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Chapter 16 – Unsaid Words and Unseen Wounds

The sky was pale and grey the next morning, a faint drizzle soaking the rooftop tiles as Don stood in silence, a cigarette between his fingers but not yet lit.

He was tired.

Not physically. But in a way that settled deep inside his bones — the kind of tired that no sleep could cure.

Behind him, the door creaked open. Jake stepped out with two steaming cups of tea.

Don didn’t turn.

“I’m not here to fight,” Jake said softly. “Just brought you something warm.”

Don looked at the cup handed to him. “Thanks.”

They stood side by side, steam rising into the rain-kissed air.

After a long silence, Jake finally said, “You still love Aarya, don’t you?”

Don didn’t respond at first.

He took a long sip and whispered, “Every time I close my eyes, I remember her voice. Every time I breathe, I feel the silence she left behind.”

Jake looked down at his cup, his eyes glassy. “You never told us how much it broke you.”

“I didn’t know how.”

The rain tapped against the railing like soft fingers trying to say something neither of them could.

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Later that day at school, Gor joined them near the basketball court. It was one of those rare afternoons when the sun barely peeked through clouds, and the boys sat under the bleachers, not talking, just existing together.

Jake had brought an old cassette player from home, and he played a recording they made in sixth grade — a silly, off-key song the three of them had written during a school picnic.

Their childish voices filled the air.

Don smiled, truly smiled, for the first time in weeks.

Gor chuckled. “We were horrible.”

Jake laughed. “We thought we were music legends.”

Don wiped a tear he hadn’t noticed falling. “We were. In our world.”

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As the day faded, Jake brought up something that had been haunting him.

“Do you ever think about leaving again?” he asked Don.

Don shook his head. “I left once. And I lost everything. I’m not doing that again.”

“But your past… it’s not easy to walk away from.”

Don’s face turned serious. “I didn’t walk away. I buried it. And some things should stay buried.”

There was a weight in the air after that — not anger, but understanding.

They didn’t need all the answers.

Not yet.

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That evening, Don visited the old basketball court — the one abandoned near the railway line. He hadn’t been there since the day R left.

The court was cracked now, with weeds pushing through the concrete. The faded graffiti still read Blue Fang Forever.

Don sat on the old bench where they once planned gang strategies as if they were war generals.

He closed his eyes and remembered.

• R’s loud laugh.

• Gino’s terrible jokes.

• The sound of a chain spinning in Don’s hands as he stared into the city lights.

But one memory stood out.

The last conversation he had with R.

> “Someday, Don… all of this will be gone. The fights, the blood, the fear. But what we did together, what we built — no one can take that from us.”

Don exhaled deeply, as if trying to release all the ghosts still living in his chest.

Then he pulled out his notebook and began writing again.

This time, not for school. Not for escape.

But for truth.

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End of Chapter 16

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