At the edge of silence, Maris Hartley is still speaking.
Things We Never Said is a raw, lyrical journey through survival, longing, and the quiet revolutions of the heart.
After a lifetime of choosing everyone but herself, Maris’s world begins to crack open with one anonymous story — and the man who still knows how she likes to come undone.
As old loves resurface and old wounds awaken, Maris must decide: is survival enough, or is it time to burn what’s left and rebuild something new?
A haunting exploration of love, regret, and the courage it takes to be seen, Things We Never Said reminds us that some truths wait a lifetime to be spoken — and some are worth everything.
At the edge of silence, Maris Hartley is still speaking.
Things We Never Said is a raw, lyrical journey through survival, longing, and the quiet revolutions of the heart.
After a lifetime of choosing everyone but herself, Maris’s world begins to crack open with one anonymous story — and the man who still knows how she likes to come undone.
As old loves resurface and old wounds awaken, Maris must decide: is survival enough, or is it time to burn what’s left and rebuild something new?
A haunting exploration of love, regret, and the courage it takes to be seen, Things We Never Said reminds us that some truths wait a lifetime to be spoken — and some are worth everything.
I held her a moment longer than she liked, selfish with the softness she’d granted me—a parting hug dressed up as mercy. My daughter. Our daughter. Off to college, off to the life we raised her for. And just like that, the house had more air and less warmth.
“It’s literally a two-and-a-half hour drive, Mom,” she said, trying to untangle herself from my clingy koala grip. I held on anyway—because that’s what mothers do. We clutch. We smother. We emotionally blackmail with baked goods. She rolled her eyes but didn’t pull too hard. She knew I needed the moment. “I’ll literally be home for every holiday and birthday,” she added, with a dramatic sigh like I was shipping her off to Mars and not a state university with a Starbucks in every building.
Jay, bless his calm, deeply reasonable heart, stepped in before I started sobbing into her hoodie. “We know, little one,” he said, slipping an arm around my back like he was disarming a bomb. “It’s just… we’re going to miss you. This is a big deal. You’re moving away, lovebug.” He always knew how to say it simple, clean, and somehow still profound.
I nodded quickly, swallowing hard and pretending I had a sudden itch in my eye. Our daughter—sharp, sarcastic, maddeningly lovable—gave us a quick wave before turning toward her car like she hadn’t just cracked our world in half with her grown-upness. As she backed out of the driveway, I gave Jay a watery smile and muttered, “Well. There goes my emotional support smartass.” He squeezed my hand and didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The quiet had already crept in.
The house felt louder in its silence the moment the door clicked shut behind us. Jay headed toward the kitchen, probably to check on the coffee pot like it owed him emotional stability. I stood in the entryway, keys still in hand, coat half-on, like I was waiting for her to walk right back in and roll her eyes at how dramatic I was being. When she didn’t, I turned and climbed the stairs, drawn by muscle memory and heartache.
Her room was exactly as she’d left it—half sanctuary, half landfill. A mismatched mess of throw pillows, an unmade bed that somehow still looked artful, and a dresser overflowing with evidence of her slow evolution from glitter glue to lip gloss. I stepped inside and breathed her in. Not literally—there was a suspicious gym sock situation happening—but the essence of her: that blend of cinnamon shampoo, secondhand books, and whatever perfume she wasn’t supposed to be borrowing.
I perched on the edge of her bed and looked around, trying not to spiral. There was a framed photo of us at the pumpkin patch—she couldn’t have been more than six, wearing crooked fairy wings and missing her front teeth. I remembered that day. She’d cried because she wanted a pumpkin that was “too ugly to leave behind,” and we’d taken it home, warts and all. Just like I had with every version of her since.
And now she was gone. Not gone gone, but gone enough to hurt.
I reached for the hairbrush still tangled with strands of her dark hair, the lip balm collection that looked like a tiny apothecary. I wasn’t snooping—I was soaking. Letting myself sit in the gravity of it. My daughter was out there in the world now, figuring out who she was without me at the edges, steadying the frame.
And maybe that was the part I hadn’t prepared for—not her leaving. But me staying behind.
Angie was only gone for thirty-seven minutes before I’d started mentally narrating her life like a sentimental podcast host. Nineteen years old. Tall—taller than me by three inches and at least seven layers of confidence. That hair, thick and defiant, all wild curls and intention, was the first thing people noticed. Light olive skin, long limbs, that lazy grace she walked around in like it was her birthright. She moved through space like it was made for her.
