The Scent Of You

The suitcase wheels clicked against the polished floor. Somewhere beyond the tall windows, Shanghai rushed past in layers of traffic, horns, and neon reflections. Inside the house, everything smelled of polished wood and expensive flowers.

“I’m not asking you to understand,” Mila said.

“That’s convenient.” Mevina’s eyes moved over her suitcase. “You’re leaving before high school even begins, as if this family has done something unforgivable.”

Mila looked at the framed family photograph on the wall. Papa - Mrs.Harudin Pratama - stood in the center, smiling with the confidence of a man who could make any room obey him. Her two older brothers stood on either side of him, tall and composed. Mevina held Mila’s shoulder, but even in the photograph, her hand looked placed there for the camera.

“Nothing is unforgivable when everyone agrees to pretend it never happened,” Mila said.

Mevina’s face tightened. “Watch your words.”

“There. That’s exactly what I mean.”

A car door shut outside. One of her brothers was leaving, probably without knowing she was going. Or perhaps he knew and had decided not to ask. In the Pratama house, silence was rarely accidental.

Mevina came closer. Her perfume - white flowers and something sharp - reached Mila before her hand did.

“You think living alone will make you independent?” Mevina asked quietly. “You still need this family.”

“I need space.”

“You need guidance.”

“I need to breathe.”

The words escaped more softly than Mila expected. That made them worse.

For a moment, Mevina’s expression shifted. Beneath the practiced calm was something tired, almost frightened. Then it disappeared.

“Your father will be furious.”

“He’s always furious when I make a decision without him.”

“He has responsibilities.”

“So do I.”

Mevina’s gaze dropped to Mila’s face, to the small dimple that appeared on her right cheek whenever she smiled. Mila had not smiled in days.

“You’ll come back,” Mevina said.

It sounded less like a prediction than a challenge.

Mila tightened her grip on the suitcase. “Maybe I will. But if I do, it’ll be because I choose to.”

She walked toward the door before her courage could change shape. Mevina did not follow. No embrace. No hand on her arm. Only the soft click of the lock behind her.

Outside, Shanghai struck her all at once.

Warm air pressed against her skin. Motorbikes slipped between cars, vendors called over one another, and the city glowed with signs reflected in rainwater left along the pavement. Mila loaded her suitcase into the taxi and climbed into the back seat.

As the Pratama house disappeared behind a row of plane trees, she waited for relief.

It came, but thinly.

Her phone vibrated.

Papa: Come back before this becomes embarrassing.

Then another message.

Mevina: At least answer when you arrive.

Mila turned the phone face down.

The apartment was on the ninth floor of a narrow building tucked between a bakery and a pharmacy. It was smaller than the photographs had suggested, but that was part of its appeal. No grand staircase. No guest rooms waiting for relatives. No dining table long enough for people to sit across from one another and still avoid eye contact.

The landlord had left the key in a metal box beside the door.

Mila entered and switched on the lights.

The living area appeared in pieces: a gray sofa, a low wooden table, two unopened boxes, and a window overlooking a forest of apartment towers. The new bedroom held a narrow bed, a wardrobe, and curtains the color of oatmeal. Everything was clean. Everything was hers.

The silence was so complete that she heard the suitcase wheels settle after she let go.

Mila stood in the middle of the room, waiting for the apartment to tell her what to do next.

Nothing happened.

She laughed once, quietly. Her right cheek dimpled, but there was no one to see it.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

Her voice sounded unfamiliar in the empty space.

She unpacked because unpacking was easier than thinking. Clothes went into the wardrobe. Toiletries lined up beside the sink. Her schoolbooks occupied one corner of the living room, though she had not yet looked at the class schedule. She wiped a kitchen counter that was already clean, then arranged three mugs she had bought that afternoon.

By eight, the apartment looked almost lived in.

By nine, it felt worse.

Mila ordered noodles from downstairs and ate them on the floor because the table was still covered with unopened boxes. Steam fogged her glasses. Outside, the city kept moving, bright and impatient, while her room remained still.

She found herself staring at the wall.

It happened often when she was overwhelmed. She called it melamun - drifting into a blank place where thoughts lost their edges. Her family called it laziness. Mevina used to snap her fingers in front of Mila’s face during breakfast.

“Stop staring into nothing.”

But there had never been nothing.

There had been the sound of Papa and Mevina arguing behind a closed study door. There had been the word business spoken in a whisper. There had been a contract folder on the floor, stamped with two company logos and both their signatures.

Mila had been thirteen when she understood that her parents’ marriage might not have begun with love.

She had not asked them. She had watched instead.

Papa and Mevina never touched unless someone was looking. They smiled at public events, stood shoulder to shoulder for photographs, and returned home as strangers who happened to share an address. Her brothers had learned to move around the tension. Mila had learned to disappear inside her own mind.

The noodles went cold in her bowl.

