He Crushed My Hearing Aid to Keep Me, Not Knowing I Just Heard His Confession Chapter 04

He Crushed My Hearing Aid to Keep Me, Not Knowing I Just Heard His Confession Chapter 04

It all clicked. I’d been wondering why Silas had filed the cheating report against me.

Someone had reported Blair first. That was all the reason he’d needed.

I didn’t write back. He’d already decided it was me. Nothing I said would change that.

I hadn’t expected the media circus.

They shoved phones and microphones in my face, and I dropped my head — not out of guilt. I was just scared.

Then Silas showed up.

The second the crowd saw us together, they connected the dots — he was the one who’d filed the report. “So all three of you were in the same exam room — Silas, who was actually cheating?”

Voices stacked over one another. The noise pressed in from all sides, and suddenly I was back in that summer — pinned down, interrogated, torn apart.

Back then, they’d used my hearing loss against me, piled everything on the girl who couldn’t fight back. And back then, it was Silas who’d stepped forward. “It wasn’t her.”

The memory dissolved. I was back in the present, staring at Silas, waiting for him to say it again — to clear my name like he always used to.

He opened his mouth.

“It’s Clara.”

Static roared through my skull.

I read his lips. No hesitation. My name, shaped clearly and deliberately.

Why?

How could someone turn this fast? How could he stand there and destroy me without flinching?

The crowd closed in. Silas pulled Blair behind him — shielded her. And left me standing in the middle of it — people circling, questions turning into accusations, every camera fixed on my face.

Someone shoved me. I went down. Feet everywhere — crushing my hands, my ribs, my back. A stranger pulled me out and called an ambulance.

I watched the IV drip count the time for me.

The door swung open. Blair and Silas. Blair swept over to my bed first, all theatrics, and took my hand.

“Clara, are you feeling better?” She paused — then remembered I couldn’t hear her. The smile that spread across her face showed teeth.

“God, Clara. Your parents are dead, Alden’s off the table, and now your college prospects are completely dead. How do you even get up in the morning?”

“Honestly, I almost feel bad for you.”

I blinked at her, sweet and blank, and pointed to my ear. Shook my head.

Silas’s thoughts slid in. “She’s so cute like this. God, I wish it could stay like this — just me, being her ears. Being everything.”

“Why won’t she look at me? Doesn’t she care anymore? Does she hate me?”

I swallowed the revulsion crawling up my throat and looked at Blair.

“Hey, Blair — want to bet I can make Silas drop everything to retake the exam with me? One sentence. That’s all it’d take.”

Blair’s smile cracked. Jealousy rushed in behind it — fast and ugly.

She whipped around to face Silas. “Is that true?”

Something flared behind Silas’s eyes — gone almost instantly — and he nodded. No hesitation.

That broke her. Blair lunged at me, fingers closing around my throat, her eyes wild.

“He’s insane — you know that, right?”

“The hit-and-run? That was his idea. He told me to do it. He planned the whole thing.”

“And my payoff? He made sure the school looked the other way on my exam.”

“He doesn’t love you. He hates you. That’s why he does this — all of it.”

Her grip tightened. Her eyes were red-rimmed, burning.

She clenched her jaw — then, suddenly, she laughed.

“Too bad you can’t hear a word I’m saying.”

“Who said I need to hear?”

I smiled at her. Blinked. Slow and sweet.