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.

Jackson had that kind of smile that made you feel like the center of gravity tilted slightly toward you.


He was easy to be around. Confident without trying too hard. He made dumb jokes, let Liv talk over him without minding, and actually listened when you spoke. There were no weird silences, no buried looks. Just… warmth.


The kind of guy your mom would love. The kind of guy who texts when he says he will. The kind who doesn't leave bruises — physical or otherwise.


And yet, as he tossed a water bottle to me and leaned back against the car, laughing at something Liv said, all I could think was:


Why couldn't I fall for someone like him?


Jackson wouldn't confuse me. Wouldn't look at me like I was a secret he didn't know how to keep. Wouldn't leave without explaining why.


But the problem with easy was that it never felt deep enough.


Jackson's eyes were a warm kind of brown. Reliable. Honest.


But they didn't burn the way Callum's did when he looked at me like I was a memory he didn't know how to forget.


I could go on a dozen dates with guys like Jackson. I could laugh, flirt, kiss someone under the summer stars and pretend it was enough.


But in the back of my mind, it would always feel like pretending.


And maybe I hated that. Maybe I wished I could flip some switch and erase whatever tether tied us together.


But you don't get to choose who your heart waits for.


Chapter 21 - Jackson