His Voice Alone

Chapter 3

Leia’s POV

Move-in day is basically a circus designed by sadists. Boxes everywhere, parents crying like their kids are shipping off to war instead of living in air-conditioned dorms with meal plans, and approximately three hundred freshmen pretending they're not terrified.

I keep my head down, white-knuckling my suitcase handle while following our RA—Jessica, who's so aggressively peppy I'm convinced she's on something.

Everyone else looks like they stepped out of a college brochure: perfect families taking perfect photos, kids who probably had their dorm Pinterest boards planned since sophomore year of high school.

Meanwhile, I'm just trying not to look like the girl whose biggest achievement this summer was successfully avoiding family dinner for two months straight.

When I finally reach my room, I freeze in the doorway. My roommate's already claimed her territory, and holy shit, it's like Martha Stewart and a teenage influencer had a baby.

Fairy lights that probably cost more than my textbooks, throw pillows arranged with military precision, a collection of succulents that somehow look better than most people I know.

She spins around the second I walk in, and I'm hit with the full force of her smile. It's the kind of smile that could power a small city.

"You must be Leia! Finally!" She gestures toward a whiteboard covered in phone numbers. "I've already collected contact info from half the floor. Don't judge me—I work fast."

This girl is bright in the way that makes you squint, like staring directly at the sun. I haven't felt this comfortable around another human in... honestly, maybe ever.

"Impressive speed," I manage, because what else do you say to someone who's apparently turned dorm networking into an Olympic sport?

She grins wider, which shouldn't be physically possible. "One of them plays lacrosse. Tall, dark, and good with his hands—it's literally my weakness. I'm Chloe, by the way, in case you missed the seventeen texts I sent."

I push my pathetic suitcase toward the bare side of the room. Compared to her Instagram-worthy setup, my corner looks like a sad hotel room.

But I'm here. I actually made it.

The plan was simple: new point of life, college, fresh start, pretend the last eighteen years never happened. Except plans are bullshit when your past shows up in the same dorm building.

My phone had buzzed the night before—a text that made my stomach drop through the floor.

Ezra: Building C, Room 201. Don't make me find you.

I'd thrown my phone across the room like it was radioactive. Spoiler alert: it didn't help.

Because now every hallway feels like a minefield, every corner a potential ambush. I can feel him somewhere below me, probably unpacking his shit with that same methodical precision he brings to everything else.

Orientation week blurs into a montage of forced enthusiasm. Ice cream socials where the ice cream is depressingly mediocre, mixers that are basically speed dating but nobody admits it, group chats that ping every thirty seconds with people trying way too hard to be funny.

I stick to Chloe like she's my emotional support human.

She's my buffer against all the bright-eyed freshmen who want to be best friends after knowing you for twelve minutes. I smile when I'm supposed to, laugh at jokes that aren't funny, and let guys flirt without giving them my number.

I'm not looking for a relationship. I'm looking for a goddamn life jacket.

But Ezra's everywhere. Not obviously—he's too smart for that. But I catch glimpses. In my peripheral vision at the dining hall. Across the quad when I'm walking to class. On a bench reading like he just happens to be there.

He never approaches, never acknowledges me. Just... exists. Watching. Waiting.

I tell myself I'm paranoid. That I'm seeing things that aren't there because my brain is hardwired for Ezra-related anxiety. It works for exactly three days.

Then I'm walking out of my first lit class, squinting in the afternoon sun and feeling almost normal for once, when I see him. Really see him.

He's leaning against the brick wall across the courtyard, arms crossed, looking like he's been waiting for hours. Maybe he has been.

His face gives away nothing—classic Ezra poker face—but there's something in his posture that makes my chest tight.

He starts walking toward me, and every instinct I have screams run.

"Leia." He barely makes a sound, but I hear it anyway.

My name in his voice hits me like a physical thing. I spin around, hands already shaking.

His fingers move before I can think to look away: "Why are you pretending we're strangers?"

The sign language feels intimate here, surrounded by people who can't understand. Like we're having a conversation in a language only we speak.

Which, I guess, we are.

I sign back, sharp and angry: "Because we have to be. We're not at home anymore. There are different people here, different rules."

He doesn't even blink. "So what? You're going to act like none of this matters? Like I don't matter?"

"We're step-siblings." The word feels like swallowing glass.

"We're not blood related." His hands move with that devastating certainty that used to make me feel safe.

Now it just makes me want to run.

"It doesn't matter. People will see. They'll talk. They'll figure it out."

His jaw clenches, and when his hands move again, they're sharp enough to cut: "Let them. I don't care what they think. They don't know you like I do. They never will. You're mine."

The way he looks at me—like I'm something precious and dangerous at the same time—makes my knees go weak. And I hate myself for it.

I hate that my body still responds to him like muscle memory, like he's programmed into my DNA.

"Stop." My fingers are trembling so hard I can barely form the words. "You can't act like this. Not here. Not in public."

"You want me to lie?" His jaw could cut diamond. "I don't lie about what's mine."

I take a step back, then another. My chest is tight, and I'm breathing too fast. "Stay away from me. In public, in class, in the halls. I'm serious, Ezra."

He doesn't move. Not an inch. Like he's rooted to the spot by sheer force of will.

"This isn't the same as before. I won't let you ruin this."

Then I turn and walk away, because staying means losing, and I've lost enough already.

I don't look back. I don't have to. I can feel him there, watching me leave, probably memorizing the way I move so he can find me again later.

Like a shadow that learned how to wait.