Watching Them Burn: My Rebirth Story novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Her Own Words

Darby's POV

"It wasn't me," Willa said again, into the microphone, and her voice carried to the back of the hall.

Nobody breathed.

Dane stood three steps away from her and did not look at her.

"Willa," his father said from the wing. "You're unwell. Come off the stage."

"No."

"You've had a difficult month."

"No, sir." She held the stand with both hands. "I'm going to tell it. I promised somebody I'd tell it myself."

She looked at me.

I stood in the dark aisle and did not move.

"My name is Willa Stanhope," she said. "I've known Dane since we were nine. I've been in love with him since I was fourteen."

Somebody in the audience muttered.

"I wasn't there that night. I was home, asleep. He told me the next morning, and I thought it was beautiful. And I wished it was me."

Dane's shoulders sank.

"Over the summer he told me about that night in his car, over and over. I learned every word without meaning to. On the first Monday of term, I watched a girl turn him down in front of the whole lecture hall."

She swallowed.

"I was so afraid he'd go to her that I said I was the one. At the fountain. In front of everybody. I'd never heard the real voice. I couldn't even hum it."

"Willa," Dane said hoarsely.

"Let me finish." She was crying, but her voice stayed even. "Dane's father had been paying my tuition since July to keep Dane steady. When I said it was me, he saw a use for it. He hired a voice coach. She spent two weeks teaching me to hum the three notes the way Dane described them, and I practiced in the mirror until it didn't sound like me anymore."

A murmur rose across the hall, a low swelling sound.

The man in the gray suit stepped out of the wing.

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