⎯⎯⎯ IN THE QUIET ⎯⎯⎯

CHAPTER ONE
'Silence Between Us'

GOTHAM — TWO YEARS AGO

THE WORLD OUTSIDE MAHEEN'S WINDOW carried on as if nothing had changed. The sky hung low, a dull shade of gray that seemed to press down on the restless streets below. People rushed past one another, their faces blurred with purpose; cars honked in a discordant symphony, and the city buzzed with its relentless energy.

But for her, the world felt still. Heavy. Suffocating.

One month.

It had been a month since Jason's death. A month of muted mornings and sleepless nights, of silence that screamed louder than words. The ache of his absence wasn't something time could dull. It was raw, a constant undercurrent beneath everything.

She stood in front of her mirror, her reflection both familiar and foreign. The same features stared back at her—the hazel eyes that used to shine, the cupid-bow lips that had once curved easily into a smile—but now, they belonged to someone else. Someone quieter. Smaller. Her eyes carried shadows that hadn't been there before, a hollowness that spoke of sleepless nights and a grief too heavy for her frame.

The bag slung over the chair caught her gaze, a stark reminder of the day ahead. School. A place where the world would expect her to be the Maheen they knew: the clever one, the pretty one, the one who always seemed to have things together. But that girl felt like a ghost, a fragile memory she wasn't sure she could reclaim.

She let out a slow breath, the weight in her chest pressing harder with each passing second. There was no room for stillness anymore, no space for grief to sit comfortably. The world didn't—wouldn't pause for her pain.

Her hand rested on the doorknob, trembling just enough for her to notice. For a moment, the urge to retreat clawed at her. She wanted to turn back, bury herself under the familiar weight of her blankets, and let the silence envelop her. At least in her room, the world outside couldn't demand anything from her, couldn't push her to pretend. 

But staying there, hiding away from the noise and the light, felt like sinking deeper into an abyss she wasn't sure she could climb out of. 

Jason wouldn't want that, would he? 

She closed her eyes, clutching the thought as if it could steady her. No. He wouldn't. He'd tease her for it, challenge her to face the world with that spark she'd lost. 

Drawing a breath so deep it hurt, Maheen twisted the knob and stepped into the cold embrace of the world beyond. 

The walk to school blurred like a dream she couldn't wake from. The sharp bite of winter air stung her cheeks, but it couldn't pierce the fog in her mind. She moved mechanically, her feet tracing a path she'd walked countless times before. Faces passed her by, pale blurs in the periphery, their chatter muffled and distant. Everyone seemed driven, wrapped in their own routines, their destinations clear. 

Maheen, by contrast, felt weightless—adrift, untethered, as though the ground beneath her feet might vanish at any second. 

School offered no reprieve. She had braced herself for the stares and the whispers, the subtle shifts in tone when people addressed her. But knowing what to expect didn't make it easier. 

The hallways were too loud, the air too thick with the pretense of normalcy. Conversations buzzed around her like static, voices too close yet impossibly far. Every glance in her direction was a dagger—sharp, prying, and drenched in pity. 

To them, it was just another day. A Tuesday, or maybe a Wednesday. To Maheen, it was the day the world reminded her, again, that Jason was gone, and the earth hadn't stopped spinning.

By the time the hazel-eyed young girl reached her first class, the exhaustion clung to her like a second skin. The moment she stepped inside, the room seemed to shrink. Conversations faltered, then faded, leaving a suffocating silence in their wake. Every glance felt sharp and unrelenting, even when no one said a word.

She slipped into her seat, keeping her gaze fixed on her desk. Her fingers fidgeted with the corner of her notebook, her skin prickling under the weight of eyes that lingered just a moment too long. No one spoke—no awkward condolences, no forced reassurances. Only silence, heavy and unbearable.

It wasn't that Maheen didn't appreciate the attempts at kindness. If anything, she understood them too well. But each gesture felt like salt on an open wound. Too raw. Too much. Too soon.

She tried to focus on the teacher's voice, let the droning of the lesson ground her, but the words blurred together, melting into meaningless noise. Her notebook stared back at her, the lines warping as if mocking her efforts to make sense of the world. Every empty space became a canvas for memory: Jason's laughter, the way his grin could brighten the darkest days, the teasing edge in his voice that always seemed to carry her out of her own head.