She got her wit from Jay—that dry, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it humor that slid beneath your skin and stayed there. But the timing? The dagger-sharp delivery? That was all me. She had a way of using words like arrows dipped in affection—sarcastic, yes, but always from the softest part of her heart. She’d tell me I was “alarmingly uncool” while hugging me from behind in the cereal aisle. She once told a boy who tried to flirt with her, “I read at a collegiate level and you just winked at me with both eyes, so we’re gonna pass on this.”
She reminded me of myself when I was younger. Before life softened my edges and practicality replaced passion. Before marriage, before motherhood, before firing, before I started saying “maybe later” to every part of myself that wanted to burn brighter. Angie was all the things I once believed I’d stay forever. Bold. Fearless. Unapologetically loud. She filled a room without needing to raise her voice.
And she wasn’t just book-smart—though she was. She devoured books like oxygen. But more than that, she got people. She could read a room better than most adults twice her age. Empathic. Observant. Scarily perceptive when it came to spotting my moods, even the ones I tried to wallpaper over with cheerfulness and sarcasm.
Watching her go wasn’t just letting go of my baby. It was letting go of my mirror.
The slurp of Jay’s lips against his coffee mug pulled me back from the edge of my mental spiral. I blinked, realizing I’d been sitting on Angie’s bed for longer than I thought, half-lost in memory, half-drowning in the silence she’d left behind. Downstairs, he sat at the kitchen table like it was any other day, sipping his brew with the same quiet precision he used to measure out his feelings. That was Jay—never dramatic, never rushed. Just steady. Even now, with our daughter’s shadow still fresh in the house, he didn’t flinch. Didn’t crumble. He just sipped.
I made my way down the stairs, trailing my fingers along the banister like I was hoping it might hold me up emotionally, too. He looked up when I entered, gave me that soft, familiar smile that said I know, without saying a word.
“How’s the shrine holding up?” he asked, nodding toward the upstairs.
“She left a sock on the floor,” I said, sinking into the chair across from him. “I might frame it.”
He chuckled—low, warm, the kind of laugh that lived in his chest and came out like a shared secret. “Let her have her two-and-a-half hour freedom. She’ll be back for snacks and sarcasm before you know it.”
“I know,” I said, wrapping my hands around the untouched coffee he’d made for me. “But it’s weird, right? The quiet?”
He nodded, but didn’t try to fix it. That was the thing about Jay—he knew when to talk and when to let the silence stand. And right now, it stood tall between us, not cold… just empty.
But God, part of me ached for more.
I wanted him to stand up, cross the room, pull me in and whisper, Come here, love. I miss her too. I wanted a touch at the small of my back. A kiss to the side of my neck. Or hell—even a joke. You want me to ravage you until you forget we ever had a daughter?
I wanted something—a flicker of the physical, the primal, the intimate.
But Jay just sipped his coffee, warm and quiet and dependable. And I just sat there across from him, smiling like it didn’t feel like I was bleeding under the surface.
That was the thing I used to love about him—his calm to my chaos. His gravity when I spun too fast. It steadied me once. But lately… it felt like watching someone hold a rope I’m dangling from, and never once pulling me up.
“All right, I’m gonna get ready to head out,” he said, rising with his usual efficiency, pressing a perfunctory kiss to my lips—the kind that didn’t quite register as affection so much as habit—and disappearing upstairs for his shower.
I stayed seated for a moment, letting the stillness settle over me like a too-warm blanket. Then I looked around at the little echoes of his presence scattered across the kitchen: the coffee grounds he always managed to spill on the counter like some caffeinated breadcrumb trail, his cup still sweating on the table, a crumpled snack cake wrapper sitting proudly beside it like a trash monument, and—of course—at least three cabinet doors left wide open like ghosts had gone rummaging for cereal.
I sighed. I guess I’d get ready for work after I cleaned up the morning tornado.
Yay me. Living the dream.
I was—in fact—not living the dream.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of mild catastrophes and emotional hangovers. Clean the kitchen, shower, dress, drive—flat tire. Of course. Call AAA. Wait an hour listening to a podcast I couldn’t focus on and a lukewarm coffee I definitely didn’t need. But I’d gotten another one anyway, because apparently I like to believe in second chances. The universe, however, had other plans and offered me a full-body baptism via a loose lid and a bumpy turn.
