The room smelled of old paper and printer ink. Rows of folding chairs curved into a loose semicircle, each one cradling a slim pamphlet printed in pastel ink. Overhead, fluorescent lights flickered slightly, their mechanical hum competing with the soft rustling of pages. Sarah stood near the edge of the group, arms crossed tightly across her chest, the thin pamphlet in her hand trembling slightly. Her name was printed on the reading schedule in modest font, but it felt enormous.
Mia lingered by the door, invisible as always. She kept close to the potted ficus, out of the direct view of the others, her gaze never wavering from Sarah. Her heart thumped with every breath the girl took. This was no ordinary meeting. It was the first time Sarah would read her own words aloud.
The club moderator, a genial woman with crescent-shaped glasses, tapped her pen gently against a clipboard. "Alright, let's begin. We'll go alphabetically today."
Sarah's eyes flicked to the list again. She would be fourth.
The first reader, a tall boy in a striped hoodie, began a satirical poem about cafeteria pizza. The group laughed in bursts, and the moderator nodded appreciatively. Sarah didn't laugh.
Mia leaned forward slightly, sensing the tension building like static. Sarah's fingers were crumpling the edges of the paper. Her lips moved as she rehearsed the words in her mind.
By the time the third speaker—a girl with dramatic flair—closed her poem with a theatrical whisper, Sarah looked pale. Her fingers clutched the edges of her poem so tightly that Mia feared it might tear.
"Next up," the moderator announced, "Sarah Winthrop."
A silence fell.
Sarah stepped forward slowly, the pamphlet clutched to her chest. Her voice, when it came, was small but clear. "This one's called 'Windowlight.'"
She unfolded the paper with care. Mia held her breath.
Sarah's voice trembled on the first line. "When morning fog clings to the sill, I watch the world arrive in hush." She paused, swallowed. "The kettle hums a memory. The steam curls like—like fingers from a dream I haven't woken from."
A soft hush fell over the room. No coughs. No shuffles.
Mia could barely hear the words through the pounding in her chest, but she watched Sarah's lips shape them with a growing steadiness. She watched the girl straighten her spine halfway through, her voice gaining warmth like a slow-burning ember.
"Some days," Sarah continued, "the light filters in as if it's looking for me."
The last line hovered in the air, and then Sarah looked up, paper trembling in her hand. "That's it."
Silence.
Then applause. Not thunderous, but sincere.
A girl across the circle whispered something to her neighbor. A boy leaned forward, nodding slightly. Mia caught every nuance.
Sarah's cheeks were flushed, but she smiled as she returned to her seat. Her hands no longer shook.
Mia stayed hidden, a breath caught in her throat. She had done nothing overt. No manipulation, no rerouted schedules, no forged notes. Just a gentle nudge—a suggestion to attend, an email she'd slipped into Sarah's inbox under a pseudonym.
She had given Sarah a chance to speak.
A pamphlet slid from an empty chair and landed face-up. Mia's gaze caught the bold text: "Our Voices: Volume II – Community Poets Reading Series."
She made a mental note.
Later, as the final poems were read and folding chairs creaked with goodbyes, Sarah lingered at the edge of the room. A few students clustered around her, asking about her work. One offered a compliment about the "steam fingers" line.
Sarah laughed. A real laugh. Soft, unguarded.
Mia didn't move. She just watched.
She thought about the first time she saw Sarah curled around a sketchbook in that narrow apartment hallway. A girl afraid of her own voice. A girl too used to silence.
Now, she had spoken into a room—and been heard.
When Sarah finally left, a stack of pamphlets clutched in her arms, Mia followed her into the fading daylight. The sun dipped low, casting long shadows through the windows. Sarah's profile was bathed in amber.
Behind them, the door to the literary room clicked shut.
But the echo of Sarah's voice lingered.
They walked side by side without speaking, feet in sync on the cracked sidewalk. A breeze lifted the edge of the pamphlet Sarah carried. Mia saw her glance down at it with something like awe.
"I didn't think I'd be able to do that," Sarah murmured, mostly to herself. "I thought I'd freeze."
Mia didn't respond aloud. But if she could've, she would've said: You didn't freeze. You melted the silence.
A car passed by, music drifting out of its open windows—something jazzy and old. Sarah looked up at the sky. "I think I want to try another one. A different poem. Something about that dream I keep having."
Mia listened intently.
Sarah's voice was quiet again, but not from fear. From thought.
Back at the apartment, Sarah dropped the pamphlet on the table, then sat down and pulled her notebook close. Her pen tapped the edge of the cover for a moment.
Then she opened to a blank page.
Mia watched from the hallway as the first words formed: "The bridge is not a place, it's a moment."
Mia's throat tightened.
The rest of the evening passed in soft clicks of a pen and the slow, steady rise of courage.
Later, long after Sarah had fallen asleep, Mia returned to the empty living room. The pamphlet still lay on the table, slightly curled at the corners. She picked it up, thumbed through the pages until she reached Sarah's printed name.
She touched it gently.
Then she pulled her small black notebook from her coat and jotted a note beneath the previous entries:
"Poem read aloud. Public response warm. Subject exhibited post-event composure and initiative to write again."
She underlined the final clause twice.
Before leaving, she tore a small square of paper from the back of her notebook and slipped it beneath the edge of Sarah's new draft.
No words. Just a hand-drawn line of sunlight streaming through blinds.
The message didn't need ink. Only recognition.
She lingered there another minute, her hand lightly resting on the back of Sarah's chair. Her gaze traced the curve of the pen in its resting spot, the slight slant of Sarah's handwriting.
It was becoming her voice.
Mia breathed in the stillness, then let it go slowly. A hush filled the space—not absence, but anticipation. She closed the notebook and stepped away into the quiet.