But now, there was no laughter. No warmth. Only silence.

The day dragged, each class stretching endlessly. Minutes bled into hours, each one slower than the last. Maheen moved on autopilot, the rhythm of the day mechanical and detached. She felt like a ghost haunting the edges of a world she no longer belonged to. Her classmates filled the space with their chatter and laughter, their lives unbroken, untouched by the loss that had shattered hers.

At lunch, the girl found herself in the furthest corner of the cafeteria, her untouched tray sitting between her and the world. The noise swirled around her, loud yet meaningless, a cacophony that barely registered. She stared at the tabletop, her fingers tracing invisible patterns on its surface, her mind wandering.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him.

A flash of red and black. A figure in the crowd, too familiar to dismiss. Her breath caught, her head snapping up as her heart stuttered in her chest. Jason. His face. His smile. The way his eyes always lit up when he caught her looking.

For a brief, electrifying moment, the cafeteria vanished, replaced by a different kind of reality. One where he was still here, alive and whole, walking toward her like nothing had changed.

She blinked, her vision swimming as she tried to hold on to the image. But when her eyes focused again, he was gone. The crowded room snapped back into focus, the familiar noise flooding her senses like a cruel reminder.

It wasn't real. She rubbed her temples, the chill of her fingertips grounding her. No matter how desperately her mind conjured him, no matter how vividly she could see him, Jason wasn't here.

And he never would be again.

The bell rang, slicing through the haze of Maheen's thoughts, but it did little to bring clarity. She felt untethered, drifting through the day like a ship lost in thick fog, unable to navigate the labyrinth of grief that ensnared her.

The hours blurred together, a monotony of indistinct faces and muffled voices. Each interaction felt foreign, like she had stepped into someone else's life—a life that didn't fit her anymore. She moved through the motions, a ghost inhabiting a shell of what had once been her world.

By the time she reached home, the weight of the day hung over her like an anchor. The door clicked shut behind her, sealing her away from the world outside, but the silence within the house was suffocating. Her parents were still at work, their absence amplifying the hollowness that echoed in every corner of the space.

She sank onto the couch, curling into herself as though the smaller she made her body, the less it would hurt. The world beyond the walls had carried on, indifferent to her pain, but inside her, time had stopped. It felt frozen, locked in the moment Jason's life had been ripped away.

Jason was gone.

The thought rang out in her mind, stark and inescapable. She closed her eyes, hoping for a reprieve, but sleep didn't come. It hadn't come in weeks, not since the night that changed everything.

And then, like a floodgate breaking, the memories poured in. His laugh, unguarded and infectious, the kind that could light up even her darkest days. His smile, a mixture of mischief and sincerity that always made her feel safe. The way he had been her constant, her rock, even when the rest of the world felt like it was crumbling around them.

But now the world was crumbling for her, and he wasn't there to steady her. She didn't know how to put the pieces back together, how to fill the jagged void his absence had left.

The ache was unrelenting, a raw and gnawing thing that sat heavy in her chest, making each breath feel like a battle. She opened her eyes to the empty room, and for the first time that day, tears spilled over. Silent and steady, they fell, carving paths down her cheeks as she let the grief take hold, consuming her in its suffocating embrace.

Jason was still gone. And the world, cruel and unyielding, hadn't even paused to notice.

⎯⎯⎯

The week had carved pieces out of her, invisible wounds she couldn't name. Each morning, Maheen dragged herself from bed, slipping into the polished, practiced version of herself—the one that fooled the world into thinking she was fine. She curved her lips into half-hearted smiles at the right moments, offered polite nods, and let conversations drift around her like smoke—insubstantial, hollow, vanishing before they ever touched her.

In class, she stared at her open notebook, her pen gliding aimlessly across the page. The neat rows of words on the board blurred into shifting patterns of ink, symbols without meaning. They struck her senses but never broke through, skimming her thoughts like raindrops skimming glass—always there, never sinking in. Every lecture felt borrowed, like it belonged to someone else's story, some parallel life where none of this hurt existed.

