Page 15 of Broken By Silence
Thud.
“That’s why I jumped.”
I split clean in half.
My heart breaks.
I stumble back against the wall because we did this. We left her so utterly alone that the only alternative was death.
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though I know it sounds weak to even my ears. Useless. What does sorry even mean when the girl in front of me is splinteringagainbecause of our choices?
“So you keep saying,” she mutters. “But I’m not here to appease your guilt.”
Chapter 5
Lottie
The room is suffocating. Too late apologies and things that can never be taken back linger between us all, and I’m bone tired.
I can feel the ache in my feet, my back, and the oncoming migraine from everything that’s happened. Paired with the feeling of Roman’s blood under my fingernails, I’m ready to scrub myself raw in a hot shower and try to forget any of this happened. The blood… the fact that Lorenzo now knows I’m alive, and the whispered promises I made to Roman if he survived.
I don’t want to hear any more of their apologies or demands. I’ve carried the silence, their betrayal, for so long that it’s embedded in my bones, and I refuse to carry it anymore.
I turn to Archer. His fingers are still wrapped gently around mine, grounding me when everything else feels like it’s shifting under my feet. His eyes meet mine, steady and sure, and that’s all I need.
Then I look at Oscar. He’s quiet, watching me from the corner of his eye like he always does. He must recognise the look in my eye, because he nods once, barely a movement, but I see the question in his eyes.
“I want to go home,” I whisper into the silent room, no longer able to handle the secrets that keep being revealed.
Archer doesn’t let go of my hand, already turning towards the door, Oscar’s hand on my lower back grounding me.
Behind me, the silence cracks like glass. Roman, Elijah, Crew… they don’t stop me. Maybe because they know they can’t. Or perhaps they’ve finally realized this isn’t something they can fix.
Nothing can fix this.
I don’t look back as we walk out the door.
I won’t.
They made their choices. Choose to break me, and now I’m making mine.
We walk out into the corridor, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, too bright and sterile. But it feels like the air is clearer out here, easier to breathe, like I’ve stepped out of a nightmare and back into something real.
I squeeze Archer’s hand, needing the contact to ground me in reality and not the nightmares of my past. Oscar stays closer, my silent protector, ready to be a shield between me and whatever comes next.
They’re not perfect, but they’ve stayed. They saw and protected me when no one else ever has. That matters more than a thousand apologies from people who only started listening after it was too late.
The silence in the hallway seems to wrap around me like a threadbare blanket. Worn but comforting.
I don’t have to talk. I know they won’t make me… won’t make me justify the thousand fractures in my soul.
Out here, there’s no one demanding explanations or pretending they didn’t notice when the cracks started to appear again.
I thought I was better…
Archer squeezes my hand like he knows where my thoughts just went, just once, enough to sayI’m here. No pressure or pity. There never is with him. Just him being my one constant when I feel like I’m fracturing in a world I’m forced to pretend to be whole in.
Oscar brushes against my side, and I let him. His closeness is steady and familiar. I glance up at him and see the storm settling in his eyes—grief for what I never told him, and the guilt continues to gnaw away at my insides for keeping it from him for so long.
