I grab a tray anyway. Muscle memory. Habit. Control.
The line moves slower than it should. A couple heads turn. A couple voices drop. Nothing dramatic—just enough to register.
Phones are out. Screens flash as people scroll.
Briarcliff Whisperer again.
I don’t rush. I don’t hesitate. I take my time, load my plate, pay, move.
By the time I reach the table, the conversation has shifted.
Not stopped. Shifted.
Adrian glances up, meets my eyes, then looks back down at his phone like he’s deciding which problem deserves attention first.
Declan gives me a nod—neutral, unreadable.
Dante scoots his tray half an inch to make room without speaking.
Cole doesn’t look up.
No one asks where I’ve been. No one says anything stupid.
I sit.
That’s when it registers: they’re letting me stay. They’re just not giving me cover.
The silence sits heavy between us, a third party at the table.
It isn’t the comfortable quiet we usually have—the kind built on shared plays and inside jokes.
This is the silence of a bomb ticking under the floorboards.
My phone buzzes once on the table. A preview flashes before I can stop it.
WHISPERER: “Rossi’s ‘sealed record’ isn’t sealed anymore. Ask around.”
Sealed. Sure.
My jaw locks so hard it aches.
They don’t know the truth. The paperwork got signed and changed and buried back then, and they don’t know why. The cost of “family protects each other” stays invisible to them, along with the kind of promise made over your head when you’re too young to refuse.
All they know is I’m hiding something massive—and now the campus has a headline-shaped version of it.
I pick up my fork, metal cold against my fingers.
The food—steamed vegetables, a piece of chicken—looks gray. I take a bite, chewing mechanically, barely tasting. Texture like sawdust.
I’m not being judged for being an asshole or a diva. That, I can handle. That’s part of the game.
I’m being watched like I’m the kind of man who leaves a body behind and buys his way out of it.
The weight sits in my stomach like lead. Suffocating.
If I open my mouth now, I don’t just set myself on fire. I light up everything connected to my name—people who didn’t ask to be collateral and people who made sure I was.
So I swallow it with tasteless food. Wash it down with water that tastes like nothing.
