As he speaks, he hopes his words pro­vide Felix with some reassurance—a feel­ing that he belongs, that he is not as alone as he may think. Chap­ter 3 unfolds with a moment of qui­et vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as he says gen­tly, “I know it might seem impos­si­ble right now,” try­ing to keep his voice steady despite the lin­ger­ing uncer­tain­ty in his own heart. “But one day, you’ll meet peo­ple who tru­ly see you, who under­stand and accept you, no mat­ter how much you feel like an out­sider now.” His words car­ry weight, a qui­et plea for Felix to believe in some­thing he him­self once strug­gled to accept. He hes­i­tates, feel­ing the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of his own admis­sion, but he refus­es to look away. “Just wait,” he adds with a sense of qui­et con­vic­tion. “I promise you will find your peo­ple, and when that hap­pens, every­thing will change.”

He waits for some sort of acknowledgment—an indi­ca­tion that his words have land­ed, that Felix has at least con­sid­ered them. But Felix sim­ply looks at him, his expres­sion neu­tral, his emo­tions impos­si­ble to read. Instead of respond­ing, he reach­es down, picks up his cal­cu­la­tor, and ges­tures toward the next prob­lem on the page, as if the moment had nev­er hap­pened. There’s a flick­er of dis­ap­point­ment, a famil­iar ache of won­der­ing if his attempt at con­nec­tion had failed. But then, he reminds him­self that not all words take root imme­di­ate­ly. Some­times, their impact lingers beneath the sur­face, wait­ing for the right moment to bloom. He exhales and shifts his atten­tion back to their work, allow­ing the steady rhythm of con­ju­gat­ing verbs and solv­ing equa­tions to fill the space between them.

Despite the silence that fol­lows, he can’t help but feel that some­thing has shift­ed, how­ev­er imper­cep­ti­bly. Maybe Felix isn’t ready to hear those words right now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t stay with him. He knows from expe­ri­ence that some­times, reas­sur­ance doesn’t reg­is­ter in the moment—it set­tles in lat­er, sur­fac­ing in unex­pect­ed ways, at times when it’s need­ed most. He hopes that some­day, when Felix is stand­ing at a cross­roads, feel­ing iso­lat­ed or mis­un­der­stood, this con­ver­sa­tion will come back to him like an echo, a qui­et reminder that some­one once saw him and believed in his future.

As they con­tin­ue work­ing, he finds him­self reflect­ing on the nature of con­nec­tion, how often it feels like throw­ing mes­sages into the wind, nev­er quite know­ing where they will land. Not every act of kind­ness is acknowl­edged, and not every piece of advice is imme­di­ate­ly absorbed. But that doesn’t make them any less mean­ing­ful. Some­times, all you can do is plant a seed of hope and trust that it will grow in its own time.

Lat­er, as they close their books and begin gath­er­ing their things, he steals a final glance at Felix, search­ing for any indi­ca­tion that his words have made a dif­fer­ence. There’s noth­ing obvious—no change in his expres­sion, no shift in his demeanor. But some­thing unspo­ken lingers in the air between them, some­thing heav­ier than the mere exchange of words. Per­haps Felix will nev­er say any­thing about it. Per­haps he won’t even con­scious­ly remem­ber this con­ver­sa­tion. But deep down, he hopes that some­day, when Felix least expects it, he’ll real­ize that he isn’t alone—that he has a place, that he is want­ed, that there are peo­ple out there who will care for him in ways he nev­er thought pos­si­ble.

And maybe, just maybe, one day Felix will pass along that same reas­sur­ance to some­one else. He will find some­one who reminds him of him­self, some­one strug­gling with the same doubts and fears, and he will repeat these words—words he once received in silence but car­ried with him nonethe­less. This is how under­stand­ing spreads, how kind­ness endures, how hope finds a way to sur­vive even in the dark­est of places. He smiles faint­ly to him­self as he steps away, know­ing that even if he nev­er sees it hap­pen, this con­ver­sa­tion was worth hav­ing.

The room grows qui­et as they part ways, but the moment lingers—existing in the space between what was spo­ken and what was left unsaid. And in the end, that’s often how change begins: not in grand ges­tures or imme­di­ate trans­for­ma­tions, but in the slow, unseen process of words set­tling into someone’s heart, wait­ing for the right moment to shape the future.