CHAPTER 19
1198 Words
Leah’s POV
If you had asked me six months ago to describe Aria Williams, I would have said she was quiet. Polite. The kind of girl people overlooked because she didn’t demand attention or take up space. I would have told you she was gentle in a pack that admired sharp edges, and that kindness here often passed for weakness.
If you asked me now, I wouldn’t know where to begin.
I noticed the change the morning after the training incident, though no one officially called it that. Around here, things were rarely named unless they benefited someone important. But everyone knew. Everyone had felt it—the moment when Aria stopped being just the rejected girl and became something… else.
She walked into school that day the same way she always did. Head high. Steps steady. No dramatics. No attempt to prove anything.
And yet the hallway shifted.
People moved differently around her. Not openly respectful, not friendly, but careful. Conversations paused when she passed. Eyes followed her—not with amusement anymore, but with calculation. As if they were trying to reconcile the girl they thought they knew with the one they’d seen the day before.
I watched it all from my locker, pretending to focus on my books while studying her reflection in the metal door.
She hadn’t changed her clothes. Still simple. Still plain by pack standards. Her hair was tied back neatly, glasses perched on her nose. No outward signs of power.
But there was something in the way she carried herself now.
Before, Aria moved like someone trying not to be noticed. Like she believed that if she took up less space, the world might leave her alone. Now, she moved like someone who knew exactly how much space she occupied—and was no longer apologizing for it.
She caught my eye across the hall and smiled.
The same small, soft smile she always gave me.
And that was the strangest part.
She hadn’t hardened.
She hadn’t turned cold or arrogant like others did once they earned fear instead of ridicule. She was still Aria. Still thanked people when they held doors. Still listened more than she spoke. Still checked in on Ethan when he was being unusually quiet.
But there was depth there now. Weight. Like a river that looked calm on the surface but carried something powerful beneath.
I remembered the first day I met her.
She had been sitting alone under the oak tree behind the school, eating quietly like she was trying to disappear into the roots. Something about that bothered me. Not because she looked pitiful—she didn’t—but because no one should have to be alone just to feel safe.
So I sat down and told her to move her bag.
She’d looked up at me like I’d surprised her by being kind.
Back then, she flinched at loud voices. She tensed when people laughed too close. She absorbed insults without reacting, like she believed enduring them was the price of survival.
After the rejection, that endurance sharpened into something else.
I saw it in the way she listened now—no longer bracing, no longer shrinking, just… present. Fully there. As if pain had burned away whatever fear had once made her doubt herself.
At lunch, a girl from another class walked past our table and muttered something under her breath. I didn’t catch all of it, but I saw Aria’s hand still for a moment around her cup.
Then she exhaled slowly and went back to listening to Ethan talk.
She didn’t react.
Not because she was afraid.
But because she didn’t need to.
That realization sent a shiver through me.
Strength in Silvercrest was always loud. It demanded to be seen. To be acknowledged. To dominate. Aria’s strength… didn’t.
It just existed.
People felt it anyway.
Later that week, during pack duties, I worked alongside her in the storage hall. It was quiet, just the two of us stacking supplies and checking lists. The kind of task that invites conversation if you let it.
I almost asked her then.
Almost said, What are you hiding? or How did you do that? or Who are you really?
But I didn’t.
Because I remembered the way she had held herself during the worst days—how she never asked for pity, never demanded understanding, never lashed out even when the pack was cruel. She had endured everything without explanation, without defense.
If there was more to her, it was hers to reveal.
So instead, I asked for something safe.
“How’s your shoulder?”
She paused, then smiled. “Sore. But healing.”
I hesitated. “You scared them, you know.”
Her expression didn’t change. “I didn’t mean to.”
That was the truth. I could hear it clearly.
“You didn’t fight back,” I said quietly.
She met my gaze then, really looked at me, and for a moment I felt like I was standing at the edge of something vast. Something she kept carefully contained.
“I didn’t need to,” she replied.
That was when I knew.
Not what she was.
But she was more.
More than what Silvercrest saw. More than what she allowed herself to be here. More than the story everyone had already written for her.
Ethan noticed it too, even if he couldn’t articulate it the same way. He hovered closer now, more protective, less joking. Like some instinct in him recognized that Aria had become someone others might challenge just to test themselves.
And challenges were coming. I could feel it.
Silvercrest didn’t like mysteries. It didn’t like quiet strength it couldn’t measure. People here poked at what they didn’t understand until it either broke or bared its teeth.
Aria did neither.
She simply endured—and grew.
One evening, as we walked home together, the sky painted in deep oranges and purples, I glanced at her sideways.
“People are watching you,” I said.
“I know.”
“You’re not scared?”
She thought about it. “I’m cautious. That’s different.”
I nodded slowly. It was.
When we reached Clara’s house, she stopped at the gate and turned to me.
“Leah,” she said softly.
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For never asking questions you didn’t have the right to.”
My chest tightened. “Whenever you’re ready,” I replied, choosing my words carefully, “I’ll listen.”
She smiled then—not the small polite one, but something warmer. Something grateful.
“I know,” she said.
As I walked home alone, the thought stayed with me.
Aria Williams was not the girl who arrived months ago with her head bowed and her presence dimmed.
She was not the rejected mate people whispered about.
She was becoming something else entirely—someone forged by restraint, sharpened by pain, and anchored by a strength that didn’t need permission to exist.
And when she finally chose to tell her story, I had a feeling it would change far more than just how this pack saw her.
Until then, I will wait.
Some truths deserve patience.
- Writer
