RJ #3
“We could stand here.” He leads me beneath a drooping branch of the white-blossoming tree near the water’s edge.
The gold light of sunset catches between the leaves.
He places the bouquet in my hands and moves me gently into place.
My heart flutters. “I’d stand here,” he says softly, “and we could…”
Do this forever.
“RJ,” I whisper.
He opens his arms, and I fall into them, resting my head on his chest, letting him hold me. Letting myself pretend that the world wouldn’t rip us apart.
“We have now,” I say. “We can’t look past that. If we do, it gets all complicated.” I nestle closer to him, suffocating any space between us. His chin rests on my head. When the sunlight disappears on the horizon, I pull away. But he doesn’t let go.
“A little longer,” he murmurs. “Just this once.”
So I stay. Drown me in his strong hugs. Bury me with the flowers he puts in my hair.
It’s dark when we leave. We reach the town square, but before we can say our goodbyes…I see her.
My mother.
Standing at the edge of Grove Street, waiting for me.
Jules
The door to my room closes, and my mother is inside with me. She paces, boiling in silence. Every few steps, she stops to glare.
“I can explain.”
“You will shut your mouth unless I ask you a question.” Her voice slices through me.
“And you will not speak of this to anyone. You know, I wondered where you’ve been the last few weeks—missing dinners, lunches, gone all day.
And it turns out you’ve been sneaking around with him?
” She marches up to me and jabs a finger into my chest.
I exhale through my nose to simmer my anger.
“They will know this was our doing,” she mutters more to herself than me.
“It will be harder to cover up.” Her jaw works, her foot tapping.
“If they suspect, they might come for your father’s seat on the council.
” She yanks at the beads around her neck.
“Heaven forbid they actually try to pin it on us.”
“Pin what?” I ask, my chest tightening.
“That boy is being beaten for this, of course!”
Her words punch the air from my lungs. I can’t breathe. My mother lives in a perpetual state of suspicion—but she never makes idle threats.
“Why?” I whisper, horrified.
“And that is a kindness. He should be hanged in the square. But we live in gentler times, apparently. Gallivanting around town with the boy who got your brother locked up, and you thought we’d do nothing?”
“RJ is different—”
“So gullible. Rome Jaryn Vale turned over the security footage. He helped convict Quinton. And now he’s trying to seduce the only Marlo daughter left standing!” she hisses. “He was likely spying. Gaining your trust so they can pin even more crimes on us.”
“No,” I say, louder this time. “He wasn’t planning anything.”
“He doesn’t actually like you.” Her eyes narrow. “Tell me everything you’ve done together. Every dirty detail.”
“It’s not like that,” I snap, and my voice cracks—but not from fear.
“He writes. I know things about him that he hasn’t told anyone.
” I keep my wrist with my Thoughtveil on it in my pocket.
“He puts flowers in my hair.” Tears stream down my cheeks, but I let them fall.
“He’s not bad. He’s better than anyone in this house has ever been to me—and I won’t pretend he’s not! ”
She storms forward and grabs my wrist, ripping the Thoughtveil off. The beads scatter across the floor. I dive for my earrings, the ones shielded against Whisperborns. She blocks me.
Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.
I try to fill my mind with nonsense—picking flowers, stringing beads, anything but RJ—but RJ’s face bleeds through. His smile. The sound of his thoughts in my head.
He’s not a liar. I know him. I’ve heard the honesty in his mind, and he’s heard mine.
My mother freezes. “You’re lying,” she says quietly. “He’s Whisperborn? A Vale?” Something in my silence unsettles her. Her eyes search mine, and I can see it—the flicker of doubt giving way to fear. “No,” she murmurs to herself. “You’re lying.” Then she storms toward me. “You better not be lying.”
But it’s too late. Every memory floods forward—his hand in mine, the lake wind rippling, our voices threaded in silence. I can’t stop. It all rushes at me. And my mother hears every single bit of it.
She recoils.
“You stupid, stupid girl.” She stomps to the door.
I lunge after her. “You won’t touch him! Or I swear I’ll tell anyone who’ll listen about your secret meetings, the officers you pay, the bodies you hide—”
Her hand strikes me. The slap cracks across my cheek. The next sound I hear is my door being bolted, locking me inside.