And now here I am. Sitting stiffly in front of HR and my boss—two people who have never once looked excited to see me—with matching “This isn’t going to be a fun conversation” expressions on their respective faces.
I blink at them, caffeine-stained and slightly damp, and think: Cool. Let’s add public humiliation to the grief spiral. That feels right.
So…no…definitely not living the dream.
I never even wanted this job, which, ironically, is probably why I’m about to lose it. I fell into corporate communications the way people fall into quicksand—accidentally, and then very, very slowly. I used to tell people I was “in publishing,” which sounded more impressive than “editing soul-numbing jargon for a mid-tier pharmaceutical company whose proudest achievement last quarter was a sleep aid shaped like a panda.”
I used to write—real writing. Essays, reflections, pages of raw honesty that felt like they meant something. I’d dreamed of working with words that mattered, helping shape books that cracked people open. But dreams don’t come with dental, and passion doesn’t pay the mortgage. So I took the job. The safe job. The paycheck job. The one that let me buy Angie new cleats every season and never worry about groceries or rent. I told myself I was lucky.
And now I’m sitting in a polyester office chair, watching the HR manager adjust her glasses like she’s about to offer me a pamphlet on “transitional optimism,” and all I can think is: I gave up the dream for this?
They’re speaking now. Something about restructuring, directional shifts, and resource reallocation. I nod. I smile. I pretend this doesn’t sting.
But deep down, something twists—tight and hot and a little feral.
Because I didn’t love this job. But I needed it. Or at least, I needed the version of me who could pretend she didn’t want more.
The meeting wrapped with a stack of severance paperwork, a painfully polite smile from HR, and a cardboard box that made me feel like a character in a sitcom I didn’t audition for. I walked through the halls like a ghost in a blazer, avoiding eye contact, wondering if anyone could see it on me—the fired-ness. That particular brand of public failure that makes people look away or, worse, offer sympathy.
The air outside hit me like a slap—too bright, too honest. I sat in my car, box in my lap, keys in hand, and just… stared. I wasn’t crying. Not exactly. But there was this pressure behind my eyes, like I could crack if the wind blew wrong.
I put the box in the passenger seat and drove in silence. Just the sound of my tires on asphalt and the occasional reminder that I was now officially unemployed, damp, overcaffeinated, and emotionally volatile.
By the time I pulled into the driveway, it was nearly two. Jay’s car was gone. Good. I didn’t want his steady, supportive face right now. I didn’t want to be hugged or reassured. I wanted to scream into a pillow, drink wine from the bottle, and curse out my own life choices.
I walked into the house—cool, curated, and far too quiet—and dropped the box on the edge of the marble kitchen island like it might slide right off and shatter, which frankly would’ve felt poetic. I didn’t bother taking off my heels. Let them echo across the floors I picked out two renovations ago, the ones I insisted on because I liked how the walnut caught the light in the afternoons.
I passed the open-plan living room, the custom art I never quite connected with, the candles I ordered from some influencer’s list of “luxury essentials.” Every corner of the house whispered the same thing: you built this. And now it all felt like a museum of a life that was starting to fall through my fingers.
I slipped into the wine room—my favorite indulgence. Glass-paneled, temperature-controlled, unapologetically extra. Jay once joked that it was our home's "snootiest square footage," and I’d laughed, kissed him on the cheek, and told him he’d thank me when we stopped drinking grocery store Pinot.
I pulled a bottle from the Spanish shelf—something rich, velvety, with a little bite—and uncorked it with the kind of practiced ease that made me feel like I still had control over something.
No glass.
Just the bottle and me, and the kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful—it was echoing.
The wine burned a little going down—warm and sweet, but I welcomed the sting. I kicked off my shoes and padded barefoot through the house, cradling the bottle like a holy object. The place felt too still, too clean. Like a hotel room someone had lived in once, briefly, and then left without saying goodbye.
I passed the front window and caught a glimpse of Ferah from two doors down—arms deep in her flowerbeds, sun visor in place, her ass pointed skyward like she was offering it up to the Gods of landscaping. Her life was a Pinterest board come to life. Edges trimmed, husband trimmed, kids in matching windbreakers. We were the same age, but somehow, she looked like she’d aged in reverse—probably from the sheer power of gluten-free muffins and marital repression…or the plastic surgery she unapologetically brags about.
I took another sip and moved on.
