Exhale

Chapter 32: Silence, Sometimes, Says More

The Juilliard School

The next day, 4:45 pm

Marley

I was thinking about that feeling when you finally climb out of a rough patch, and it feels like the universe is just waiting to trip you up again. It's exhausting when you're doing everything right, and life still finds a way to pull you back into that bubble of stress.

I never got back to Vicky after class. She's not as scary as she thinks she is. There's a difference between knowing someone's shadows and dragging them into the light. I've been trusted with things said in unguarded moments, and I won't cash those in for damage. Silence, sometimes, says more than exposure ever could.

The corridor felt unnaturally still, like the building itself was waiting on something. I stood by the glass, watching Roman move around Zuri with a kind of quiet familiarity that made it hard to look away. He knelt in front of her, tugging her leg warmers over her ankles while she sat there blank, eyes fixed past the piano like she wasn't really seeing any of it.

She looked hollowed out, somewhere deep inside herself. He adjusted her jacket, pulled her leg warmers into place, steady and unhurried, like he'd done this enough times to know not to crowd her.

Then something in her shifted. Not much—just enough. When he leaned in to fix a strand of hair stuck to her face, Zuri finally looked at him. Really looked at him. Her expression softened, the distance in her eyes easing for half a second.

She reached up slowly, fingertips brushing his wrist before leaning in and pressing a quiet kiss to his cheek. Small. Brief. But deliberate. The corner of her mouth lifted into the faintest smile, like a silent thank you meant only for him.

Finally, I thought it would take five more chapters. A faint smile spreads across my lips.

"Watching the show, babe?"

Vicky's voice was a low crawl against my ear. All the happiness in my life was snuffed out in a breath.

She didn't look at me, her eyes fixed on Roman as he finished with Zuri's sweats.

"So touching. I almost forgot you're just the third wheel watching your little lover play house. You didn't hit me up after class, which was a choice. You missed the deadline, and now I'm bored with waiting. You really think you can just go silent on me after what I told you to do?"

"You think people are just chess pieces for you to move? They're not. You're not that smart, Vicky. You're just a parasite," I said, my voice a low, steady blade. "Zuri has more talent in her smallest finger than you've ever had in your entire body.

That's why you're so obsessed with her, right? Because you know you're nobody without someone else's life to wreck. You wouldn't even be standing in this corridor if you weren't riding off the drama you create."

Vicky's jaw tightened, her voice blowing past the point of no return. "Oh, fuck you! You're going to do what I say because you're mine, Marley. We already agreed we were getting back together."

The door clicked open. Roman and Zuri stepped out, with the rest of the class trailing behind them like an audience to a car crash. Zuri stopped dead, her eyes wide as she looked from Vicky's flushed face to mine.

"Marley?" Zuri's voice was barely a whisper, the 'What the fuck?' hanging in the air like a death sentence.

Vicky hooked her fingers into my belt loop, yanking me flush against her before I could even blink. Her breath was hot against my ear, low and steady. "You're never getting away from me, babe," she hissed, her voice vibrating with a kind of dark permanence that made my skin crawl.