I almost choke.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes. No lie. No confession. Just raw silence tearing itself between us.
Her eyes glisten, fury and betrayal twisting behind them. “Jesus Christ.” She leans back, shakes her head like she’s trying to shake off the thought. “You wouldn’t. You couldn’t.”
I don’t move.
I don’t breathe.
Because I did.
And the longer I stay quiet, the louder the truth becomes.
A sound creaks in the hallway — heavy, deliberate. My stomach drops.
Dean.
Listening.
Kate’s gaze flicks toward the door, suspicion sharpening again. “Was that?”
“No,” I cut in too fast, scrambling to grab another shirt, shove it into her bag, anything to derail her. “Probably the pipes. This house is old.” My voice is shaking so badly I can hardly recognise it.
Kate doesn’t buy it. Her eyes narrow, scanning my face like she’s seconds away from tearing the whole secret out of me.
Kate doesn’t move for a long time. Just stares. Her jaw tight, her lips trembling like she’s about to curse me out or cry — maybe both.
I can’t take it. My throat burns with words I can’t say, with guilt I can’t purge. My fingers grip the shirt in my lap so hard I nearly rip the seams.
“Brooklyn…” her voice cracks on my name. “If you’re lying to me, if you’re—” She cuts herself off, shaking her head, whispering it instead. “He’s my dad.”
The room tilts. I almost dropped the shirt.
She sees it — the flicker of panic, the half-second too slow to school my face back into blankness. And it guts me, because her lips part, and her breath stutters like she just realised the monster in the closet isn’t in her imagination — it’s me.
“I knew it,” she whispers. Not a scream. Not a slap. Just raw, broken certainty.
I shoot up from the bed so fast I almost stumble. “Kate?—”
“Don’t.” She holds up her hand, eyes glassy, wet but fierce. “Don’t you dare.”
Something thuds in the hallway. My pulse spikes — he’s still out there. He’s listening.
Kate swipes her hands over her eyes, shoving her hair back. “You need to figure out who the hell you are, Brooklyn, because right now? I don’t even recognise you.”
Her words knife through me, but before I can answer, she’s zipping her bag, movements jagged, frantic. “Three weeks,” shesays, voice hardening like she’s bricking up her heart. “When I come back—this better not be what I think it is.”
She doesn’t give me a chance to reply. She yanks her bag off the bed and pushes past me, her shoulder brushing mine like an accusation, and then she’s gone, her footsteps pounding down the hall.
I stand there, shaking, chest caving in like it might collapse entirely.
The door clicks softly behind me. I don’t have to turn.
I can feel him.
Dean’s shadow stretches across the floor, long and heavy, swallowing mine whole.
The door’s barely shut before the silence thickens, pressing down until I can’t breathe. My chest feels cracked open, ribs splintering under the weight of everything Kate just said, everything she saw in me.
