RJ
Everything Unspoken
J. Elle
Playlist: “Love Story”
It starts with a spark, a jumping sensation in my chest, when she looks at me.
She saunters into the bakeshop with her friends, sipping a boba.
I can’t tear my gaze away from her bright hazel eyes, pink-dusted cheeks, and two brown ponytails.
She’s dressed simply in jeans and a plain tee, with a stack of stretchy bracelets on each of her arms. Popsicle earrings hang from her ears—one is different from the other.
She strolls up to the counter and presses her finger to the glass, pointing at a triple chocolate cupcake I just finished icing. Her gaze lands on me. That’s when I feel it—my heart thuds, my eyes tear, everything blurs.
He’s more beautiful than I expected.
The voice is clear in my head, like a cold wind biting at my nose.
I blink, touching my chest, trying to understand.
Did I just hear her thoughts? I realize my mouth is wide open.
Her stare lingers on me. I can see clearly again.
There’s a tiny beauty mark on her cheek, beneath her eye.
Then, suddenly, I can’t see anymore. I blink, but it doesn’t help.
Is he going to keep looking at me like that or give me the cupcake? Maybe he knows who I am. Maybe he remembers.
Her gaze shifts away; the girl with the Popsicle earrings sharpens back into focus. She fiddles with the strap of her purse. I try to find my voice, but it comes out like a mouse squeak. My colleague, who prefers to be called by her actual title—my sister—gets to her first.
“Anything else besides the one cupcake?” Delilah asks.
The girl eyes the rest of the confections. The colors of the bakeshop blur. My pulse picks up. The same feeling returns, stronger this time.
A crème br?lée macaron, maybe? I should try as much as I can. Not like I’m coming back here.
Her friends whisper behind her, but I am still stunned, trying to put thoughts together.
“So this is all, then?” Delilah presses.
“Maybe she wants a macaron, too?” I say, testing my wild theory. “The crème br?lée one.”
The girl’s eyes meet mine. Her expression wrinkles with a question. “Uh, sure, yes. That sounds good.” She watches me. I watch her.
I can hear her thoughts. I can hear her actual thoughts!
Wait. Can she hear mine?
Her cheeks flush. She nods.
I grip the counter to keep from swaying. Somehow, we’ve wandered to the register in a daze. Her friends giggle, watching the awkward exchange.
Do they know? I look for the girl’s eyes.
She shakes her head. No.
Just us.
I bite away a smile. But a laugh slips out. The girl looks at her watch, and I realize I’m still gawking at her.
“Are you going to let me pay or what?” she says out loud, and it takes me a second to register we aren’t communicating secretly anymore. She removes a green beaded bracelet from her pocket before slipping it onto the stack on her arm.
I listen for her thoughts again, but they’re gone. The bakery is crisply clear, and my heart is quiet.
“Uh, or what?” I say.
She wrinkles her forehead, confused.
“I mean—not the other option. I, uh, won’t let you pay. Not that I won’t let you. I’m not controlling or anything. I just meant—sorry, uh—” I’m sweating. “Can I pay for this for you?”
“Why would you do that?”
Why would I do that?
She holds her card out again, and I strain to hear something—anything—from her thoughts, but my vision is clear, my head does not hurt. Her thoughts are not there. I want to ask her if she’s experienced this before. I haven’t! I want to ask her so many things.
But what if I’m imagining it? What if that half-empty energy drink I found in the back of the fridge this morning—definitely expired—did something to my brain and this is just an entire hallucination?
My palms sweat. I watch her for some sign she can hear the anxiety spiral in my head.
She blinks, unmoved. I wish I could hear what she’s thinking just once more.
“I’ll pay for it,” I finally manage. “Uh, because—” Because she’s pretty? Can I even say that? Is that shallow? Because we have this connection (that I am probably imagining)? “You look like you don’t want to pay for it. Wait. That came out wrong.”
She cocks her head. Then she bursts out laughing, and I can breathe again. “Sure, you can pay. What’s your name?”
“RJ.”
“Does that stand for something?” Her piercing gaze sticks to me, and my neck heats.
“Not anything cool.”
She takes her box of sweets and smiles. “Well, thanks, RJ-not-anything-cool.”
Before she walks off, I ask, “And yours?”
She looks around, her friends moving toward the door. It’s just us when she says, “Jules. Jules Marlo.” She leaves.
Marlo.
