CHAPTER 31
The quiet didn’t stop working.
If anything, it was growing teeth.
By Monday afternoon, it wasn’t just guilt hanging around my stepmother’s house—it was paranoia. Every time I walked into a room, Tina flinched like she expected me to scream or throw something. Steph kept calling at odd times, then hanging up before the second ring. Chen was still trying, still knocking on my silence like it was a door I might open if he knocked hard enough.
But they were all wrong.
I wasn’t behind a door.
I was the storm outside it.
—
Tuesday morning, I went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Tina was there, barefoot in one of her soft robes, scrolling through her phone like it held the cure to the anxiety wrapping around her. When she saw me, her hand trembled, and she set the phon
