Chapter 3 The Quiet Between Storms

Chapter 3

The Quiet Between Storms

For a moment, the thought of her actions, the world held its breath. The gala night had descended into whispers, but the storm Juliet stirred had passed, by for now. The town's elite went back to their dances and drinks and their glances carried questions that wouldn't rest. Juliet vanished into the velvet night, leaving only silence and speculation in them. And while Anderson stood fractured by confusion, Juliet found herself retreating not into fear, but memories. A quieter war awaited within her, in her secret chambers of the heart where past and present collided in. For behind the eyes she once dared to love... but the ttruth not yet buried.

Mario Telly had never belonged to the world of Juliet lived in, or his household, if it could be called that, then he is leaning precariously on the edge of a wind-beaten hill, one hard gust away from the collapse. Tin roofs whispered misery, during the rains, and the floorboards spoke of hungers. His family was wellishly structured in poverty, a hierarchy of survival for him to them. Father gone. Mother tired. Sisters quiet. Hope was a distant stranger with them.

But the day he saw Juliet, standing by the lake in a summer dress gorgeouly dressed, holding a sketchpad and frowning at the horizon like it had offended her then. something inside Mario cracked opened.

He wasn't meant to approach her due to his unclassy life. But he did.

And when he spoke to her, something in his voice, honestly, raspy, unpolishedly made her look up. He asked her what she was drawing, and Juliet, surprisingly answered, the intrusion, surprised herself more by answering.

"A home," she said.

Mario peered, "Looks lonely," he replied. "Homes aren't homes that no one lives in 'em."

That was the beginning.

He showed her a different world to life. Not luxury, but with sincerity. He saves money from odd jobs, hauling crates at the docks, fixing fences my times, helping Mr. Gordan with his firewood, to fetch her fresh guavas, old poetry books, or scraps of colored ribbon he thought likes.

Juliet, for all her wealth and expectation in life, began to craving the dirt under her nails, after spending hours in the field with him. The thrills of uncalculated laughter. The taste of mangoes, being picked without permission. The long walks home with fingers brushed together, until one day, its held.

They were so reckless in their affection. Their bodies spoke as boldly as their eyes could see. The first time they made love, it was in the barn, behind Mr. Edger's estate, and Juliet cried, not out of pain, but out of something that she felt, like being found. Mario was gentle, then hungry for her. Their bodies knew no class lines to them, only desires. Her skin bore the goosebumps of his kisses to her, his name fell from her lips like worship to her.

They would meet wherever, their shadows allowed them. Beneath stars. Behind the trees. Under cracked ceilings, every time.i it was as if they were rebuilding a piece of worldon their own, one gasp, one sigh, one thrust at a time for them.

She had never known touch like this before, one that arises her internally and makes her blossom in longing for his penetrations, he mapped her body with reverence, how he seemed to memorize every breath she took. With him, love-making wasn't an act its was a science that rebuild the mind. Her moans weren't merely sound that is her confessions of his love to her. When he held her after, she imagined a world where this wasn't no secret, where loving him was not betrayal but a sign of professions

But the real world came knocking. Juliet's father arranged her engagement to Anderson, a man with old money, a political lineage, and the temperament of dry toast in him. Juliet said nothing, not at first to them. She thought she could keep both to herself. But silence has a way of rotting things out.

When Mario found out, it wasn't from her lips it came out from. It was from Taylor's, a gossip with too much time and too little empathy in him. He confronted Juliet not with anger, but heartbreak, telling her how much he fells for her.

"You were my tomorrow," he said, voice breaking into tears. "You were the air I breathed in me, Juliet."

She cried although that night, harder than she had ever cried before in her life. But she did not leave Anderson. She chose the expectations. The order. The name too.

Mario left her. No note. No farewell. Just absence within her.

Juliet hadn't expected to see Mario again but when their eyes met across the golden-lit hall, the ground beneath her felt as if it is slippery. He wasn't the boy from that hills anymore, that he had presented himself now.Pain weaponized into strength and his suit was tailored but simple. His scars weren't hidden, they were highlighted.

The town began to whisper even before Juliet spoke to him. And Anderson... poor, clueless Anderson... stood watching a love story, he was never part, unfolding in real time.

But what unnerved Juliet more, than Mario's return was the way he looked at her so desirously, as though he knew something at all. As though he hadn't come just for closure to her.

Days after, Juliet's carefully constructed her life, began to feel like a lie she had willingly swallowed within her. Letters began arriving without return addresses to her. Small gifts, pressed flowers, ribbon scraps, a well-worn poetry book, appeared where only she could find them on time. Someone was haunting her past now, not to hurt her, but to remind her of an unforgettable love.

To remember what it felt like to be chosen.

But danger hovered too. Jones, the fixer, began asking questions after questions .Taylor's gossips turned into allegations to her.And Anderson's jealousy simmered, under his fine clothes and forced smiles.

Juliet's world was cracking, and at the center of it stood Mario, not as a ghost, but also as a reckoning.