“This one,” I lifted the paper, looking at a few different faces in a few different rows before landing on Adele’s face, which was about the same shade of white as the paper I was holding in my hand, “this one was my favorite. So I’m going to pull it up on the projection screen behind me, so you can see how it was laid out, and I’m going to read it out loud too.” I tapped my ear. “When you have to listen to someone bleeding out on the page, it’s different, it’s more personal.”

I walked around my desk, the squeak of my shoes the only sound in the room. I had never had a classroom full of over a hundred students be so deathly silent. I tapped a few buttons on my laptop and the screen popped to life, the beam from the projector mounted in the ceiling catching dust motes drifting through the air. I faced them, turning away from the screen, and I saw eyes rapidly moving across the display, only Adele’s eyes were not aimed at the words.

No, she was staring right at me, begging me with her eyes not to do this. I held her gaze and spoke the words from memory, since I’d read that damn thing dozens of times over the weekend. I didn’t need to look back once to remember it.

Silence leaves a different mark than a bruise

No punctured skin, no purple rings.

Purple fading to yellow that clings to your skin.

In every silent moment with you, every indifferent glance,

Each quick pass of your eyes, you suck something from me.

You break a bone, slap my face, shove me down and keep me there. You break it all.

Something that will never, ever heal.

I’m a paperweight, I am heavy, and I’m sitting on all the pieces of me you didn’t want.

I’m made from you, your fingerprint is in the shape of my eyes, the color of my hair, the stubborn spine.

Isn’t that ironic? The spine I get from you, that steel beam that props me up, was hardened by you.

Because you’re silent

Silent

Silent

Silent

You see me across a room and move your eyes elsewhere, the cobwebs in the corner holding more appeal.

She gave me my smile

You gave me my sneer.

She gave me my laugh

You gave me my silence.

Because you made me quiet when I wanted to be loud.

In your silence I am punished—for living, for breathing, for being the one you didn’t want. I hear your disdain, I feel your derision like dirt on my skin, without you saying a word.

You don’t see me and still, you hate me.

I smile and I laugh and I smirk and I bitch, you mean nothing, your silence means nothing. But I look for something else to soften the steel, something and someone to give the bruises that will fade your silence.

I look for places you don’t exist, finding a temporary, hollow pleasure in the men who want me.

I’m nothing but an inconvenience.

A stupid little girl.

Maybe someday I won’t be so little, and I’m already not stupid. But I still need some sound. And someone to see.

I finished reciting it, no one in the room missing that my voice sounded like I was holding a brick in my throat by the time I was done. Jaws hung open, a few girls wiped tears from their cheeks, and more than one face was turning and searching, wondering who’d written that. Adele had turned into stone in her seat.

Switching off the projector, I sat in my chair again, lifting my hands up in question. “So?”

“Wow,” a girl breathed from the front row. “That was … it was really sad.”

I let out a sigh. “A simplistic answer, but I’ll take it. Anyone else?”

David, one of my more intelligent students, lifted his hand. I motioned toward him.

“It felt defensive. Like she knew she was being judged, and she just wanted somebody to hear why she is the way she is.”

Honestly, it was kids like him that kept me teaching. I smiled, nodding. “Very good, David. Very insightful.” I lifted the paper again, keeping my eyes away from her. “That’s what makes this so well done. It’s relatable, even if we’ve never had the same experiences that she has. A well-written monologue will hold a kernel of truth for everyone who hears it. Even if it’s not their truth, right? That’s why we go back and listen to certain parts of certain movies, or dog-ear the pages of a book where the main character finally lets it out. Says their piece, because they want to be heard, and they want people to recognize the truth in it. It’s a way for them to be understood. And this person?” I tapped the page with my free hand, “I understand this person.”

For the rest of the class, Adele wouldn’t look at me, but I could see her relax a little as we moved away from the monologues. We wrapped up, me reminding them of what was coming up next week so they wouldn’t forget to think about it. I leaned against my desk, absently watching them pack up their bags and immediately pull their phones out to see what they’d missed in that last fifty-five minutes. As the room emptied, I finally let myself stare at her. She’d slowed her movements as the rest of her classmates stood and left, so that it wouldn’t be noticeable that she had absolutely no intention of leaving the room with them.

Our eyes met when the last person left, letting the door swing shut with a clang. The skin on her face was still pale, but she lifted her chin in the air and opened her mouth. Then closed it. I crossed my arms across my chest and waited.

“You had no right,” she said in a low, dangerous voice, starting to stand from her chair.

I held up a hand and gave a meaningful glance to the open windows in the two doors at the back of the classroom. “Not here, Adele. Could we continue this in my office?”

She clenched her jaw and looked away, letting me take my fill of her stony profile. Finally, she gave me a sharp nod and walked out of the room.

A short minute later, I followed.

Chapter Sixteen

It was deja vu, walking down the gleaming hallway toward my office, Adele leaning up against the wall next to my door. But this time there was no gloating smile, no teasing glint in her eye. She did not want to be here, and I couldn’t blame her in the slightest.

I unlocked the door and gestured for her to go in, which she did, arms crossed tightly over her ribs. The door shut with an unassuming click and I stared at her rigid back when she didn’t turn to face me. In the quiet office, it struck me that I hadn’t really studied her, save that first night when we danced.

“You had no right, Nathan,” she whispered.

I rubbed at the back of my neck, willing her to turn around and look at me.

“That was the best thing I’ve seen all semester, from anyone in that class. And if you were brave enough to submit the assignment—”

Adele shifted so I could see her profile, and she glanced over her shoulder. “But that was private. I didn’t need those judgmental assholes trying to figure out who has daddy issues.”

Moving around her so I could face her, I sat back on my desk and gripped the edge with both hands. Touching wasn’t part of this equation, but the more she shut down about this, the more she fascinated me. I shook my head, watching her take a step back so we weren’t so close.

“Look, I shouldn’t have said what I did. You’re not a stupid—”

“Don’t,” she said, blinking rapidly and shifting her eyes up to the ceiling. “I don’t need this.”

I straightened and stood, dipping my head so I could catch her gaze, which she reluctantly gave me. The sheen of tears made the green of her irises look otherworldly, and when she blinked again, one tear spilled onto her cheek. She pressed a hand to her cheek, mouth dropping open like she was surprised by its existence.