Fourteen was supposed to be an in-between year — too old for dolls, too young for love. But for Cara, it became the year everything changed.

When her brother’s best friend, Callum Adler, starts spending more time at their house, Cara notices things most adults ignore. The bruises. The quiet. The way their mother starts folding extra laundry like it’s second nature. Callum's broken home becomes a secret the whole family carries, and Cara — wide-eyed, overlooked, and quietly growing — starts to fall for him in all the ways she shouldn’t.

But Callum is four years older. Eighteen. Off-limits. Almost a man. And despite their quiet moments — the almosts, the shared glances, the night she asked to kiss him — he walks away without a goodbye, leaving her in the silence he helped create.

Years pass. Cara grows. Builds a life. Finds herself. By eighteen, she’s no longer just Kaden’s little sister. She’s her own person — confident, loved, maybe even happy. But everything tilts when she runs into Callum again at a skating rink. Older, composed, and entirely unexpected.

He’s not the same boy who used to sleep on her couch with bruises on his ribs — and she’s not the girl who watched him leave.

But unfinished things have a way of circling back.

Told in alternating perspectives of Cara and Callum, What We Never Said explores the slow burn of first love, the ache of timing, and what it really means to grow up — and grow apart — before finding your way back.

I slid into the pool slowly, letting the warm water hug my skin, then pushed off the edge and swam a few lazy laps under the sun. Jackson was already floating on one of our pool loungers, sunglasses on, hands behind his head like he'd claimed the whole backyard as his kingdom.


Liv was sprawled out on a towel nearby, braiding tiny sections of her damp hair and humming along to a playlist.


Callum had retreated to the edge of the backyard, sitting in one of the shaded patio chairs with a bottle of water in his hand, watching — but not watching. Eyes dark behind his lashes, like he wasn't sure how close was too close.


When I finally pulled myself out of the water and dropped beside Jackson, my skin was sun-warm and still dripping. He glanced at me and offered his sunglasses like I might need to hide too.


"You're quiet," he said, voice low but calm.


I leaned back against the lounge chair and closed my eyes. "Just thinking."


Jackson sighed. "You know, I was trying to be a good guy about this. Be chill. Give space."


He smirked. "Yeah, but maybe that was a mistake."


Jackson lowered his voice and looked over toward Callum. "I think he needs a push."


"A nudge. A reminder that you're not fifteen anymore. That you're not off-limits. That if he doesn't step up, someone else will." He raised an eyebrow. "Like me, maybe."


He grinned and held his hands up. "Relax, I'm not trying to swoop in. But I've seen the way he looks at you. Like he wants to say something and keeps choking on it."


"Doesn't have to be," Jackson said. "Sometimes you just need to put things in motion. Shake the tree, see what falls."


He wasn't watching now, but I could feel the pull anyway — like something magnetic, just beneath the surface.


Maybe I was tired of waiting for Callum to stop looking at me like a problem he couldn't solve.


Maybe it was time to be the storm instead of the silence.


Chapter 23 - Push