The Voices I Face by Brianna Campbell

Author:Brianna Campbell [Campbell, Brianna Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781959562078
Publisher: Brianna Lynn Campbell

Liera avoided Andrew’s glances at the table by stirring her smoothie and wishing she could drown in it. Her throat tightened. She shouldn’t have come out for lunch, but she couldn’t let anyone else see something was wrong. She couldn’t burden them that way.

Her eyes stung. I will not start crying here. She bit down on her tongue. “Ow!”

Ma raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just bit my tongue.” Liera forced a laugh and gathered control of her feelings, burying them in the numbness that suddenly appeared safe. With it, she didn’t need to feel panic. Held within its grip, she wouldn’t fall apart.

“Are you going to eat that?” Adriel asked, eyeing her smoothie before taking a final slurp from his empty cup.

Liera took a sip. “Of course.”

“So I wanted to talk about something,” Andrew said.

Liera froze and stared at him. Andrew glanced at her and then at Ma and back. Liera’s heart pounded as she held eye contact with him, mentally begging him not to do this.

“Go ahead,” Ma said.

Andrew hung his head slightly as he looked down at his smoothie and stirred it. “I’ve been thinking of switching majors.”

Liera leaned back in her seat; she slipped her hands onto her lap and held them together to contain the shaking, and the conversation disappeared behind the panicked ringing in her ears.

As she regained function, she sat up and pushed her smoothie toward Adriel. “May I be excused?”

Ma furrowed her brow. “Is everything okay? You don’t want to stay for a game?”

“I’m fine; just feeling tired today.”

“Alright,” she raised an eyebrow at Andrew. “Have they been staying up late again?”

Andrew shrugged while Liera left the table.

She glanced back before rounding the corner to see Andrew watching her with an expression…was it judgement? Confusion? Maybe what it was didn’t matter as much as the fact that he was clearly not okay with what he’d seen, and that was her fault. Liera hung her head and dug her nails into her palm. Why are you such a burden?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.