Chapter One #3
The hum of the engine filled the silence, steady and low.
Alex had the passenger seat reclined, shoes propped up on the dashboard as if he owned the car.
He was doing what he always did, scanning the campus, eyes sharp, daring anyone to hold his stare for too long.
They never did. People crossed the lot faster when they saw us here.
“Well, aren’t they in a rush?” he muttered, watching a group of girls speed past in the rearview mirror.
“Maybe don’t stare,” I said, scrolling through my phone.
“Me? Never.” His tone was mock-offended.
Before I could reply, he leaned over and snatched my phone straight out of my hand. I let out a slow breath and grabbed his off the console, dead, charging.
Of course. Fuck my life.
I dropped it back and leaned against the seat, eyes drifting outside. If Alex could amuse himself by people-watching, maybe I could too. Anything to distract from the monotony.
And then I saw her. Again. As if my eyes didn’t know how to focus on someone or something else, I stared.
She was now sitting by herself, perched on a bench under one of those trees that always looked half-dead this time of year. The same book was open on her lap, an apple in her hand.
That was it. Just a girl eating fruit and reading. Ordinary. Nothing that should hold me. Nothing that should matter.
But I couldn’t look away.
I felt a light twitch in my face as my mind drifted to earlier. When her lips parted, they opened as if she were about to utter some kind of sound to me. But chose not to.
“Why can’t you just speak?” I muttered, barely realising the words slipped out.
Alex lazily looked up, one brow cocked. “She isn’t mute.”
My jaw flexed. “Might as well be.”
He looked down again, bored. “She’s not. Stutters, though. Maybe a little speech problem.”
I froze. Excuse me? How—
“Quiet too, normally whispers.” He shrugged, like it were nothing. Like hearing her voice was nothing.
Nothing.
Her voice, her goddamn voice, was there for someone else. I’d spent a year dying to hear it, to break through her silence, and there it was, floating freely, clear, light for everyone else but me.
“Her voice,” I started. Alex looked up. “What was it like?”
He dragged out a hum. “She sounds the way she looks.”
“Like what?” I asked, voice low.
How the fuck does someone sound the way they look? Beautiful? Angelic? What does that sound like?
“Like… even if she was mad at you, you’d feel like absolute shit. It’s too soft and gentle.”
I clenched my fists. Soft and gentle?
Heat licked at the back of my neck, sharp and unwelcome. The silence I’d been suffocating under wasn’t her limit; it was her choice. She gave him something that should’ve belonged to me.
My grip tightened on the steering wheel until the leather groaned under my hand. I forced a scoff, pretending the knot in my throat didn’t exist. “So she whispers. Big deal.”
I pressed my tongue to the inside of my cheek, staring straight ahead, willing myself not to glance back at her across the lot.
Alex just nodded, lazy as ever. “Yeah. No big deal.”
No big deal.
The words lodged in my chest like a blade. He said it as if her voice weren’t the rarest thing in the world. Like it wasn’t something worth breaking yourself over just to hear once.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. If it had been me, if I’d heard it, I wouldn’t have let it slip away so carelessly. I’d have burned it into memory, every note, every breath. But Alex? He tossed it aside as if it were nothing.
Ungrateful. Fucking ungrateful.
—
Soft and gentle. Too soft to be taken seriously.
I paced back and forth, socks sliding against the cold marble floor. My phone was tapping against my chin as Alex’s words echoed in my mind.
I tried to convince myself I didn’t care.
I don’t care. She whispers, so what?
But it’s just not fair. He got it; he got what I wanted. What I waited for, and she let it free to someone who doesn’t give a shit about her.
Fuck, how soft? Does she have a thick British accent? A London accent like Alex? What is an Oxford accent even like? Posh? Maybe not even that, maybe it’s… something uniquely hers?
I brushed my fingers through my hair, tugging at the strands in frustration. I can imagine anything, anything but the thing I would risk everything for.
What do I have to do?
I’ve been everywhere she is, memorising every step, every tilt of her head, every flicker of her eyelashes, but never got a word. Just her breathing. Just her presence. And Alex got it.
He heard her.