Pretending had become its own kind of suffocation. It wasn't only the grief—it was the emptiness that clung to her like a shadow she couldn't shake, the aching chasm of loneliness she carried in silence. Jason's death had shattered her, cracked her world open wide, but the rest of the world had merely shivered before steadying itself.

They had moved on—because they could.
She couldn't—because she didn't know how.

By Friday, the weight pressed so hard against her chest it felt as if she were drowning in air. Every step dragged her deeper, every breath an effort, her lungs straining as if under water. The cracks in her carefully maintained mask began to split wider, sharp edges threatening to tear her apart. She clung to her composure with trembling fingers, willing herself to hold on, but the seams were unraveling faster than she could stitch them back together. The effort was becoming unbearable. The truth was clawing its way free.

Maheen slumped into her chair at the end of the day, her forehead pressing against the cool, unyielding surface of her desk. The weight of it all—the exhaustion, the endless pretending, the hollow ache in her chest that felt more like a gaping wound—pressed down on her shoulders. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the darkness offered no reprieve. Behind her lids, Jason's face hovered like a specter, uninvited but relentless, a stark reminder of what she had lost and what refused to fade.

Her hands clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms as if pain could somehow anchor her. How much longer could she keep this up? How many more hours, days, weeks could she endure before she broke entirely? The question circled her mind like a raven, dark and persistent.

History class. The last, endless stretch before freedom. The room seemed to close in around her, its walls shifting imperceptibly closer, squeezing out the air. The fluorescent lights buzzed like insects trapped in her head, their hum burrowing deep, reverberating against her skull. Her knuckles turned ashen as her fingers gripped the edge of the desk, tension crackling like static up her arms.

The very air in the room thickened, viscous and oppressive. It clung to her lungs, pressing against her chest, making each breath shallow, sharp—each inhale a fight she was losing. Tears, hot and unwelcome, burned behind her eyes, but she swallowed them back, forced them down into the ever-tightening knot in her throat. It felt as though it had grown roots, tangling around her windpipe, strangling her from the inside out.

The teacher's voice was little more than a droning echo, a monotone recitation of names, dates, and wars fought by people long dead. History blurred into meaningless syllables, a cascade of sounds that crashed over her like white noise. The words dissolved before they could reach her, and her vision followed—turning the room into a watercolor smear of indistinct shapes, faces reduced to formless shadows.

She blinked rapidly, willing herself to focus, but her eyes wouldn't obey. Reality was slipping away, everything unraveling at the seams. Her grip tightened, her pulse roaring in her ears, louder than the buzz, louder than the droning. It was deafening, and yet the silence in her soul screamed louder still.

Her thoughts spiraled, unrelenting, like a whirlpool pulling her deeper with each turn. She had fought this moment tooth and nail—fought to stay composed, to keep the fragile, fraying pieces of herself bound together. But the cracks were spreading, hairline fractures splitting into wide, jagged chasms. Slowly, her hands began to tremble, the small quakes radiating outward until her whole body felt as though it might shatter under the weight of what she carried.

She pressed her palms against her face, fingers digging into her skin as if sheer pressure could ground her. Stay. Hold it together. Don't fall apart here. Not now. The mantra echoed in her mind, but it was slipping through her grasp like sand between her fingers.

The first tear was a traitor—quiet, warm, and slow as it carved its path down her cheek. Then another followed. And another. The flood came swiftly after, an unstoppable tide that broke through the dam she had built so carefully, stone by crumbling stone. Her breath caught, hitched sharp and ragged, as her chest heaved in a desperate bid to contain the sobs threatening to break free. She swallowed hard, but her throat burned, raw from the effort.

It was no use.

The sobs clawed their way out, silent but devastating, her shoulders shaking with the force of suppressed grief. The classroom continued on, a world indifferent to her unraveling. The teacher's monotone droned like static in her ears. The scrape of chairs, the whispered conversations, the dull buzz of adolescent lives moving forward—all of it faded beneath the roar of her anguish.

The walls pressed closer still, as if they were folding in on her, crushing the breath from her lungs. Each inhale felt shallow, constricted, as panic tightened its grip around her ribs. She was drowning in air too thick to breathe, in memories too sharp to endure, in the relentless, consuming ache of everything left unsaid and undone. Jason. Jason. His name was a wound that wouldn't heal, a name she couldn't speak without bleeding.

