Sadie’s POV
The days after Chloe's exile were strange – not quiet, not calm, but strange in the way a room feels after a piece of furniture has been removed. The shape of everything had changed, even though nothing visible had moved.
The rumors stopped. Not gradually – abruptly, like someone had turned off a faucet. One day the whispers followed me through the corridors, and the next they were gone, replaced by a silence that was almost more conspicuous. People still looked at me in the faculty lounge, but the looks had shifted from knowing to uncertain, as if the script they'd been handed had been rewritten overnight and they were waiting for the new one.
I didn't need to ask why. I knew.
Taylor had done exactly what he said he would do. Not publicly, not dramatically, but through the