Did he stand in front of her class, waiting? I did that.
Did he trail her across campus? I did that.
Did he hover when she met with teachers, pretending he didn’t care, all to hear it? I did that. And still… nothing.
I get fuck all.
I’d take anything. A whisper of “yes”. A simple “no”. Even my name falling from her lips would make the world stop.
God, I’d kill just to hear her say it.
Even an insult, spat at me in that soft, soft voice… I’d take it.
Anything.
Anything to know she’s capable of breaking the silence for me, even if only for a second.
A flicker from the corner of my eye pulled me out of my thoughts. My laptop on the coffee table had a new notification. I crossed the room and sank onto the couch, leaning over to check the email.
The first thing that grabbed my attention wasn’t the subject line; it was her name. Bold, clear, undeniable: Aurora Campbell. My eyes raced across every word in the email, devouring them as if each letter held a clue to her.
Subject: Shadowing Assignment – Aurora Campbell
Dear Joshua Lockhart,
You have been assigned as the primary contact for Aurora Campbell, a student in the psychology programme, who will be shadowing you for the upcoming weeks as part of her research project on Sports Psychology.
Please provide her with guidance and access as needed. She will be observing your training sessions, team interactions, and related activities.
For detailed instructions and scheduling, please click here.
Thank you,
Silverwood University – Psychology Department
Holy shit… I didn’t think the universe would just hand her to me like this.
My hand shot up to cover my mouth, but it couldn’t hide the curve of my lips, curling in a way they never do.
Nothing… nothing excited me the way her name did. Especially when it involved me.
Weeks. Not just a day, not just a few fleeting minutes. Weeks. She’d be here. Watching me. Learning from me. Shadowing me.
The thought had my chest tightening, pulse quickening, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I couldn’t focus on anything else. Just the idea of her there, in my world, for hours on end.
She was going to drive me insane, but I wouldn’t care. I would take it all.
Everything.
—
I made a conscious effort not to think about her for the rest of my evening, but the moment I dropped down onto my bed, I failed. Miserably.
I sank deeper into the mattress, arms sprawled across the cushions, staring up at the ceiling as if the blank white could silence my head. It didn’t. It never did.
When I was a kid, throwing tantrums so loud the neighbours would call to complain, my mother never raised her voice.
Not once. She’d kneel in front of me, hands resting lightly on my arms, and speak low.
Soft. Gentle. Too soft to belong in the kind of house we lived in.
That tone, steady as water, patient as time, would make the fire in my chest dim, make me listen even when I swore I wouldn’t.
It was the only thing that ever cut through me.
And then she was gone. At five years old, I learnt how silence could bury a person alive. Twenty now, I’d survived on that silence, sharpened it into armour, into knives, into something that couldn’t be touched.
Then she walked in. Didn’t even speak, and yet, somehow, she dragged the same reaction out of me.
She looked at me with those too-gentle eyes, and my shoulders loosened without my permission. She nodded when I asked a question, nervous but still answering me, still acknowledging me, and that was enough to undo me completely.
She didn’t need to speak. She didn’t need to try. She just existed, and I heard my mother’s echo in the way my body betrayed me.
I never thought I’d find someone who resembled my mother. Not in looks, Aurora was nothing like her, but in the way she felt. In the air around her. Peace. Patience. That steady, quiet presence I thought I buried with her.
My mother stayed soft even when I was tearing the walls down with tantrums. Aurora… she stayed soft even while I was tearing her apart. I’d dragged her through hell, yet she still nodded when I spoke, still met me with those eyes as if she didn’t know she was supposed to hate me.
And it fucking sucked. Because I already lost one gentle soul that was too soft for our rotten home. I couldn’t lose another because of my rotten self.
What ached more than anything was the thought of letting go. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. Maybe, just maybe, if I stayed close enough, if I kept her within reach, I could hold on this time. Keep this one.
But fear’s a traitor. It whispered that she’d leave me just like my mother did, like everyone. And before I could stop myself, I was already sharpening the knife, already cutting her down, already making her bleed.
It’s easier to hurt her first than to wait for her to hurt me.
And still, some sick part of me hoped she wouldn’t leave anyway.