The tears came faster, hot streaks that burned like acid against her skin, scalding reminders of all she had lost. The pressure in her chest was unbearable, a vice tightening with every heartbeat. Her hands, still pressed to her face, were damp with her sorrow, but she couldn't bring herself to lower them. If she didn't hide, if anyone saw her like this, she would unravel completely.

A sharp sound pierced the fog—a chair scraping against the floor. The sudden jolt cut through her haze, sharp as a blade against her raw nerves. Her breath hitched again, sharper this time.

A voice, soft and hesitant, slipped into the space between her sobs.

     "Maheen?"

She froze. The sound of her name was a tether, a lifeline, something to pull her back before she sank too far. Her hands slowly dropped from her face, trembling fingers brushing against the dampness on her cheeks as she blinked through the haze. The world didn't feel real—just a dim blur of colors and shapes—but that voice... it was real. It was here. It was now.

Maheen didn't look up. She couldn't. The tears kept falling, relentless and burning, and her sobs came in raw, jagged bursts that cut through the fragile silence she had clung to like glass shattering in an empty room. The voice that had called her name, laced with soft, uncertain concern, only deepened the weight of her shame. She pressed her hands harder against her face as if pressing hard enough might somehow erase her, dissolve her into the background where no one could see her broken pieces.

A shadow stretched over her desk, dark and gentle. A hand, warm and careful, rested on her shoulder—a small, steady anchor in a storm she could no longer control. The touch didn't jar her, but it rippled through her defenses all the same.

The teacher knelt beside her, voice low but tinged with unmistakable worry.

     "Maheen, sweetheart... are you alright?"

The words seemed to drift from some far-off place, hollow and distant, as if spoken underwater. The syllables wavered in her mind before breaking apart into meaningless fragments. She shook her head slowly, her neck stiff, her throat a vise of unshed sobs and words she didn't know how to form. No, no, no, her mind screamed, but no sound escaped.

How could she explain? How could she ever describe it—the drowning weight of grief, the way every breath felt like swallowing glass, or how Jason's absence had gutted her so completely that nothing seemed real anymore? Her world had been stripped of its colors, drained of sound and warmth, leaving only echoes of memories that hurt too much to remember.

The teacher's brows knitted together, her features softening with a kind of understanding that cut deeper than any sharp word ever could.

     "Alright," she murmured with careful gentleness. "We'll figure this out. I'm going to call your parents. You don't have to go through this alone."

The words—meant to comfort—landed like stones in her chest. Her heart lurched painfully against her ribs, the sharp bite of panic searing through the sorrow. Her lungs tightened, the air growing thin again, and she felt her control slipping further.

Alone. The word haunted her. She was always alone in this grief, even when people were right beside her. The thought of going home, of being swallowed by the suffocating stillness where Jason's laughter was a memory and his presence a ghost, where every quiet room held his absence like a wound, was too much.

She could still hear his voice sometimes in the corners of her mind. Could still feel the phantom warmth of his hand gripping hers when the world felt too dark. But those were lies her heart told her. Jason wasn't here. He was never coming back.

     "No..." It was barely a sound, a whispered fragment of her breaking soul, but it slipped out anyway, jagged and desperate. "Please..." Her voice cracked, raw and helpless, and the weight of her desperation hung in the air between them like a fragile, trembling thing.

The teacher's eyes softened further, but her concern deepened, her lips tightening into a thin line. She reached for the phone on her desk, her words softer now, murmured as if afraid they would shatter Maheen further.

"We'll figure something out," she promised, but the reassurance fell into the chasm between them, lost.

As she dialed the counselor, Maheen sat frozen, her mind spiraling into a cold, airless place. The walls of the classroom blurred at the edges, her vision swimming with the haze of exhaustion and tears. She didn't want to go home. She didn't want to face the quiet, where every breath seemed to stretch into forever, filling the space Jason had left behind with an emptiness that consumed her.

Her parents were away, and she wouldn't ask them to return. Not like this. Not when she couldn't even put her own shattered heart into words. She needed a break, something—anything—to stop the relentless tide of grief from swallowing her whole.

