Chapter 19
NINETEEN
RUELLA
I can feel my heartbeat lodged in my throat. Steady, desperate, alive.
The music blasts through my new earphones, so loud it drowns out the slap of my feet against the treadmill. But it can’t mute the rush in my veins, the steady surge of blood, wild and pulsing like my body is trying to outrun itself.
Despite the burn in my muscles and the ache in my lungs, I feel lighter than I have in… longer than I can remember. Maybe ever. I press the button to raise the speed, thumb flicking over to the next song. My stride adjusts, finding a new rhythm, something between punishment and release.
I drag in a few deep breaths, trying to focus on anything other than Asher. But of course, that’s pointless. His name lives somewhere behind every thought now, haunting the corners of my mind like a shadow I can’t shake. Especially after yesterday.
The way he peeled me open, piece by piece, until the truth just…
fell out. I’d like to think I could’ve fought harder to stay closed, to keep the words buried where they belonged.
But my ridiculous craving for connection and my constant, traitorous need to be seen, made me spill everything.
I sang like a canary, soft and foolish, as I melted right there in his hands.
His big, thick masculine hands. Hands that felt like they were made for me as he held my thighs in the bath…
“Arghhh,” I take my frustration out on myself by pressing the speedometer even higher.
Even after we said our goodbyes, after dinner, after the easy conversation and the not-so-subtle daggers Darcy kept throwing my way, I couldn’t shake him.
The night stretched endlessly, all tangled sheets and restless thoughts. I kept replaying his face, the quiet way he listened, the strange sense of safety I felt when I let the words slip free.
It shouldn’t have felt good to talk about my past, especially that part of it, but it did.
It was like exhaling after years of holding my breath.
I kept wondering why he does that to me.
Why everything else blurs when he’s nearby.
Why, despite every instinct screaming at me to stay closed, I want to hand him every piece of myself and watch him fit them together.
That’s why I am in the gym, taking out my frustrations on my body and hopefully exhaust myself so much that I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow tonight.
I woke up extra early so I could get done before the rest of the students start piling in like they usually do on a weekend.
And so, I didn’t run into Asher. I’m not avoiding him like I have been trying to do, but I need a second to refocus on why I am really here. Marlowe.
The song ends.
A split second of silence hums between tracks, and in that small pause, something shifts. Or maybe closes. It isn’t loud, not a bang or a slam. More like the soft scrape of a shoe against the floor.
My chest tightens. I rip the earphones out, the sudden quiet pressing against my skull. My hands grip the treadmill handles, and I lift my feet off the moving belt, settling them on the plastic rests at the sides.
Then I scan behind me.
The treadmills sit off to the side of the gym, facing the massive glass windows that overlook the grounds, gravelled paths and the dark silhouette of the main building beyond. The entrance, however, is behind me, across the entire room. Too far. Too exposed.
And too quiet.
Maybe it was stupid, coming here alone after everything that’s happened. But anyone entering would have had to pass in front of those windows first, their reflection cutting through the glass. I would’ve seen them.
Except… I didn’t.
My eyes sweep the room again. Nothing. The lights hum faintly overhead, sterile and cold.
I hit the emergency stop. The treadmill lets out a soft hiss as it slows, then stills. The silence after is thicker. Heavier. I listen. Every small creak, every settling echo feels deliberate, like the room itself is breathing with me.
Nothing.
Not a single sound.
Still, the hairs on my neck rise, that primal instinct scratching beneath my skin. Someone’s here. I can’t see them, but I know. The air feels occupied.
I move slowly toward the far wall, every step soft and measured. My gaze darts beneath the benches, between the racks of weights, behind the mirrored columns. My pulse is a drumbeat in my ears.
Nothing.
I press my ear against the changing room door,
And nearly jump out of my skin.
“Son of a…” I choke on the rest as music explodes down the hallway, so loud and sudden it sends my heart into a sprint. My hand flies to my chest, breath sharp and ragged. It feels like I’ve been struck by a live wire.
