💌 Chapter 1: The Unspoken
Iris had always been the quiet one.
In their trio—her, Liam, and Bea—she was the shadow between the sparks. Bea was the firecracker, loud and unapologetically alive, the kind of girl who wore mismatched socks and made it look intentional. Liam was the golden boy, all sunlit smiles and a laugh that could melt thunder. And Iris? She was the observer. The one who noticed things no one else did.
Like the way Liam’s eyes crinkled when he talked about his dreams. Or how he always carried two umbrellas in his backpack—one for himself, and one for whoever might need it. She noticed the way Bea’s voice softened when she was nervous, and how Liam always lingered a little longer when Bea was around, even if he didn’t say much.
They’d been inseparable since grade school. Three kids who built forts out of cardboard and secrets, who swore they’d never grow apart. But something shifted in Iris the summer before senior year.
It wasn’t just that Liam had grown taller, or that his voice had deepened into something that made her stomach flutter. It was the way he started looking at Bea—really looking. Like she was suddenly made of starlight and gravity. And Bea, oblivious as ever, kept turning to Iris with wide eyes and breathless questions.
“Love guru,” Bea would tease, flopping onto Iris’s bed with a grin. “Teach me how to flirt better. Liam’s so hard to read.”
So, Iris gave her tips. She smiled. She cheered them on like a good friend should.
And every night, she wrote letters to Liam she never sent.
They were tucked inside a shoebox beneath her bed, folded like origami secrets. Letters that said everything she couldn’t. That she noticed him. That she remembered the way he held her hand during that thunderstorm in sixth grade. That sometimes, when he laughed, she forgot how to breathe.
But she never sent them. Because Bea was her best friend. And Liam was Bea’s maybe.
And Iris? Iris was the quiet one.
