The first rumor started on a Tuesday.
It came from a girl Ellie barely knew—Kaylee, maybe? Kaitlyn? One of those girls who always lingered near the lockers talking about prom dresses and college visits like their lives were already penciled into a Hallmark movie.
"You're, like, engaged? To that guy who graduated three years ago?"
Ellie didn't stop walking. "Yep."
Kaylee-something blinked. "Isn't that kinda… fast?"
Ellie didn't answer.
Because if she did, it wouldn't be kind.
That should've been the end of it. But high school had its own pulse, its own hunger. And nothing fed it faster than a story that smelled like scandal.
By Wednesday, people weren't asking—they were talking.
"Isn't he, like, way older?"
"I heard he was gone for months."
"Wait—she lives with his family?"
"Isn't she one of those Jehovah's Witness girls that got kicked out?"
Ellie did her best to drown it out.
She focused on classes, her cheer routines, work. She counted down days until Dylan called, clutched her phone like it was oxygen, and smiled when she heard his voice even if it was just for five minutes in between job sites and motel check-ins.
But the whispers crept in like cold through a cracked window.
And some cut deeper than she expected.
It was Thursday afternoon when she heard it from the worst source possible.
His stepmom.
Melanie stood in the kitchen, elbow-deep in dishwater while Ellie folded laundry at the table nearby. One of the twins had drawn on the wall again, and Anna was yelling about disinfectant from the bathroom.
"I saw one of Dylan's crew bosses at the hardware store this morning," Melanie said casually. "Said he's been real quiet. Keeps to himself."
Ellie didn't look up. "That sounds like Dylan."
Melanie hummed. "Said there's a girl at the motel that keeps bringing him extra towels."
Ellie froze.
Melanie continued, voice light but loaded. "You know what they say about those jobs on the road. What happens out there…" She shrugged. "Stays out there."
The air left Ellie's lungs like someone had kicked her in the ribs.
"You don't know that," she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
Melanie finally turned, drying her hands on a towel, eyes sharp. "I'm just saying—boys are boys. Even good ones. You think he's not lonely out there?"
Ellie stood, fists clenched at her sides. "You don't get to plant seeds in my head and call it concern."
Melanie raised a brow. "Sweetheart. I'm just trying to protect you."
"No, you're not," Ellie snapped. "You're trying to make yourself feel better for the fact that your son is in love with someone younger, braver, and more loyal than you ever gave him credit for."
The words hung in the air like a slap.
Melanie didn't respond. She didn't need to. The damage was done.
That night, Ellie couldn't sleep.
She lay on Dylan's side of the bed, breathing in his scent from the pillow, her engagement ring cold against her chest where she'd tucked it under her shirt.
She knew better than to believe Melanie. She knew Dylan.
But doubt was a quiet weapon. It didn't scream. It whispered. And tonight, it had company.
The next day at school, she overheard a boy in the hall—Travis, maybe? One of the varsity basketball guys.
"She's probably just with him for a place to live."
"I bet he gets out of it before she turns eighteen."
They laughed.
She wanted to scream. To tear down every locker, punch every smug smile into the floor.
Instead, she walked past them like she was stone. Like she wasn't bleeding.
By the time Dylan called Friday night, Ellie's voice was flat.
"Hey, baby," he said. "You sound tired."
"Long day."
He hesitated. "Something happen?"
"Nothing worth talking about."
"Ellie."
She exhaled, hand trembling. "People are talking. About us. About you."
He didn't respond.
"Your stepmom said something about the motel girl. About extra towels. About 'what happens on the road.'"
A beat of silence.
"I haven't touched anyone but you," Dylan said, voice cold and deliberate. "I don't care if they send up an army of motel girls in lingerie. You're the only thing I think about."
She blinked, tears forming. "Then why does everyone want me to believe otherwise?"
"Because people hate what they don't understand," he said. "They see a seventeen-year-old girl who got out, who chose a life they wouldn't dare to dream of. They see us and they want to ruin it, because they can't imagine something that real coming from something that messy."
Her breath caught.
"I'd never do that to you," he added, softer now. "You're not some temporary thing, El. You're my future. They can talk all they want. They don't know what it took for us to be here."
She covered her mouth with one hand, trying not to let the sob escape.
"I just feel like I'm fighting every day you're gone," she said, voice cracking. "Like I'm holding this thing together with string and spit while people try to cut it from every side."
"I know, baby. I know."
"I wear your ring like armor," she whispered. "But some days it still hurts."
"I'll be home soon," he promised. "Two more weeks, and I'll make it right."
"You don't have to make anything right," she said. "Just come back."
Over the next week, Ellie stopped caring what people said.
She wore his hoodie every other day. She held her head high at school. She walked past whispers like they were white noise.
And when she got asked why she was with "someone like that," she just smiled and said, "Because no one else has the spine to love like we do."
But inside, she counted the days like a prisoner marking a wall.
She clung to phone calls. To messages. To the last voicemail he left, where his voice was sleepy and soft: "I love you, El. I love you like fire, like thunder, like things that never die."
She wrote his words in her notebook margins.
She tattooed them into her soul.
Because love this deep didn't break from whispers.
It broke from silence.
And Dylan had never gone quiet.
Not once.