⎯⎯⎯

It felt like an eternity before Maheen finally stepped outside. The cool air licked at her tear-streaked cheeks, but it did nothing to loosen the tight grip around her lungs. Her limbs were leaden, weighed down by exhaustion and the hollow ache in her chest. She stood still, barely registering the sleek black car that approached the curb with a ghostly quietness. Even the faint hum of the engine felt too subdued, too polished for the chaos she carried inside.

When Bruce Wayne emerged, his silhouette was as familiar as the ground beneath her feet. Broad shoulders. Steady posture. The kind of presence that had always meant safety, a constant in a world that was anything but. Yet tonight, there was something... off. His face—usually composed in a way that bordered on unreadable—bore a tension that was hard to place. It wasn't his usual mask of calm control; it was the weight of someone holding the pieces of himself together with frayed string.

     "Maheen," he murmured. The sound of her name was like a rope thrown into turbulent water. His voice was even, a practiced steadiness that had comforted her through scraped knees, bad dreams, and long-forgotten fears. But now, the steadiness felt brittle, as though he were balancing on a wire that could snap at any second. There was something too smooth, too controlled in the way he spoke—an effort to keep cracks from showing.

He moved with quiet care, opening the car door the same way he always did, the gesture one of simple, unspoken comfort. But tonight, it wasn't enough. His silence, meant to be reassuring, felt heavy with all the things neither of them could say.

     "Come on," Bruce said, his hand resting briefly on her shoulder. "Let's get you out of here."

Maheen didn't resist. She couldn't. Her body moved automatically, sliding into the back seat as though her bones had forgotten how to fight gravity. Her breath came in sharp, uneven bursts that scraped against her ribs, and she clenched her hands in her lap, as if gripping her own fingers tightly enough might keep her from unraveling entirely.

The car pulled away, gliding through Gotham's dim streets with the same quiet grace as always. The hum of the engine filled the space between them, a low, monotonous sound that should have been soothing. Instead, it amplified the tension coiling in her chest, each passing second tightening the knot inside her.

Bruce drove with the ease of someone who had mastered the art of silence—but this silence felt different. It wasn't just the absence of words; it was a void where understanding and comfort had always lived. The distance between them, small and physical, felt vast and insurmountable, like an ocean neither of them knew how to cross.

And in that quiet, Maheen felt herself drowning all over again.

Bruce didn't speak. The silence stretched between them, vast and suffocating, wrapping around her like a weight she couldn't shake. It gnawed at her, sharp and relentless. She hadn't expected much—her godfather was never one for flowery words or open displays of emotion—but she had hoped for something. A fragment of acknowledgment. A murmur that recognized the storm raging inside her. Instead, there was nothing.

It wasn't that she didn't understand his silence. She knew how grief could hollow you out, make words feel useless, brittle things that shattered before they reached the surface. She had seen how it could lock someone away, turn them into a shadow of themselves. But seeing him like this—silent, withdrawn, carrying his pain with the same fierce solitude he had always wielded—made the ache in her chest throb all the more. His distance, instead of offering her room to breathe, only pressed her deeper into her own loneliness.

When they reached the Manor, Bruce didn't immediately move to unlock the door. He lingered, his frame rigid, as if the weight of everything between them held him in place. The night air clung to them both, heavy and thick, filled with the things they weren't saying. He turned slightly, just enough for her to see the flicker in his eyes—something guarded, fractured, too close to what she felt.

     "Maheen." His voice was low, softer than usual, but there was a kind of careful distance in it, as though he were handling a fragile object he didn't want to break. "I know how hard you've been fighting. I know you're trying to hold it all together." A pause, heavy and deliberate. "But you don't have to do this alone."

She lifted her gaze, her heart a tumult of confusion and something darker—resentment, maybe. Her chest tightened painfully as she studied his face, searching for the cracks in his armor that had always been so well-hidden. She knew how much Jason's death had cost him. She had seen the toll it had taken, even if he had never let her in far enough to witness it up close. But the way he grieved felt... different. His sorrow was a ghost, unseen but palpable, buried beneath layers of stoicism and silence.

And it hurt.

