Chapter 2: Present day
The smell of Veronica’s dorm room was a familiar comfort to Stephanie—a mix of coconut hair oil, old books, and the faint, sweet scent of weed clinging to a Bob Marley poster. Right now, it was the only thing holding her together. She sat curled in the center of Veronica’s large, plush bed, her own long hair a tangled curtain hiding her face. Each hiccupping sob felt like it was being torn from her chest.
The door clicked open and Veronica stepped inside, dropping her heavy law textbook bag with a thud. She took one look at the shaking form on her bed and her entire posture shifted. The sharp, academic focus she carried from her classes melted away, replaced by something primal and immediate.
“Steph?” Her voice was low, the Jamaican cadence a soft rumble. “What dem do to you now?”
Stephanie just shook her head, unable to form the words. The taunts echoed in her mind, a chorus of mocking, exaggerated French accents. Ooh la la. Stupid little heiress. Their laughter, sharp and brittle, cutting deeper than any physical shove.
Veronica crossed the room in two long strides. She didn’t ask again. She just sat on the edge of the bed, the springs groaning under her weight, and gathered Stephanie into her arms. Stephanie crumpled against her, face pressing into the soft, worn cotton of Veronica’s sweatshirt. She smelled of cold city air and determination.
“Shhh, ma chérie,” Veronica murmured, using the term she’d picked up from Stephanie’s family over the years. Her hand, large and steady, rubbed slow circles on Stephanie’s back. “Is alright. Breathe. Dem is nothing. Dust.”
“They are not dust,” Stephanie choked out, her accent thickened by tears. “They are… they are like the knot in the floor. The mean face. They are always watching.”
Veronica went still for a second, the childhood memory flashing between them—a dark spot on wood that became a monster in the safety of their blanket fort. Her arms tightened. “Then mek we send dem back into the floor where dem belong.”
She held Stephanie until the sobs subsided into shaky breaths, until the tension left her body and she was just a warm, heavy weight against her side. Veronica smiled then, a small, private thing she pressed into Stephanie’s hair. It was a smile of fierce, terrible love. A promise.
Later, with Stephanie asleep under her duvet, washed in the blue glow of the streetlamp outside the window, Veronica quietly packed her bag. Not her law books. She changed into darker, looser clothes, her movements efficient and silent. She looked at Stephanie one more time, the innocent curve of her cheek against the pillow, and then she slipped out into the hall.
The confrontation was short. Brutal. It happened in the concrete-smelling stairwell the three girls always used as a shortcut. Veronica’s height and presence filled the space, cutting off their easy escape.
“We have a problem,” Veronica said, her voice not loud, but carrying a weight that silenced their giggling instantly.
One of them, a blonde with a perpetually sneering mouth, tried to bluff. “What, you her guard dog now?”
Veronica didn’t answer with words. Her fist, hardened by years of carrying heavy books and a heavier burden of protectiveness, connected with the girl’s mouth. A sharp, wet crack. A cry that was more shock than pain.
The other two froze. They were bullies of words, of petty social cruelties. They weren’t prepared for this visceral, physical language.
Veronica moved with a terrifying economy. A shove sent one stumbling into the rusted railing. She grabbed the other by the front of her jacket, pulling her close. “You ever speak to her again,” Veronica whispered, her green eyes locked on the girl’s wide, terrified ones, “and me won’t use me fist next time. Understand? Her voice is beautiful. Yours sound like dying cats. Remember dat.”
She released her, letting the girl stumble back into her friend, who was now whimpering, blood dripping from her split lip onto the grimy concrete.
Veronica didn’t wait for a response. She turned and walked back up the stairs, her heart hammering against her ribs not from fear, but from a raw, purging fury. The adrenaline was a live wire under her skin.
Back in the dorm, the silence was a blanket. Stephanie was still asleep. Veronica stood over the sink in her small attached bathroom, the fluorescent light buzzing overhead. She examined her knuckles. They were raw and already beginning to swell, the skin split over two of them. She ran cold water over them, the sting a sharp, clarifying counterpoint to the thrumming in her veins.
She looked at her own reflection in the mirror. The feared law student. The protector. The girl who just beat the hell out of three people in a stairwell. And the girl who was desperately, hopelessly in love with the sleeping figure in the next room.
It was all there, warring in her eyes. The violence and the devotion, tangled together so tightly she could never separate them. She turned off the water and dried her hands carefully, the silence of the room feeling fragile, like the moment before a storm breaks.