Before the Exhale

By: Alyssa Wilde

Narrated by: Sloan Jadenson

Ivy Combs wants to disappear…

Halfway through her freshman year of college, all Ivy wants is to fly under the radar. Stay quiet, stay invisible. Putting up walls is the only way she knows how to cope with the trauma she's been carrying since that horrible night in high school. But no matter how hard she tries to compartmentalize the past, it seeps into everything—her classes, her friendships, her sense of self. Withdrawn and anxious, she's barely holding it together as second semester starts with the worst class imaginable: Public Speaking.

Then she meets Wes.

Smart, athletic, and effortlessly charming, senior Wes Tucker is the kind of guy everyone notices—and the kind of guy she'll do anything to avoid. When a class project throws them together, Ivy braces for the worst. Wes isn't what she expected, though. He's kind, he's patient, and Ivy finds herself wanting to believe in someone for the first time in a while.

Too bad learning to trust again seems impossible. She knows she can't move forward without confronting her past; yet, tragically, healing isn't linear. It's raw, messy, and rarely ever simple… but maybe it's not something she has to do alone.

©2026 Alyssa Wilde (P)2026 Podium Audio