As in Quinton Marlo’s sister. As in that Marlo. I remember the day I handed over the security footage that led to Quinton’s arrest at the convenience store—our convenience store. The one he tried to rob. That day didn’t just make the news. It lit a match on a feud already soaked in gasoline.
Marlo’s Meats is just across the town square from our family’s bakeshop.
They don’t shop here. We don’t buy meat from them.
The rules are ancient. Inherited. We stay on our side of Grove.
Their side of the square smells like blood and smoke.
Ours smells like sugar and cinnamon, and they say it like a curse.
They accuse us of hiding wealth. We accuse them of laundering money.
We say they use magic to cheat the system.
They say we bribe city council members to stay in power.
The worst part is—maybe both are true. According to my mother, The Vales and the Marlos don’t mix. Never have. Never will.
But my mother’s warning can’t shake the feeling that meeting this girl is kismet.
I have to see her again.
Jules
It’s nearly midnight, and my mother paces my room, picking up my things and leaving her fingerprints all over them—the vase of jasmine near the window, the fresh lavender in the bucket on the ground, the votive candles on my dresser.
I follow, silently wiping off each surface she touches.
The scent of blood still lingers on her from the meat store. It clings to everything.
“So? What did you find out?” she demands.
“It’s a bakeshop. They sell cookies and things.
What were you expecting me to find?” I don’t mention the part where RJ looked at me like he knew me.
I don’t mention the part where he could read my thoughts.
I don’t mention that only Marlos are supposed to be Whisperborns and Vales aren’t supposed to have magic like that at all.
“Did you eat something from there?”
“Yes, Mother. A cupcake.”
She crosses her arms. Her nose floats higher. “Did it taste like meat?”
I bite my cheek. “No. It tasted like chocolate. Because it was a cupcake.” She thinks they’re trying to start a competing meat market. First of all, that’s ridiculous. Second, who cares?
When my mother asked me to cross Grove Street—the hard line splitting Vale and Marlo territory—and spy on the Vales, I knew she’d finally lost it.
The last Marlo to do that ended up hanged in the town square.
Granted, that was like two hundred years ago, but it’s not ancient history to my family.
They speak about it like it happened yesterday—like the gallows are still waiting in the middle of the square just in case.
The feud runs through everything we do. It’s in the whispered warnings at family dinners, the unspoken rules at school.
Vales use their sugar-coated smiles to hide ambition.
That’s what my mother says. They charm and scheme their way into every position of power, every city contract, every press headline.
Meanwhile, we’re accused of being brute enforcers, like our magic makes us monsters.
It’s absurd how deep it goes—how much it still shapes this town.
And if I’m being totally honest, I just don’t care what some dead guys thought of the Vales over a century ago.
Still, a Marlo entering a Vale shop isn’t just gossip—it’s ammunition.
And my mom wanted me to give them a whole arsenal.
I’d hoped my father would intervene, but he just stared off silently like always.
And he wears his Thoughtveil beads daily now, so I can’t read his thoughts to figure out why.
He gave up on arguing with her years ago.
He’s given up on doing anything dad-like.
So I pulled off my jade bracelets—our family’s signature Thoughtveil, the only real indication of my family name—put on the plainest, most forgettable outfit I own, and convinced my friends to come with me. Not that I had a choice. I went into the safest-looking storefront on their side of Grove.
And then I gave that boy my name. Like an idiot.
My cheeks burn remembering his tousled hair and soft green eyes. I wanted him to know my name. I wanted to know his. Even if he’s the one who turned in the security footage that got my brother arrested. Even if my mother would have him mounted on a chopping block for even looking at me.
My mother’s holding the little box with the crème br?lée macaron inside.
“Please don’t touch that.”
I gobbled down the cupcake, but I want to hold on to the little French cookie for a while.
A reminder. I bite away the smile forming at my lips and chew my nails instead.
I’ve never met someone outside my family who could read my thoughts.
With RJ, it didn’t feel invasive. Around here, it’s more of a daily annoyance, but with him, it felt like sharing a secret.
My mother slaps my hand away from my mouth. It stings. I clench my fists.
“You really didn’t see anything?”
“Nope.”
She leans against my dresser, fingering the leaves of the orchid I’ve managed to keep alive for thirty-seven days, which feels like a big deal. Leave my room. Leave my room. Please, just leave my room!
“Ugh,” my mother groans, back of her hand to her forehead. She’s resumed pacing when something tings against my window.