Held in Silence

I hadn't traveled in years.

Not since college. Not since long-distance bus rides with Mira to cheap conferences in borrowed outfits and worn-out heels. We used to sleep on floors, split vending machine snacks, and call it an adventure.

This didn't feel like that.

This felt like stepping into a world I didn't belong in.

The plane was a private jet. Sleek, quiet, too sterile. Even the air felt different.

I'd packed light. Just a small suitcase with simple blouses and two dresses — unsure whether we were attending boardrooms or dinner parties.

Richard hadn't said.

He barely spoke during the flight.

Sat across from me, laptop open, brows furrowed.

Not cold. Just... distant, as always.

But I didn't try to make small talk. I stared out the window and let the clouds blur.

Some silences aren't meant to be filled.

When we landed, a driver was already waiting.

The hotel was a towering glass structure in the heart of a city that looked like ambition etched into steel. Marble floors. Gold accents. A lobby too clean to breathe in.

I followed Richard into the elevator without a word.

He keyed the top floor.

The doors closed.

Then: "We're sharing the suite. There are two rooms."

It wasn't a question or a warning. Just information.

I nodded. "Alright."

He looked at me, a flicker of something uncertain in his eyes. But whatever it was, it vanished before I could catch it.

The suite was large enough to house my entire apartment back home twice over.

City lights glittered outside floor-to-ceiling windows. A vase of fresh orchids on the table. Bottled still water, neatly stacked like artifacts in a shrine.

I stood there, not touching anything.

"This is..."

"A temporary distraction," Richard said behind me. "That's all hotels are."

I turned to look at him.

"Do you ever stop thinking like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like everything's temporary. Like nothing's allowed to matter."

He paused, mouth half-open like he had a reply ready but decided against it.

Instead, he simply said, "You have dinner reservations at 7. The restaurant's on the 31st floor."

"You're not joining me?"

"I have a client meeting. Late."

Of course.

I nodded, then turned away before I said something I'd regret. Afterall, him not answering to my questions had become a sort of routine to me.

The restaurant was candlelit. Glass walls, soft piano in the background. Every table a world of its own. Yet, I was alone in my world.

I ordered wine.

A second after the waiter left, someone slid into the seat across from me.

Richard.

I blinked. "I thought you had a meeting."

"It was moved."

"You came here just to tell me that?"

"I came here to have dinner."

There was something different in his tone tonight. Measured, but less... armored.

Like he didn't have the energy to keep up the act anymore. But I liked that he came. 

We didn't speak for the first ten minutes.

But it wasn't tense.

It was — almost peaceful.

The waiter came and went.

Richard asked, "What do you think of the city?"

I shrugged. "It's big. Busy. Beautiful, but a little overwhelming."

"Much like the people who run it."

I laughed, quietly. "Is that a confession?"

"Just a reflection."

I sipped my wine. Let myself look at him — really look.

He wasn't as rigid tonight. His tie was loosened. Hair slightly out of place. Less like a curated CEO, more like a man trying to remember how to be human.

Halfway through dinner, he asked me something I hadn't expected.

"What did you want to be?"

I paused, fork mid-air. "When?"

"Before all this. Before work, bills, responsibilities."

I thought for a moment.

"A writer," I said. "I used to imagine myself living in a tiny apartment with books stacked to the ceiling and sticky notes all over the walls. The kind of place where your dreams get messier before they get real."

He nodded once. "I can see that."

I looked at him, surprised. "Really?"

"You think in metaphors. That's a writer's instinct."

That might've been the most personal compliment I'd ever received from him.

And yet, there was no softness in his voice. Just quiet certainty.

After dessert, we walked to the elevator together.

He pressed the button. I stared at the number climbing down.

"Do you miss her?" I asked suddenly. "Your mother?"

He didn't look at me.

"Every day."

It was the first time he'd ever admitted it aloud.

The doors opened. We stepped in.

Neither of us spoke as we rose floor after floor.

When we reached the suite, he said, "Goodnight, Lara."

But this time, he didn't disappear into the other room right away.

He stood there, watching me unlock my door.

As if he wanted to say something but didn't know how.

I didn't press him.

I closed the door softly behind me.

That night, I sat in the oversized hotel bed, knees drawn up, journal open.

He showed up.

That was all I wrote.

Because sometimes, that's enough.