Episode 18
948 Words
SECRETS DON'T WHISPER FOREVER
Eden had never known silence could be so loud.
It echoed between her ribs during every class, pressed against her throat in the halls, and wrapped tightly around her whenever Aiden was near. A secret once thrilling now throbbed like a bruise.
Their moments were still sweet, stolen with nervous smiles and heated touches behind closed doors, but Eden couldn’t ignore the weight growing heavier between them—the knowledge that everything they were building rested on the fragile hope of not being found out.
And then came the notice.
Senior Exhibition: Faculty-Student Pairings Now Finalized.
The email hit her inbox like a slap. Eden's heart stuttered when she read the list.
Student: Eden Collins
Faculty Supervisor: Aiden Ward
Panic flared.
They’d been careful. So careful.
Why would Professor Linton do this? Had she seen something?
She rushed to the department office that same afternoon.
“I just thought it’d be a strong match,” Professor Linton said, tapping her pen absently against her desk. “Aiden speaks highly of your work. And your mid-term project showed promise. There’s no rule against a TA mentoring a student—especially not one he’s unofficially supported since fall.”
Eden swallowed thickly. “Right. Of course. Thank you.”
She didn’t know what scared her more—how easily it could all blow up, or how much it thrilled her that he had spoken about her work.
Later, when she confronted Aiden in the art supply room, he winced. “I didn’t push for it, I swear. But I didn’t fight it either.”
“You should’ve,” she whispered.
“You didn’t want me to,” he replied.
And he was right.
But it didn’t stop the fear from blooming.
__
Word spread fast that Eden was working directly with Aiden for the exhibition. Students started watching her more closely, conversations dipped when she walked into rooms, and a few girls in the junior class began whispering behind cupped hands.
Even Talia started side-eyeing her.
“You and Aiden…” she began one evening in the dorm, “are you sure it’s just about your artwork?”
Eden fumbled. “Why are you asking?”
“Because you smile at your phone like it just proposed to you. And you’ve been painting like your soul’s on fire.”
“I’m just… inspired.”
“Mhm.” Talia gave her a look. “Just don’t get burned, babe.”
But Eden already was. Deeply. Willingly.
__
Their work for the exhibit became a strange kind of dance—professional on the outside, emotionally charged beneath the surface. Aiden challenged her on every brushstroke, asked her to explore color theory, demanded more emotional truth in her compositions.
“I want to see you in the painting,” he said. “Not just your technique.”
“I don’t know who I am yet,” she muttered one night, exhausted and splattered with acrylic.
“Then that’s your thesis,” he replied. “Paint the girl who’s still becoming.”
She did.
And what emerged was raw, ugly, beautiful. A portrait of herself, half-finished, eyes wide and unsure, mouth mid-sentence. The background was layers of red and violet—colors she once feared using—representing all the things she’d hidden for too long.
It made her cry. And it made Aiden kiss her like she’d created fire.
__
But the secret didn’t stay secret.
One morning, Eden arrived on campus to find a message scrawled on her locker in black marker:
“Sleeping with your mentor? How original.”
The world stopped.
Her breath caught. Her stomach curled. Her fingers trembled.
It didn’t say her name, but everyone knew.
That day, she couldn’t look anyone in the eye. She skipped class. Turned off her phone. Hid in the far wing of the library where no one ever went.
By the time Aiden found her, she was curled up in a dusty corner, staring at nothing.
“Eden—” he began.
“Did you tell anyone?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“No,” he said immediately. “I swear to you.”
“Then someone saw us.”
Aiden ran a hand through his hair. “We can handle this.”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it. You’ll be fine. I’m the one who’ll be humiliated. I’ll lose my reputation. My spot in the program. My friends.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t stop people from talking!”
“No,” he agreed. “But I can stand beside you.”
She stared at him, a thousand emotions ricocheting behind her eyes. Rage, fear, longing.
“You can’t fix this with a kiss,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “But I’m still not leaving.”
And maybe that was what terrified her the most—that he meant it.
__
By the end of the week, things had escalated.
A faculty member pulled Aiden aside. “We need to have a conversation about boundaries.”
Dean Wright requested a meeting with Eden.
Rumors swirled faster than wildfire.
And Eden, caught in the center, began to unravel.
She questioned everything—her art, her choices, her worth.
But in the quiet, between the chaos, Aiden held her together. Not by fixing things. But by being there when no one else would.
“Do you regret it?” she asked him once, late at night, as they lay side by side in the dark of the studio.
“No,” he said. “Not even for a second.”
And Eden realized: neither did she.
- Writer
