So I graze my lips against Brooklyn’s damp cheek, my voice a vow wrapped in a threat.
“You think you’re ruined already? Baby girl… you haven’t even begun to break.”
She whimpers—soft, strangled, swallowed into silence. Upstairs, a door shuts.
And all I can think is how close we are to being caught. How much closer I want us to get.
Boiling Point
Kate perches on the edge of her bed, hair twisted into a messy bun, half-zipped suitcase sprawled open beside her. I’m kneeling on the floor, folding one of her tops into a neat square, but my hands won’t stop shaking. The cotton slips from my fingers, falling limp into my lap.
She notices. Of course she does. Kate notices everything.
“You’ve been weird,” she says suddenly, voice flat, eyes narrowing. No smile. No warmth. Just suspicion curling at the edges.
My chest goes tight. “Weird?” I laugh, too quick, too sharp, and shove the shirt into her suitcase like it’s suddenly offended me. “I’ve just been tired. All the work your dad—” I stop. The word dad tastes like ash in my mouth.
Her gaze sharpens, locking on me like she’s waiting for me to slip again.
“Yeah, my dad’s been keeping you busy, huh?” she says, and there’s something underneath it, something that makes my stomach drop. She tilts her head, studying me like she’s trying to match puzzle pieces that shouldn’t fit.
I force a shrug, keeping my face neutral. “He’s intense. But it’s work, you know?”
“Mm.” She drags the sound out, still staring, still dissecting me. Then she leans back against the headboard, arms folded. “You don’t have to lie to me, Brooklyn.”
My throat closes. I want to say I’m not, I want to laugh it off, I want to bury my face in the suitcase and scream into her clothes until I suffocate. Instead, I keep folding, the silence heavy, pressing, dangerous.
“Look,” Kate says, softer now, but sharper too. “I don’t know what’s going on. But there’s something. You don’t look me in the eye anymore. You’re always… distracted. And when he’s in the room—” she stops, her lips pressing into a line. “It’s different. I feel it. You think I don’t, but I do.”
My whole body seizes up. She’s not wrong. She feels it, because the truth is dripping out of me, seeping into the walls, into the air between us.
Kate’s voice drops, quiet, accusing. “So, what is it?”
I can’t breathe. Can’t blink. Can’t stop the heat from crawling up my neck. The room feels like a coffin. The walls too close. The air too thick.
Down the hall, I swear I hear a floorboard creak — like Dean’s there, listening, silent, waiting to see if I’ll betray us both.
My fingers won’t work. They keep fumbling the fabric, smoothing, refolding, as if I just keep moving, Kate won’t see me coming apart at the seams.
She does.
She always does.
Kate leans forward, elbows on her knees, eyes sharp and unrelenting. “It’s not just work, Brook. Don’t play me. You think I don’t notice the way you freeze when he walks into the room? The way your voice changes?”
Blood roars in my ears. I feel like my skin is burning as if I’ve been caught in a spotlight.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whisper, throat too tight, words too thin.
Kate’s brows lift, and for a second she almost laughs, like the denial is insulting. “Please. I’ve known you since we were twelve. I can tell when you’re lying. And right now? You’re lying your ass off.”
The silence stretches, unbearable. My pulse pounds so hard I swear she can hear it. The air between us is crackling, dangerous, like she’s about to rip me open and look at all the rot I’ve been trying to hide.
Kate tilts her head, studying me the way her father does — predatory, probing. My chest caves.
“You’ve changed,” she says finally, softer now. “You think I don’t feel it, but I do. When I’m around him, when you’re around him—” Her voice falters, and she swallows, as if even saying it tastes wrong. “Brooklyn… tell me it’s not what I think.”
The words hit like a blade to the gut.