The living room still had Angie’s throw blanket draped over the back of the couch—pink and fuzzy and threadbare from love. I ran my fingers across it like it might pulse under my touch. Everything in this house was soaked in her—her laughter, her music, her eye rolls that somehow always ended in a smile.
And now… silence.
I stepped into the hallway, my fingers brushing the wall as I passed the framed photos. Angie at five with chocolate on her face. Angie at eleven, sulking in her Halloween costume because someone else showed up as the same zombie bride. Angie at seventeen, grinning too wide at her graduation, her gown slipping off one shoulder.
The weight of almost forty-five settled in my chest like a stone. Forty-four and counting. I’d had Angie when I was nearly twenty-five—on purpose, sort of. I was young and in love and convinced I could do anything, raise anyone, build a life that meant something. And I had. I did. I raised her. I just forgot to keep building the rest.
I took another sip. The wine was starting to work its way into my limbs, making me looser and hazier.
A memory floated up, uninvited. My best friend Lacy, years ago, cigarette dangling from her fingers as we sat on the hood of her car outside a late-night diner.
“Forty’s not a cliff,” she’d said. “It’s a ledge. The trick is deciding whether to jump… or finally fucking fly.”
I laughed at the time. Rolled my eyes. Said something stupid like, "I’ll probably be boring by then. Stable."
God.
I took a longer drink and leaned against the wall, eyes fluttering shut. The quiet pressed in, thick and echoing. This place… it felt like a version of me I’d carefully curated and then somehow outgrown.
I made my way to the office, the bottle still in hand, half a glass left at best. The wine was starting to blur the edges of my vision. I walked in expecting spreadsheets and LinkedIn shame spirals. What I found was stillness.
The room had always been my space—sleek, minimal, very I’m a professional woman with clean lines and color-coded files. But something about it today felt hollow. Like a hotel desk pretending to belong to someone.
I set the bottle down and sat down in my chair, not quite ready to open the laptop. My eyes drifted to the corner, to the old storage bins stacked neatly like afterthoughts. I hadn’t touched them in years. Not since Angie was in middle school and I convinced myself I didn’t have time for that kind of writing anymore.
I stood, walked over, and pulled down the top bin. It was heavier than I remembered. Covered in dust, like everything in it had been waiting for me to come back and claim it.
I cracked it open.
The first thing I saw was a stack of old notebooks—spiral-bound, filled with handwriting so familiar it made my stomach clench. Loose pages stuffed between the covers. Scraps of poems. Essay drafts. A short story I’d once printed with the intention of submitting to some now-defunct lit mag.
Below that, a folder with my name written in black Sharpie. Maris Hartley – Works in Progress. It made me laugh—soft, sad. Like she’d actually believed she’d come back to them. Like she thought that box was a pause, not a grave.
There were pictures too. Me and Lacy at some open mic night, both of us grinning, wine-stained teeth and smeared eyeliner. Me in my old apartment, cross-legged on the couch with a laptop on my knees and no bra, no shame. A life that felt handwritten, lived in the margins. Before Angie. Before the job. Before I’d started mistaking stability for happiness.
And then, at the very bottom of the box, my old rejection letters. The ones I’d saved like they meant something—proof that I had tried. That once upon a time, I wanted this so badly I was willing to fail for it.
I sat back, holding one of the letters in my lap. I remembered the last one I’d opened, the one that finally made me stop. Not because it was cruel—it wasn’t. It was just… blank. Generic. We appreciate your submission. Unfortunately, it is not a fit at this time.
I’d read it at the kitchen table while Angie colored next to me. Jay was in the other room. I looked at that piece of paper and thought, Maybe it’s time to grow up.
As the box sat open on the floor, papers spilling out like memories I hadn’t given permission to surface, I continued picking through the layers. Half-formed stories, scribbled notes in the margins, characters I used to talk to in the shower, entire worlds I’d once been brave enough to build from scratch.
The words felt raw, unfiltered, like they came from someone who still believed she had something to say. And for a while, I did believe that. I used to read things aloud to Jay, back when we still shared wine and ideas and touches that meant more than routine.
There was one night—I couldn’t remember which piece I’d shown him, but I remember his response like a thorn.
He’d looked up from his tablet, barely, and said,
“It’s good. You’ve got a nice voice. I just think you’re better at real-world stuff, you know? Practical things.”
Practical things.
Like scheduling parent-teacher conferences. Like managing finances. Like shelving every wild, unruly dream so the machine of our life could keep running smooth.
