Seven
1260 Words
Jaxon’s POV
She walked out before I could say a word.
Not that I would’ve known what to say. The second Emmelyn dropped that contract on the table, it was like someone detonated the air in the room. No screaming. No chaos. Just silence and sharp, stunned, and brutal.
Riley tried to recover, of course. Sat there like a statue, too proud to flinch even when I caught her looking over her shoulder to see who’d been watching.
But it was too late.
Emmelyn scorched her.
And then she left like she hadn’t just flipped the entire balance of power in that room.
Now I’m sitting here, pretending to listen while Mr. Collier stammers through a weak lecture on digital ethics—as if that isn’t exactly what just exploded across our table. The class ends twenty minutes later. I don’t wait for Riley or anyone else. I’m already on my feet, heading for the exit.
I know where she is.
Somehow, I always do.
---
I find her in the old greenhouse behind the art building. Nobody goes there anymore—not since the new science wing got built and they shifted the botany club indoors. But the windows are still intact, even though ivy has begun creeping across the frames like it’s trying to reclaim the space.
It’s raining.
Not hard. Just enough to soak the ground and mist the glass.
She’s sitting on a concrete bench, hunched forward with her elbows on her knees, hoodie pulled up over her hair. Like the water isn’t even touching her.
She hears me, of course. Her shoulders tense slightly when I step in, but she doesn’t turn.
“You followed me,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I close the door behind me and cross the space slowly. The air in here smells like wet leaves and forgotten things.
“Because I figured you’d be here,” I say. “And because I didn’t want you to think I let you stand alone back there.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need me to.”
She finally looks at me. Her cheeks are damp. I don’t know if it’s from the rain or—
“I’m not a hero,” she says, voice raw. “I didn’t do that for anyone but me.”
“I know.”
She pulls the hood down, wiping her face with her sleeve.
“There’s more on that drive,” she says quietly. “I haven’t even opened half the files. I don’t think I want to.”
I sit beside her, careful to leave a bit of space between us.
“They’ve been watching me,” she continues. “Tracking emotional spikes, location, speech. There’s audio. Some of it from inside my house. Private stuff.”
My jaw clenches. “That’s... messed up.”
“That’s criminal,” she corrects. “It’s beyond unethical. And it’s happening because someone decided I wasn’t a person—I was a variable. A test subject. An asset.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. Every word.
She laughs once, hollow and tired. “You didn’t do it.”
“No, but my dad did,” I admit. “Or helped. Or signed off. Same thing.”
She goes quiet again.
Rain patters on the glass.
“I used to think being invisible was a choice,” she says after a while. “Like if I just stayed quiet long enough, people would stop expecting things from me. Stop digging. Stop pretending to know me.”
“And did it work?”
She shrugs. “For a while. But invisibility isn’t real. People always find something to weaponize. Whether you speak or stay silent.”
I want to tell her she’s wrong. That not everyone’s out to hurt her. But I can’t. Not when I know my own silence has hurt her, too.
So instead, I ask, “Why did you choose me?”
She blinks. “What?”
“To open the drive. To see that side of you. The vulnerable one.”
“I didn’t choose you,” she says. “You were just... there.”
That stings more than it should.
“But,” she adds, “I didn’t stop you either. And that probably means something.”
We sit with that for a second.
Just breathing. Just existing.
She fidgets with the edge of her sleeve.
“You know,” she says softly, “the first time I saw you, I thought you were just another reckless boy with too many secrets and a bad attitude.”
I smirk. “Was I wrong to prove you right?”
“Not completely.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, eyes fixed on the puddle forming at the greenhouse entrance.
“I’m tired too,” I say. “Of pretending I don’t care. Of trying to survive on anger. My dad’s not just toxic—he’s calculated. Every time I think I’m out, he finds a new way to drag me back in.”
“Is he still pushing you to spy on me?”
I shake my head. “Not since I started pushing back.”
“And your mom?”
That catches me off guard.
“What about her?”
“I figured… if someone’s got a reason to obey their father, it’s usually because something else is being held over them.”
I nod slowly. “She’s out of the country. He forced her to leave years ago. Said if I don’t play nice, she doesn’t come back. She doesn’t even know I’ve been trying to find her.”
Her hand reaches out.
Barely.
She hesitates, then places it lightly on top of mine.
It’s small. Soft. Real.
And it grounds me in a way nothing else has.
“I don’t trust people easily,” she says.
“Neither do I.”
“But I’m trying.”
I look at her then. Really look. The rain outside blurs the world into gray and green and silver, but in here, she’s all sharp edges and trembling strength.
She’s trying.
And maybe that’s enough.
Without thinking, I shift closer.
She doesn’t pull away.
Our knees touch.
And for a moment, the storm inside me quiets.
“I’m scared of what’s next,” she admits. “Of what else we’re going to find. What else they’ve done.”
“Then we find it together.”
She laughs under her breath. “You say that like it’s simple.”
“It’s not. But it’s honest.”
She looks up at me, eyes shining—not from tears, but something else. Something warmer. Braver.
“I hated you at first,” she whispers.
I grin. “I know.”
“You were arrogant. Loud. Reckless.”
“Still am.”
“But now you’re something else, too.”
She doesn’t say what.
She doesn’t have to.
We both feel it.
The shift.
The spark.
The change.
And when I lean in, I do it slowly.
Giving her time.
Giving her space.
And when she closes the gap between us, it’s not a fireworks kind of kiss—it’s soft. Deliberate. The kind that doesn’t ask for anything more than this moment.
Her lips are warm, and her fingers curl against my wrist.
When we pull apart, she rests her forehead against mine.
Outside, the rain falls harder.
Inside, something blooms.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But understanding.
And that’s more than I thought I’d ever get.
- Writer