RJ
I’m not sure where I am, but everything hurts. I curl into a tighter ball on the cold pavement beneath me. Then hands hook around my arms and I’m staring at my uncle and father lifting me to my feet.
“I thought you were working a double shift at the bakery,” my dad says. “Lilah tells me you’ve been skipping out on shifts for weeks? And now you turn up looking like a piece of tenderized meat?”
“Rich, come on,” my uncle says.
My father is silent the entire ride dropping my uncle off and taking me home.
When we get there, Delilah frantically runs around the kitchen for ice.
My father stews in the corner without a word while my mother and sister bury me in ice packs.
Everything hurts, but I can’t think of anything other than Jules going pale when she saw her mother.
The look on her face haunts me. This is my fault.
My parents make me explain everything, how Jules and I met, when we met, what we’ve been doing.
I don’t mention the maple tree or Mystic Lake.
That feels like sharing a piece of us. I don’t mention that I can read her thoughts.
I don’t need my parents thinking anything else is really “wrong” with me.
I like that we can read each other’s thoughts. I like that it’s our secret.
When I’m done explaining, my mother is horrified; the ice pack in her hands has fallen to the floor.
“This is about that oldest boy of theirs. They’ve been waiting to punish you.” My father’s jaw hardens.
The gas station robbery. Quinton was carted off to prison on a hefty sentence for armed robbery at one of our convenience stores on our side of Grove. I happened to be there that day doing inventory. When the police arrived, I handed over the security camera footage. That was all. Hardly my fault.
“They’re going to pay for this,” my father says. “Rome, you don’t leave this house until it’s finished.”
“Until what’s finished?” I try standing, but my legs feel like they’re going to collapse beneath me.
My sister scrubs a palm down her face. “Dad.” But my father is gone.
“RJ,” my mother says. “Trust your father knows what’s best. This is a very delicate situation.”
“Mom, she’s different.”
“She’s a Marlo,” she says. “They’re all the same.”
When she leaves, I limp upstairs to my room with Lilah’s help and scream.
Jules
It’s been a week since I’ve left my room with its barricaded window.
My mother brings me food and locks me back inside.
I don’t speak. I barely eat. I consider running away, but I don’t know where I’d go.
If I can’t be with RJ…what would be the point?
I may as well wallow here with all my plants.
My orchid died officially, and it put me over the edge.
I did manage to press the flowers RJ once tucked into my braid.
I slipped them between the pages of a journal where I’ve been writing him letters—just thoughts that he’s not around to hear.
He would like that. I hope someday he’ll read them.
If I get to see him again. I watch my window, looking at the bushes below.
Has he forgotten about me? Is he okay? I leave the journal in the window, the dried petals peeking out, so if he comes, he’ll know: I haven’t forgotten.
I’m still thinking of him. Missing him. Wanting him.
I cry and cry and cry instead of sleeping for what feels like the longest night ever.
When I wake, another week has passed.
No footsteps outside my window.
No pebbles tapping the glass.
No warm sun on my skin.
No fresh flowers in my hair.
No cupcakes.
No lake.
No RJ.
Just walls. Just the soft hiss of jade beads between my fingers. I force myself to sleep. To feel nothing. To be nothing.
Wondering if something worse has happened.
RJ
It’s been too long since I’ve heard her voice—even inside my head.
Delilah pounds on my bedroom door. “Are we going or not?”
“Just a minute!” I scamper to collect the letters scattered across the floor. Some are crumpled, some carefully folded. They’re all for Jules. Words she hasn’t heard. Feelings she needs to know.
Delilah opens the door and sticks her head inside. “Do I need sunscreen?”
“Aren’t you in charge?” I mutter. Each time I’ve left the house in the last few weeks, I’ve been shadowed—by my father or Lilah.
Since the beating, I’ve barely been allowed near the town square.
Too close to the Marlo line. I’ve been sleepwalking through life, waiting for the next blow to fall—some terrible news of retaliation.
I’ve got to get out of here. Thankfully, today my father finally relented.
I get to go to the lake—with Delilah, who would absolutely rat me out for any wrongdoing.