Because that silence, that composure, felt like a judgment—an unspoken condemnation of her own unraveling. Where her grief bled out in sobs and sleepless nights, his lay neatly folded away, a stone wall she couldn't breach. It made her feel weak, her pain loud and messy in the face of his quiet resolve. The comparison burned. The distance between them felt like a chasm carved by grief, and she wasn't sure which of them had put it there.

     "I don't want to be a burden." The words slipped out, small and bitter, her voice a fragile thread barely holding together. They tasted wrong, acidic, as if speaking them made the weight on her chest even heavier.

Bruce's face remained impassive, but there was a flicker behind his eyes—something too quick, too fleeting for her to name. When he finally spoke, his voice was measured, calm. Too calm. "You're not a burden," he said, and the certainty in his tone felt rehearsed, a truth he had told himself more times than he could count but never fully believed. "You're family. And you're allowed to feel everything you're feeling. Whatever it is, I'm here for you."

The words hung between them, soft and steady, but they landed wrong. They should have been a balm, should have settled the storm inside her—but instead, they only sharpened the ache. The unease in her chest twisted tighter, the space between them feeling wider with every breath.

Because he wasn't here, not really. His grief lived behind locked doors, hidden behind the walls he had built so carefully, and she could feel the distance like a cold wind cutting through her bones. He hadn't said Jason's name. Not once. And the silence around it was deafening. His calm, his quiet composure—it wasn't peace. It was armor. And standing in front of him, raw and open, made her feel exposed, like a wound laid bare next to unbreakable stone.

She swallowed the bitter taste of her own resentment.

     "Come on," Bruce murmured, his hand briefly brushing her shoulder, the touch too light, too fleeting. He turned toward the door, pushing it open with the ease of someone used to unlocking far more guarded things. "We'll wait for your parents here."

Her nod was stiff, her limbs heavy as she followed him inside. The Manor loomed around her, its shadows stretching far and wide, and for a moment, she felt like a child again—small, lost in its vastness. But it wasn't the house that swallowed her now. It was the silence. The grief that hung between them like an unfinished sentence, never spoken but always there.

She crossed the threshold, her heart a tangled mess of gratitude and something darker. She wanted to believe in his words. She wanted to feel the safety of what he had offered. But the question wouldn't leave her mind: how deep did his grief really go?

And if it could ever reach her.

Or if, like so many things in his world, it was locked away in the shadows, too painful to confront.

⎯⎯⎯

DR STEVEN'S OFFICE, GOTHAM CITY — PRESENT DAYS

The therapy room felt like a vacuum—sterile, too quiet, the air thick with unspoken things. Maheen's body stiffened as she sat across from Dr. Stevens, every inch of her skin taut with the discomfort of being so exposed. The clock ticked in the background, each soft click a reminder of time marching forward, of the things she couldn't escape. No matter how many times she sat in this room, the feeling never changed. It was always too raw, too intimate, and every session felt like she was unraveling parts of herself she wasn't ready to face. Today was no different, except that today, it felt worse.

For weeks, Maheen had kept her grief under lock and key, burying it in the busy moments of her life. She was so close to graduation, the final step toward something new, but the weight of Jason's absence was suffocating. It should have been a time of excitement, of looking toward the future, but all she could think about was him—the silence that followed his death, and the space he had once filled that now stretched endlessly before her.

Dr. Stevens had been gentle, as always, offering her patience with every visit. But Maheen knew better than to expect the silence to last. Eventually, the questions would come. And when Dr. Stevens asked about her grief, Maheen could already feel the familiar walls begin to rise around her. She didn't want to talk about it—not now, not ever. She had spent so long burying it, refusing to let it tear her open, but it felt like she was running out of places to hide.

     "You've been through a lot," Dr. Stevens said quietly, her voice calm and steady, a soft weight that only made the words harder to bear. "And you've been carrying this grief for so long. It's okay to acknowledge it, Maheen."

The therapist's gaze lingered on her, soft but persistent, waiting for something. Maheen could feel the pressure building, the words caught somewhere between her throat and her chest, choking her. What could she even say? How could she explain the chaos inside her mind without sounding like she was losing herself? And more importantly, what was the point of speaking when the words felt so far away, so impossible to grasp?

