Akutu had always believed that words had power. They could heal, they could break, and sometimes, they could stay locked inside, too heavy to say aloud.
Her friendship with Kweku was growing, and with it came an unspoken understanding between them. They could sit in silence for long periods, yet it never felt awkward. But there were things neither of them had said—things that hovered in the air like unformed poetry.
One evening, they sat on the rooftop of an abandoned lecture hall, watching the sun dip below the horizon. The sky was painted in hues of orange and purple, and the campus lights flickered on one by one.
Kweku sighed. "Do you ever feel like you have things to say, but you don't know how to say them?"
Akutu turned to him, sensing the weight behind his words. "All the time."
He chuckled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I write my thoughts, but some things still feel… trapped."
She understood that feeling too well. There were things she wanted to tell him—about how their friendship had changed her, about how she sometimes felt lost even when everything seemed fine.
But she didn't.
Instead, she said, "Maybe some words aren't meant to be spoken. Maybe they're just meant to be felt."
Kweku smiled softly. "That sounds like something you should write about."
Akutu laughed. "Maybe I will."
That night, she sat at her desk, staring at a blank page. Then, she wrote:
"Some words never make it past our lips. They stay in our hearts, heavy with meaning, waiting for the right moment to be heard. But sometimes, the right moment never comes. And so, we carry them, hoping that the people we love will somehow understand them anyway."
She read over the words, feeling their weight.
Some things were better left unspoken. But that didn't mean they weren't real.
The pulleys of life had shifted once again.