Page 122 of Scarred in Silence

Lucien’s house feels like a glass box today—crystal-clear light pouring through the tall windows, dust dancing like they’re trying to distract me from the fact that in three days, I’ll be sitting across from Gideon and Verona fucking Monroe, pretending I’m not shattered.

I don’t know what I’m going to say to them.

What do you say to the people who sent you away like a brokendoll and expected someone else to fix you?

“Seriously,” Evelyn mutters, coming into the living room with a half-functioning latte. “This machine is a war crime.”

She flops onto the couch beside me and kicks her feet up on Lucien’s marble coffee table like she owns the place. Her black thigh-highs are covered in faint glitter, and I’m 90% sure she’s wearing Dante’s T-shirt.

I narrow my eyes. “Are those… cupcakes on your socks?”

“They’re ironic,” she deadpans. “Obviously.”

I smile. I hate that I smile, but she makes it impossible not to.

For a while, we sit there—she’s scrolling. I’m overthinking. The tea goes lukewarm in my hands. I let it.

“You look like you’re about to fake your own death again,” Evelyn says, not looking up from her phone.

I grunt. “I’m not.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m debating it.”

She pauses, glancing at me. “You’re scared.”

I shrug. “I don’t know what I am. Nervous? Angry? A little homicidal?”

“You don’t have to go, you know.”

“Yes, I do.”

She leans back against the cushions and tosses her phone aside. “Then wear something amazing. Nothing says ‘fuck you’ like looking hotter than your mother.”

It reminds me of my hair. I need to make an appointment to get it back to blonde. I feel wrong as a brunette.

“She always hated when I wore black.”

“Then we’re going full funeral-core.”

There’s a silence, but it’s not heavy. It’s the silence I neverused to know how to sit in—the kind that comes with someone you trust. Evelyn isn’t perfect, but she’s still here.

I glance over at her. “Did you ever feel like you were someone else’s burden?”

She thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Only every Tuesday and whenever I look at a group chat.”

I roll my eyes.

But then she says, quieter, “I did. For a long time. Especially after my mom died. I thought if I just… behaved, if I made myself smaller, they’d stop looking at me like I was the problem.”

Her voice doesn’t break, but mine almost does. “Did it work?”

She shakes her head. “Nah. But eventually I stopped caring.”

I bite the inside of my cheek.

“Lucien cares,” she adds. “Even if he’s a psycho half the time.”