She wanted to scream. But instead, she sat in silence, the weight of everything she couldn't say pressing down on her until she thought she might break.

Finally, she spoke, her voice barely a whisper. "I don't get it. I don't get how they all just... moved on." Her chest tightened, and she could feel the familiar sting in her eyes, though she quickly blinked it away. "Everyone else... Bruce, Tim... it's like they were already moving forward, and I couldn't keep up."

Dr. Stevens was silent, her eyes not judgmental but patiently waiting for Maheen to explain further. Maheen rubbed her face with her hands, trying to ground herself. But the more she spoke, the more everything started to tumble out, spilling into the room in an overwhelming rush.

     "I don't even know how to describe it," Maheen murmured, the frustration in her voice clear. "It felt like—like they thought they could just fix it, you know? Like if they could bring someone else in, everything would just fall back into place. Bruce—Bruce acted like nothing even happened, like it was all supposed to be okay. And then Tim... he just showed up, like the new kid, like he was supposed to replace the old one. They never talked about Jason. Never—" Her voice faltered, the lump in her throat tightening. "I don't know. It was like they didn't feel it the way I did. They just... moved on."

The words spilled out faster than she could stop them, and Maheen winced, immediately feeling the bitterness sting as it left her lips. She hadn't meant to sound so angry, but it had all been building up inside her for so long, pent up with no outlet.

Dr. Stevens sat quietly, her gaze soft but steady, giving Maheen the space to speak without interruption. When she did finally reply, it was gentle, like the steady pull of a tide. "You're angry, Maheen. And you're hurt. Losing someone, especially the way you did, can leave scars that are hard to process. And it's okay to feel those things."

Maheen nodded, her fingers digging into the fabric of the chair's arms as she tried to steady herself. "I wasn't angry at Tim," she muttered, her voice cracking. "I wasn't. It's not his fault. But it felt like they just... replaced Jason. Like it was that simple. Tim's great, I know he's not trying to fill Jason's spot, but sometimes when we hang out, I just—" She shook her head, biting back the words. "I feel guilty. Like... like I'm betraying Jason. Like I'm just moving on without him."

Her words hung between them, heavy and raw, and Maheen could feel the guilt crush her chest, too thick to breathe through. She couldn't bring herself to look up at Dr. Stevens, instead staring down at her clenched hands. She had never said it out loud before, but it was true. Every time she laughed with Tim, every time they joked, a small voice in the back of her mind would whisper, You shouldn't be doing this. You're forgetting Jason. You're leaving him behind. The thought of it, of moving on, hurt more than she ever realized. It felt like she was erasing Jason, like she was letting go of a piece of herself she wasn't ready to lose.

     "I feel like I'm just... trying to keep things together," Maheen murmured, her voice trembling, a crack in her composure that felt too exposed to bear. "Like I'm pretending everything's fine, when it's not. When it never will be." Her hand wiped across her eyes in frustration, the gesture more about trying to control her emotions than about wiping away tears. "And Bruce—he never talks about Jason. I don't get it. Why? Why is he pretending like nothing happened? Why isn't he grieving, too?"

Dr. Stevens simply nodded, her silence a welcome pause, giving Maheen room to untangle the mess of emotions she had carried for so long. The words swirled in her mind, confusion mingling with resentment and heartbreak. Why did Bruce shut everything out? Why did it feel like he was moving forward, stepping over the grief that was still so present for her? It didn't make sense, and the unanswered questions made the knot inside her stomach twist tighter.

     "You're wondering why Bruce doesn't show the same kind of grief you feel," Dr. Stevens said softly, her voice gentle yet firm, as if she knew the question was already heavy on Maheen's mind. "It's important to recognize that grief isn't one-size-fits-all. People process it in different ways. Sometimes, they don't even know how to show it. Or they might feel like they need to be strong for others."

Maheen's gaze sharpened, a flicker of something sharp crossing her face. She didn't want to hear that. She didn't want to hear that Bruce was just "trying to be strong" or that it was all part of his way of handling things. What she saw in Bruce wasn't strength. It was a fortress—a wall so thick and impenetrable that it felt like he wasn't grieving at all. He wasn't facing it, he was running from it. And that made her feel even more lost in her own pain.

