CHAPTER EIGHT
UNSAID RULES
ISABELLA
There should have been rules. Clear ones. Simple ones. The kind you could hold onto when things started slipping.
Don’t be alone with him.
Don’t look too long.
Don’t think about him when you’re with someone else.
Don’t want him.
That one felt the most important. And the most impossible.
———
By midday, the house felt too warm. Not physically. The breeze off the water still drifted lazily through the open windows, carrying salt and something floral I couldn’t name.
But inside me? Restless. Uneasy. Like something had shifted and refused to settle. Camille, of course, was unaffected. She moved through the day like nothing had changed, humming under her breath as she flipped through outfits on her bed.
“There’s a beach club party tonight,” she ann
