her notebook. But instead of diagrams, she started to write. Not about cat translators or quantum puzzles.

But about the first time she remembered feeling like she didn't quite belong. She let out a slow, heavy breath.

She had been ten.

Her classmates talked about birthday parties and dance lessons and crushes on boys who played soccer.

Elie sat at the back of the room, organizing her pencils by shade and wondering why everyone acted like their thoughts had to be loud to matter.

She liked silence. She liked ideas that took days to bloom. But in a world that clapped for quick answers, she often felt like a question that took too long.

A teacher once told her she was "bright but distracted." Elie remembered staring out the window, watching a crow peck at a sandwich crust on the pavement.

She hadn't been distracted.

She had been thinking about how odd it was that birds could recognize patterns in human behavior—how they waited for lunch breaks, for students to scatter, for safety in familiarity.

She just hadn't known how to say all that without sounding wrong­—like her words might come out too sharp or too soft, or miss the point entirely. So instead, she kept them folded inside, like paper notes never passed.

Back in the present, the sound of footsteps pulled her from her thoughts.

Calen stood in front of her, holding two paper cups.

"I brought you coffee," he said simply.

She looked up. "How'd you know I was here?"

"I didn't. I just tried all the quiet places."

He handed her the coffee, sat across from her, and didn't ask anything else.

And Elie thought, this is why I like him.

Not because he brings coffee.

Not because he fixes things.

But because he sees her.

Even in silence.