I’d smiled and nodded, told him I appreciated the feedback, and filed the piece away. Didn’t touch it again. Not because I agreed—but because part of me believed him. Because sometimes, the people closest to you don’t need to scream to silence you. They just need to gently remind you of where you’re supposed to fit. And I’d let myself shrink to fit.
I drained the last of the bottle.. Like it could fill all the hollow spaces in me, or at least drown out the voice in my head that kept whispering… practical things. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, opened my laptop, and stared at the blinking cursor like it was daring me to do something reckless.
I didn’t open a document. Not yet. Instead, I started scrolling.
Writing prompts. Craft blogs. “10 Ways to Get Back Into Writing in Your 40s.”
Ugh. No, not that.
Reddit threads. Forums. Facebook groups full of women with floral usernames and Pinterest boards full of “cozy aesthetic” quotes. Not what I needed. I wanted grit. I wanted sweat and teeth and nerve.
That’s when I found it.
Quill & Flame.
A quiet little writing site buried at the bottom of a forum thread titled “Gentle Spaces for Gentle Writers.” The homepage was unassuming—cream background, serif fonts, a watercolor feather in the corner, like it was just so delighted to be here.
Private critique group for writers passionate about craft, the tagline read. Nothing scandalous. Nothing suggestive. The top banner featured categories like Wholesome Fiction, Historical Threads, and Speculative Whimsy. It screamed chamomile tea and modest word counts.
Perfect.
I clicked Sign Up, entered a burner email, and when the field popped up asking for a username, I didn’t hesitate.
Mare.
The prompt board at the top read:
“This week’s challenge: Write about a door.”
It was like a dare. And I’d already had a full bottle of Teso La Monja and an emotional breakdown, so what was one more impulsive decision?
I clicked Start New Post, wine humming in my veins, and something snapped loose inside me. What poured out had nothing to do with metaphors or architectural symbolism. It was heat. Friction. Hands slamming her into that door, breath hitching, need so sharp it burned. A stranger who didn’t ask—he commanded. A woman who didn’t shrink—she rose to meet him.
By the time I finished, I was flushed, breathless, a little stunned.
I stared at the screen, finger hovering.
And then—Submit.
The page refreshed.
Post successful. Featured in: Wholesome Fiction.
Views: 1
Username: Mare
I leaned back in my chair, wine bottle empty, heart pounding.
Somewhere out there, in a sea of cozy mystery drafts and allegorical rabbit stories, my little hurricane had just landed.
And for the first time in years, I felt like I’d just remembered who the hell I was.
Phoenyx J. Rose’s Things We Never Said is a fierce, funny, and gut-punching novel about rediscovery, suppressed desire, and the pieces of ourselves we tuck away in the name of motherhood, marriage, and survival. At the heart of the story is Maris—a forty-something woman whose daughter just left for college and whose marriage, career, and sense of self are quietly unraveling. What starts as a relatable tale of midlife emotional chaos takes a bold and brilliant turn when Maris, under the pen name “Mare,” anonymously posts an erotically charged story online—and it unexpectedly goes viral.
Rose’s writing is whip-smart, emotionally raw, and darkly hilarious. The narrative is richly layered: part midlife crisis, part erotic reawakening, part feminist manifesto. Maris is sharply drawn, and her inner voice is both heartbreaking and wildly entertaining. The way Rose captures female desire—complex, conflicted, often buried—is nothing short of stunning. The erotic scenes are electric and liberating, but they’re grounded in something deeper: a woman remembering she’s allowed to want more.
Some readers may find the pacing drags slightly during long internal monologues or introspective spirals. A few scenes, while gorgeously written, could have been tightened to maintain narrative momentum. Additionally, those expecting a tame domestic drama may be caught off guard by how graphic the story gets—but for readers open to it, the boldness is part of the novel’s strength.
If you loved the raw emotional honesty of Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, the marital unraveling in Fleishman Is in Trouble, or the seductive power of The Idea of You by Robinne Lee, this is absolutely for you. There's also a touch of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine in its wry, observational humor and reinvention arc.
“Sometimes, the people closest to you don’t need to scream to silence you. They just need to gently remind you of where you’re supposed to fit.”
Perfect for readers who enjoy midlife transformation stories, emotionally intelligent smut, feminist fiction, and bold, honest portrayals of grief, longing, and creative awakening.