     "I don't care about his strength," she said, her voice low, but the frustration still there. "I've seen that wall before. It's not strength. It's just... avoiding it. He's burying it all, and I can't understand why he won't let himself feel it."

The girl's chest tightened as the words simmered beneath her ribs, anger and hurt swirling in a tempest. She wasn't angry at Tim. He wasn't to blame. But Bruce? The man who should've been a father figure, a mentor, someone who understood her grief—she didn't know how to make sense of him anymore. His silence, his refusal to acknowledge what they had lost, only deepened the ache, like salt on an open wound.

Dr. Stevens didn't rush to offer comfort or answers. She simply waited, her eyes warm, patient. "What do you need from Bruce, Maheen? How would you want him to handle it?"

Maheen stared ahead, her gaze unfocused as she tried to untangle the knot of emotions inside her. What did she want from him? How could anyone fix the jagged edges of her heart, torn apart when Jason died? Could it even be fixed? Could he fix it?

     "I want him to talk about it," Maheen whispered, more to herself than to Dr. Stevens, her voice soft but filled with an aching truth. "I want him to just... say something. To admit that it hurts, too. I want him to stop pretending like everything's fine, like Jason never mattered. Because he did. He mattered... to me."

Dr. Stevens nodded slowly, her voice calm, giving space for her patient's words to settle. "It's hard, Maheen. It's hard to face that kind of loss. And sometimes, people are afraid to show the full extent of their grief. But that doesn't mean that Bruce doesn't feel it."

She stared at her hands, shaking her head in disbelief. She wasn't sure she could believe that. Bruce's grief was something she could never fully grasp, a darkness he had locked away, and she had no idea how to breach the walls he had built around it. She had seen the mask of control, but what did it really conceal?

     "But it's not just about Bruce," Maheen said, frustration thick in her voice. "I just want to know that Jason matters. That I'm not crazy for still... caring. For still grieving. Everyone else seems to have moved on, but I—I can't just pretend that nothing happened."

Dr. Stevens gave a small, knowing smile, though it wasn't cheerful. It was understanding. "It's okay not to move on, Maheen. You don't have to stop grieving. You don't have to let go of Jason's memory. You can carry it with you, without feeling like you're abandoning him."

Maheen felt the tears threatening to spill again. She wasn't ready to move on. She wasn't ready to let go of Jason's memory. And for the first time, she allowed herself to believe that it was okay not to. It didn't make her weak. It made her human. She took a shaky breath, releasing the tightness in her chest.

     "I just don't know how to do it," she admitted, her voice faltering. "I don't know how to let go of the guilt, or the resentment, or the frustration."

Dr. Stevens met her gaze with gentle eyes, her expression warm but steady. "You don't have to let go of everything at once. Healing is a slow process. It's okay to take it one day at a time."

She nodded, the weight of those words settling on her shoulders. There were no easy answers, no magical moment where everything clicked into place. But maybe, just maybe, she could begin to take steps forward—on her own terms. And that, at least, felt like a start.

IZIA'S NOTES

boom. no prep, no warning, we're diving into the hardest parts. this first arc won't be too long to be honest, max. 10 chapters i think since it's mostly therapy sessions // triggered memories and i can't wait to start writing the new dynamic between jason and maheen. but, we can already see how much pain jason's death created in maheen, and fuelled her (bottled up) growing frustration with bruce. she still loves him of course, he's her godfather after all, but we can all agree that bruce's ways of dealing with grief are fucked up in such an unfathomable way she couldn't just be totally fine with him. and we have also a little glimpse of tim and how his relationship with maheen started and how conflicted she felt with his presence. obviously not all of her feelings are rational, she was thirteen when jason died. we can also already see how much she took from bruce unconsciously, the whole "i'm not talking about my feelings because it's better that way and i can't deal with pain right now so let me bury myself in something productive (aka here maheen being one year away from graduating high school at 16 #overachiever #brucepersonalityisactuallyavirusyoucatchifyouspendtoomuchtimenearhim)"

hope you enjoyed this chapter and don't forget to vote, comment and share! ❤️

© ADONYSIAC ― IZIA™