Writing the Quiet Moments

There’s a chapter in Jason that I avoided writing for months.

Not because it was sad. Not because it was violent. Not even because it was emotionally heavy (though let’s be honest, this book doesn’t exactly take it easy on the feelings).

I avoided it because it was quiet.

It’s a scene where Jason, after being shuffled through placement after placement, finally spends a weekend with Michael—a foster dad who doesn’t force connection, doesn’t try to "fix" him, doesn’t ask for more than Jason can give.

They go to a batting cage. They stop for ice cream. They joke about Cheryl’s rules and talk about the video game they’re both secretly playing when she’s not looking. There’s laughter. A shared silence. A sense of normalcy so foreign to Jason, it leaves him rattled.

That’s what made it hard to write: not the pain, but the peace.

Jason doesn’t trust quiet moments. And I realized—neither did I.

So much of trauma fiction is built on action: the punches, the screaming, the slammed doors. But what happens when the noise finally stops? What happens when someone sits beside you and doesn’t ask you to change?

I had to learn how to write a foster father who didn’t try to earn Jason’s love. He just showed up.

And that broke me in a completely different way.

Once you read this chapter I hope you sit with it for a minute. Let it sink in. Because sometimes the most important turning points don’t come with fireworks. They come with ice cream and laughter and the terrifying realization that you might actually want to stay.

Alexis