She doesn't like me

My younger brother had his heart broken for the first time today.

It happened quietly. At the kitchen table.

He didn’t cry. Didn’t make it a thing.

Just said:

“I guess she likes someone else.”

Then kept looking down at his cereal like it forgot how to float.

Mom didn’t catch on right away.

He played it off.

But I could tell something in how his hoodie stayed up even during dinner.

How his phone never left the table, screen face-down, like it might burn him.

He said her name once:

“Maisie.”

No drama.

Just... like a pin being pulled out of a balloon with no air left.

We talked after.

He came into my room without knocking, sat down like it was a habit.

Told me she stopped texting back mid-convo.

Said she’d stare at him in class,

but when he walked over?

She’d suddenly be “too focused on her quiz.”

Said he had that feeling.

“The one where you know you’re funny... but suddenly everything you say sounds like a school project.”

Yeah.

He’s 13, and already understands that.

He showed me something.

An audio message from her.

8 seconds long.

Muted tone, like someone trying hard not to be overheard.

“I thought you knew. I didn’t mean to lead you anywhere. Please don’t do anything weird, okay?”

Then a pause.

Then:

“Please don’t send it again.”

I asked him what “it” was.

He said:

“I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

I asked him what “it” was.

He stared at the floor for a second longer than you’d expect. Not scared. Just… like he was choosing between stories.

Then finally:

“I honestly don’t know. I didn’t send her anything.”

I believed him.

Except that he didn’t sound confused.

Not the way someone usually does when they’re wrongly accused.

More like…

he’d already run through all the possible explanations in his head.

The next afternoon, I was in the kitchen when he came home from school.

Dropped his bag louder than usual, like he wanted me to ask.

I didn’t.

But he sat down anyway. Took the last slice of bread and didn’t eat it. Just held it.

Then, out of nowhere:

“Do you think it’s weird if you start remembering stuff that doesn’t feel like your memory?”

I waited a second.

Asked, “What kind of stuff?”

He shrugged.

“Like a conversation, or a message you sent. Except you’re not totally sure it happened that way.”

I asked, “Are you talking about Maisie?”

He didn’t answer. Not directly.

Just said:

“I think she told people I did something.”

“But nobody will tell me what it is.”

He sounded more lost than upset.

Genuinely like he’d missed a line in a group chat and couldn’t scroll back far enough.

But kids don’t usually confess this stuff unless they’re testing how you’ll react.

So I asked:

“Did you say anything to her you regret?”

His hands tensed slightly.

Still holding that slice of bread.

Then finally:

“I don’t even remember the last thing I said to her.”

A few hours later, I heard him rewatching old videos on his iPad.

Past birthdays. Class field trips. Laughter you forget kids can make.

And in one of them I remembered this later you could just barely hear Maisie in the background.

Laughing at something.

Saying his name.

He kept pausing it at that part.

Playing just three seconds.

Over and over.

That night before bed, I knocked on his door.

Told him I wasn’t mad. Told him if there was something bothering him about her, or school, or anything he could talk.

He nodded.

Said:

“She didn’t block me.”

“So I thought that meant it wasn’t terrible.”

Then after a pause:

“But what if silence is worse than being blocked?”

That whole week, he kept to himself.

Still ate dinner. Still brushed his teeth.

Still asked me if I’d seen his earbuds even though they were in his hoodie pocket.

But he stopped sending his weird little memes.

Stopped humming while waiting for the microwave.

Stopped being himself the way he usually is: slightly annoying, intermittently brilliant, and deeply unaware of how loud the fridge door sounds at 2am.

On Saturday, I was walking past his door when I heard voices.

One was his quiet, focused.

The other?

It took me a second to realize:

he was rehearsing her replies.

Soft, like an actor repeating a scene:

“It’s not like I hate you, okay?”

“I just didn’t know how to say it.”

And then, his own imaginary response:

“You could’ve just told me earlier.”

“You could’ve trusted me.”

He said “trusted.”

Not “liked.”

Not “loved.”

Trusted.

Later that day, he asked if I still had my old phone.

Said he wanted to “use the notes app for something without it syncing to his.”

I gave it to him unlocked, wiped, nothing on it.

But that night around 11pm,

I peeked at it.

Not proud of that.

But I did.

Only one note was written.

No title.

Timestamps, like a timeline:

“Thursday - she left early from practice”

“Friday - she avoided table 4”

“Monday - someone told her something”

“Wednesday - I shouldn’t have said it”

That’s all it said.

“I shouldn’t have said it.”

No what. No who. No reason.

I gently asked him the next morning if he wanted to talk about what it was he regretted saying.

He didn’t act surprised.

He just looked at me like we were already mid-conversation.

Then he said:

“I told her something she didn’t ask to hear.”

I asked: “Like what?”

He looked down. Picked at the table edge with his thumb.

Then:

“I told her I noticed how she always flinched when people touched her backpack.”

“That I started watching, to see who made her uncomfortable.”

“She got really quiet after that.”

He wasn’t even crying.

That’s the part that stuck with me.

Not guilt. Not sadness.

Just confusion. Like he thought he’d done something good, helpful, protective and yet it all crumbled anyway.

“I thought I was looking out for her,” he whispered.

“But maybe what she needed was for no one to be looking at all.”

We sat in silence for a long time.

I never pressed again.

He stopped bringing her up.

But the next week, I saw that he’d changed his lockscreen.

Just plain black, no quote.

But the notification bar said “1 Draft Saved” in his Notes app.

And I couldn’t see it he locked it.

But something about that felt… right.

Like he finally understood that some things don’t need to be shared to be processed.

Like the draft wasn’t for her.

Wasn’t for me.

Wasn’t even for closure.

It was for the version of himself that wouldn’t stop replaying a conversation no one else remembered exactly the same way.

He got quieter in a permanent kind of way.

Not numb. Just… settled.

The kind of change you only catch looking back six months later when he stops checking if she’s online.

When he stops counting days.

When he finally laughs during a movie again without looking around first, like he’s checking if it’s okay to be distracted.

He still won’t tell me what he originally sent her.

Maybe he forgot.

Maybe he’s protecting her.

Maybe he’s protecting himself.

But every so often, he says things like:

“People don’t always stop liking you for the big headline. Sometimes it’s just the last sentence.”

And that’s how I know:

he remembers more than he’s saying.

Which is fine.

Because sometimes the most honest version of a story

is the one you stop rewriting.

End.