Under His Roof

CHAPTER VII

His words hung in the air long after he left the room, heavy enough to keep me awake until the sun began to warm the edges of the bedroom curtains.

There's a reason you don't remember.

I lay under the thin quilt, staring at the ceiling and trying to convince myself he was just playing mind games, trying to make me feel small. But every time I closed my eyes, the memory of that jagged blue handwriting flashed behind my eyelids.

Downstairs at breakfast, Zeke acted like the conversation had never happened.

He sat at the small kitchen table in his oil stained work pants, silently eating toast while reading a mechanical manual.

He didn't glare at me. He didn't sigh when I poured my coffee.

That quiet, completely normal behavior made my stomach knot far more than his usual hostility.

I waited until his parents left the room to grab their coats for work.

As soon as the hallway door clicked shut behind them, I stepped between Zeke and the back entrance, blocking his path.

"What happened at the lake?" I asked, keeping my voice low so it wouldn't carry through the floorboards.

Zeke didn't stop moving until he was a foot away from me.

He reached past me toward the coat rack, grabbing his canvas jacket without making eye contact.

"I'm going to be late for the shop."

"You can't keep blaming me for something I don't even remember," I said, my voice tight with a mix of frustration and genuine desperation. "If I did something terrible, tell me."

Zeke paused, his hand gripping the heavy collar of his jacket.

He looked down at me, his gray eyes shadowed with a dark, weary look I hadn't seen on him before.

"That's exactly the problem," he said softly.

He didn't raise his voice. He didn't snap.

He just brushed past me, opened the screen door, and walked out into the cold morning air, leaving the line hanging between us like a physical weight.

Two hours later, I was back in the stockroom of Bennett Hardware, trying to focus on logging boxes of galvanized nails.

Mr. Bennett had asked me to help restock the timber section near the rear loading dock.

I hauled a crate of cedar planks onto a wooden sawhorse, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my wrist.

The sharp, pungent scent of freshly cut pine mixed with the damp autumn air blowing through the open metal door.

As I pulled another board from the stack, a sudden, violent wave of nausea hit me.

The smell of the wet wood surged through my senses, bringing with it a sudden jolt of cold air that had nothing to do with the shop.

My hands froze on the wooden plank.

The lake.

A sudden vision flashed behind my eyes, so clear it made my knees buckle slightly against the concrete floor.

I was eleven years old, standing near the tall reeds at the edge of the water.

My white shoes were covered in dark mud, but I wasn't looking at them.

I was hiding behind a large pine tree, listening to shouting coming from the nearby dock.

I heard Zeke's voice, younger and cracked with panic.

He was arguing with someone, his voice rising over the sound of splashing water.

"Put it down! You're going to break it!"

Then came another sound, a sharp crack that echoed across the water, followed by a heavy splash.

Before I could see who Zeke was talking to, the vision snapped shut.

The concrete floor of the stockroom rushed back into focus, the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights filling my ears once again.

I leaned heavily against the wooden sawhorse, my heart hammering against my ribs, cold sweat lining the back of my neck.

Zeke wasn't lying.

I really had forgotten.

Around three in the afternoon, Mr. Bennett asked me to take a box of receipts to the local printing shop down the block.

I welcomed the excuse to step out into the fresh air, stepping onto the cracked sidewalk of Main Street with the paper box tucked under my arm.

As I approached the corner, a guy leaning against a parked sedan looked up from his phone.

He had sun bleached hair and a faded high school letterman jacket, his dark eyes narrowing as he took in my face.

"Daphne?" he called out, pushing himself off the hood of the car. "Daphne Calloway?"

I slowed down, looking at him with caution.

"Yes?"

"I thought that was you," he said, walking over with a surprised smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Evan Carter. My dad ran the summer camp back in 2018."

The name clicked immediately.

Evan was three years older than us, the counselor's son who used to run the water sports on the lake.

"Evan," I said, offering a small, polite smile. "It's been a long time."

"Yeah, no kidding," he said, eyeing my simple sweater and jeans. "Heard about your dad's company on the news. Crazy stuff. What are you doing in Cedar Ridge?"

"I'm staying with the Bennetts for a while," I replied, shifting the box in my arms.

Evan's smile faltered instantly.

The relaxed posture disappeared, his shoulders straightening as his eyes searched my face.

"You're staying with Zeke?"

"Yes," I said, leaning forward slightly. "Evan, since you were at the camp that summer, do you remember what happened near the lake? The day with the argument?"

Evan stared at me, his mouth opening slightly before he closed it tightly.

His gaze flicked past my shoulder toward the hardware store down the street, as if checking to see if anyone was watching us.

"You don't remember?" he asked, his tone dropping an octave.

A chill ran down my spine.

"No. What are you talking about?"

Evan shook his head slowly, taking a step back toward his car.

"I thought Zeke told you. Look, Daphne, I'm not getting involved in this. If Zeke didn't bring it up, I sure as hell am not going to be the one who opens that door."

"Evan, wait."

I stepped forward, but he was already getting into the driver's seat.

"Talk to Zeke," he said through the open window before starting the engine and pulling out into the street, leaving me standing alone on the curb.

My stomach dropped into a cold pit.

Zeke wasn't just holding a grudge.

Other people knew about whatever happened that day, and everyone was keeping the truth away from me.

When I got back to the house that evening, the rooms were empty.

Mr. and Mrs. Bennett were attending a town meeting, and Zeke was working late at the local garage to finish a repair job.

I walked straight to the kitchen, my boots echoing loudly against the floorboards.

The cardboard box labeled CEDAR RIDGE SUMMER CAMP, 2018 was still sitting on top of the pantry cabinet where Mrs. Bennett had left it.

I pulled a wooden chair over, climbed up, and grabbed the box, bringing it down to the wooden table.

My fingers trembled as I removed the lid and tipped the contents onto the wood.

Photos spilled out in a messy pile: campfires, swimming races, cabin groups.

I began going through them one by one, looking for anything that felt familiar, anything that matched the sudden flash of memory from the stockroom.

Near the very bottom of the box, wedged beneath a stack of printed camp schedules, my thumb hit a smaller photo that had been tucked inside a paper envelope.

I pulled it out.

It was taken on the wooden dock by the lake, bathed in the orange light of a late afternoon sun.

Younger Zeke was standing near the edge, his red cast visible on his arm.

Next to him stood a younger version of me in my white dress.

But there was a third person standing between us.

My throat went dry as I brought the picture closer to the overhead lamp.

Someone had taken a metal key or a knife and violently scratched out the third person's face.

The surface of the print was torn away in deep, white gouges, completely hiding who it was.

All that remained was the outline of a boy wearing a dark blue jacket.

I turned the photograph over.

On the back, written in the same jagged, dark blue ballpoint pen as the first photo, was a second handwritten message:

You weren't supposed to remember him.