She picked up her phone and saw seven missed calls.

The latest was from Davin Al Ghazi Bratama.

Mila stared at his name. Gazi had been the only person from school who knew she was leaving. He had not tried to stop her, but he had asked whether she was running toward something or merely away.

She had hated him for asking.

The phone rang again.

Mila answered without speaking.

“Are you there?” Gazi asked.

“No. This is a ghost.”

“I knew it. You sound dead.”

She leaned back against the sofa. “I’m tired.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“You didn’t ask a question.”

“I’m asking now. Are you safe?”

Mila looked around the apartment. The locked door. The unfamiliar hallway beyond it. The kitchen knife still wrapped in paper because she had not decided where to keep it.

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you have food?”

“I ordered noodles.”

“Did you eat?”

She glanced at the bowl. “I’m about to.”

“That means no.”

“Why are you acting like my brother?”

“Because your brothers clearly aren’t doing it.”

The remark landed too close. Mila’s shoulders stiffened.

“Don’t.”

Gazi went quiet. His voice, when it returned, was gentler. “Did your mother say something?”

“She said I’d come back.”

“She might be right.”

Mila stood abruptly and carried the bowl to the sink. “You called to support me?”

“I called to make sure you didn’t spend your first night alone pretending you’re fine.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“You stared at the wall for three minutes before answering.”

Mila froze.

“How would you know that?”

“I don’t. You just got quiet in the exact way you do when you’re doing it.”

She shut her eyes. Gazi knew too much, but not enough to understand why.

“I wanted control,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Over what?”

“Where I sleep. When I eat. Whether someone compares me to my brothers before breakfast.”

“That sounds fair.”

“It doesn’t feel fair. It feels like I stole something.”

“Your own life?”

The question opened a hollow place beneath her ribs.

Mila pressed her palm against the counter. “If I leave, I’m selfish. If I stay, I’m ungrateful. There’s no version of me they don’t criticize.”

Gazi did not rush to fill the silence. That was why she had answered his call.

Finally, he said, “You don’t have to prove you’re hurt by making yourself lonely.”

Mila looked toward the window. Her reflection hovered over the city lights: pale skin, tired eyes, hair falling loose around her face.

“I’m not lonely,” she lied.

“Right.”

“I’m free.”

“That can be true too.”

She hated how easily he made room for both things.

After they ended the call, Mila locked the door twice. She checked the windows, turned on the television, and let a cooking show play to an empty room. The host laughed brightly while chopping vegetables. The sound made the apartment seem less abandoned.

At eleven, someone knocked.

Mila went still.

The knock came again, lighter this time.

She approached the door without making a sound and looked through the peephole. A girl stood outside holding a small paper bag. She had a messy ponytail, oversized sweatshirt, and the wary patience of someone who had already been ignored once.

“Who is it?” Mila asked.

“Your neighbor. Lola.” The girl lifted the bag toward the peephole. “The bakery downstairs closes soon. I bought too many buns, which is a lie, but it sounds less strange than saying I noticed someone moved in alone.”

Mila kept the chain on and opened the door a few centimeters.

Lola smiled. “You’re Mila, right?”

“How do you know?”

“The landlord mentioned your name. Also, you have the face of someone who has been trying not to cry since the taxi arrived.”

Mila almost shut the door.

Lola’s smile faded. “Sorry. That was rude.”

“It was accurate.”

That seemed to surprise her. Lola lowered the bag. “There’s red bean bread. And milk. You don’t have to let me in.”

Mila studied her through the narrow opening. No polished perfume. No careful expression. Lola smelled faintly of flour and rain.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because the first night in a new place is awful.” Lola glanced down the hallway. “And because I once ate instant noodles for three nights while telling everyone I was having a peaceful reset.”

Despite herself, Mila smiled. The dimple appeared.

Lola pointed at her cheek. “There. That’s better.”

Mila opened the door another inch, then remembered the knife still wrapped in paper on the counter and felt ridiculous for noticing it.

“Thank you,” she said, accepting the bag.

“Do you want company?”

The honest answer rose immediately.

Yes.

Mila looked back at the silent living room, at the television strangers laughing, at the bowl of cold noodles beside the sink.

Then she looked at Lola, who was waiting without pushing.

“Not tonight,” Mila said.

Lola nodded, as if the refusal did not offend her. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll knock less dramatically.”

When the door closed, the apartment became quiet again.

Mila placed the bread on the table and leaned against the door. Her mother’s message still waited on her phone. Papa’s words sat beneath it like a threat.

She had escaped the house.

She had not escaped the ache it had planted inside her.

Mila slid down until she was sitting on the floor, the paper bag warm against her knee. Through the walls came the faint sounds of other lives - water running, someone laughing, a child being called inside.

For the first time that night, the silence did not feel completely empty.

It felt like a question.

And Mila had no idea whether she was brave enough to answer it.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.