I move quickly now, silent as I can, toward the source of the noise. The studio. It’s used for yoga and Pilates, usually a quiet, padded space sealed off from the rest of the gym. But not now. Classical music pours through the cracks in the door, echoing through the hall towards me.
Keeping close to the wall, I edge forward until I can see through the narrow window beside the door. The blinds are open.
A girl stands inside, her back to me. Brown hair coiled into a bun as she ties the last strand into place.
The moment she finishes, she begins to move.
Stretching and bending, each gesture purposeful, controlled.
There’s something hypnotic about the precision of it, the way her body unfurls like she’s dancing for someone unseen.
Then I notice the shoes. Pointe shoes with silk ribbons wrapped tight around her ankles, the toes lightly caressing the floor as she moves.
I don’t know how long I stand there, caught between fascination and dread. But when she begins to turn, spinning gracefully across the room, her profile finally tilts into view.
And my breath catches.
Because I recognise her.
Piper.
Piper Vander is currently unguarded, and I finally have a chance to question her.
My lips quirk as I go through all the things, I want to ask her, but that is wiped off as I watch her fall to the floor.
She is on her hands and knees, chest heaving and tears dropping onto the wood beneath her.
At first, I think she must have hurt herself, but she doesn’t grab hold of anywhere, no leg, ankle or foot.
She puts her hands over her eyes and continues to cry.
It looks all too familiar, and that changes things.
I quietly ease the door open, slipping into the room just as the music swells. The notes climb higher, faster, almost urgent and uncertain. Like the moment in a film when everything is happening at once, yet you still have no idea where it’s all leading.
Even with the music at an almost painful volume, Piper must sense me like I sensed her. She spins around and holds her hands up, eyes wide, almost cowering away from me.
“Wait, wait. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you,” I quickly explain over the music as I hold my own hands up, showing her, I am no threat.
She starts to take in the room, checking her surrounding for a place to escape.
Shit, what happened to her.
“I wanted to check on you,” I continue. “I was in the gym and saw you crying when I walked past,” I crouch down to her level, and she slightly softens. “Are you okay?”
Her shoulders drop in defeat as she lets her hands rest on her knees. The wide eyes stay as she scans me from head to toe.
I stay silent as I allow her body to come out of the fight or flight it went into as I caught her off guard.
She shifts to pull her phone out of her top where it must have been stuffed into her bra and while keeping her attention glued to me, she hits the pause button, throwing us into silence.
I use the time to take her in. She is tragically beautiful.
With sharp, ethereal eyes that almost glow with how green they are.
A slightly upturned nose with a dusting of freckles and high cheekbones.
She almost looks like a little fairy. She is the size of one too.
I thought I was small, but this girl before me is petite in every aspect and oozes an elegance only money can buy.
“Who are you?” The sound comes out as a whisper before she clears her throat. “I don’t remember you,”
I sit down opposite her, keeping the distance to make her more comfortable.
I tilt my head. “Yeah, that’s because I only started this year,”
“Transfer?” She asks as she scans me again, taking in every detail.
“Kind of,”
Her brows furrow. “Where did you go before here?”
“I did online classes for a bit but decided to come here for my final year,”
“Why didn’t you come the first year?” She asks a little more sceptical and for the first time I get a glimpse of the Vander in her.
I decide that if I want her to open up to me, I need to give her something.
I pull my thighs up to my chest and hug them, allowing a little of my mask to slip.
“I went through something. Something I needed to heal from,” I shrug.
“School just didn’t seem that important at the time,” Understanding washes over he features and her body leans into me slightly, waiting for me to continue.
“But then I realised I had shut myself off from the world and the only real way to heal for me, was to start living again,”
Her gaze shifts away uncomfortably.
I chuckle softly. “It’s easier said than done I know, and there are good days and bad days,” I lower my head to meet her watery gaze.
“But I like to remind myself that I am still here. Alive against all odds. That means something. So, I fight for every day I get to be me,” I smile. “And so should you,”
Piper smiles back before looking down at herself in disgust. “I never used to be like this. I don’t know this version of myself,” She wipes a tear that falls down her cheek. “I don’t know how to get back to who I used to be,”