"He didn't talk much. But somehow, it felt like he saw too much."
The car moved again, smooth and quiet, like him. I could feel the low thrum of the engine in my legs, the tension in the air threading tighter with each passing streetlamp.
Rayen wasn't what I expected.
I thought he'd be like my brother-in-law — loud, easygoing, always cracking jokes. But this one? He was stillness. Sharp edges. All shadows and silence. He hadn't smiled once, and yet something about him felt... familiar.
Not in a comforting way.
More like déjà vu you didn't ask for.
I turned back to the window, watching unfamiliar streets blur into each other. "You don't talk much, do you?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel.
"Neither do you," he said, not unkindly.
I huffed a quiet laugh. "Touché."
A long pause stretched between us again, but it didn't feel so heavy this time. It was strange — the kind of quiet that didn't demand to be filled.
"I'm not used to people," I admitted before I could stop myself. "Not lately."
His knuckles brushed his jaw as he shifted in his seat, as if debating whether to speak.
"I get that," he said finally. "More than you'd think."
That surprised me. I glanced at him properly this time, trying to read something in his face. But he didn't give much away. Just stared ahead, expression unreadable.
We didn't talk for the rest of the drive. And still — I left that car feeling like we'd had a conversation no one else would ever understand.