Page 1 of Quiet Obsession
1
Millie
Rain patters the windshield.
It hasn’t stopped since we landed in Seattle almost two hours ago. The dark, stormy sky hangs above us, perfectly matching my mood. Hyde careens along the winding road like we’re being chased, eyes checking the mirrors almost as often as he checks his phone. We’re lucky there’s no other traffic.
He grips the steering wheel with one hand, knuckles blanching with the effort, every line of his body winding tighter the closer we get. Maybe he’s having second thoughts.
It’d serve him right.
He shouldn’t have insisted on enrolling me at Gravemont. It’s his turf. He’s a senior, and if I know my older brother at all—which is debatable—he’s at the top of thepecking order.
I doubt he considered the consequences of dragging his odd little sister into the equation. It was a bad,badidea. I give it a week before everyone’s calling meHyde’s weird little sister.
Weird,mutelittle sister hiding under oversized jumpers.
He really didn’t think this through, did he?
People talk. They judge and point fingers, forming opinions well before they get to know a person. Hyde’s reputation will take a massive hit if someone digs into my past to figure out why I barely speak.
My parents pulled a lot of strings while frantically trying to bury what they callthe incident. Most of them snapped. They kept my reaction quiet, but there was no hiding the action.
“We’re stopping soon,” Hyde says, glancing at me, his hazel eyes softening. “You should eat something, sis.”
I’m not hungrywaits at the tip of my tongue, unspoken. I haven’t been hungry for months, but food keeps the headaches at bay, so I eat. Just not as much as my brother would like.
He exhales sharply, fingers tapping the steering wheel.
He hates this.
Hatesmelike this.
Not because he’s ashamed, at least I don’t think he is, but because he doesn’t know how tofixme.
It doesn’t stop him from trying, though.
Maybe if I’d kept my mouth shut instead of breakingalmost two months of complete silence for him, he would’ve given up by now. But I trusted him first with my voice. Single-worded answers for days, then a bit more, and more, until he became the only person I speak to in full, meaningful sentences.
Everyone else gets the bare minimum.
Yes, no,hi, bye.
People can’t use your words against you if you don’t give them any. Evan taught me that trust means handing someone a gun... and words can become ammunition.
I used to talk about everything I loved. Movies, paint colors, pencils, my favorite constellations, and the way chocolate tastes better when it’s melted. He called it exhausting.
He calledmeexhausting.
Now, I question every word.
Hyde doesn’t understand. He thinks my silence is a trauma response, a wound that needs stitching, something he can repair if he’s patient. The only reason he’s trying to fix me is that he thinks he’s the one who broke me.
In the beginning, he theorized a lot, and I think he’s still convinced I physicallycan’tget the words out. That I freeze or choke when I’m stressed, overwhelmed, orwhatever, but that’s far from the truth.
My silence is achoice.
A shield.
