If I Were Her

Chapter 6

Morning crept into the kitchen in a thin, uncertain line, slipping between the blinds as though it wasn’t sure it belonged there. Vivian stood at the counter with her hands wrapped around a still-steaming mug, letting the heat settle into her palms. She hadn’t slept, not really. She had drifted in and out, her thoughts circling the same few memories and worries like a drain that refused to clear.

She heard Thomas before she saw him — the slow, heavy steps of a man trying not to wake the house but too tired to move lightly. He entered with stiff shoulders and a face that hadn’t softened since last night’s argument.

He didn’t greet her. He rarely did first.

Vivian cleared her throat gently. “Coffee?”

Thomas paused, then nodded with a tight movement, more an obligation than acceptance. She poured it quietly, the sound of the stream louder than it should’ve been in the quiet kitchen.

When she handed him the mug, their fingers brushed. Even that small contact felt like an accident that neither acknowledged.

They stood in a long silence, the kind that wasn’t peaceful but wasn’t a fight either — the hollow space between the two.

Vivian finally spoke. “I checked on Iris last night. She was awake. I think the argument scared her.”

“It should,” Thomas said, blunt and low. “She needs to understand she can’t just disappear again.”

Vivian’s breath faltered. “Thomas— she didn’t walk away from us on purpose.”

“You don’t know that,” he replied, not raising his voice, but carving the words with an edge. “None of us know anything about what happened. And she won’t talk.”

“She’s overwhelmed,” Vivian murmured. “She needs time.”

“She’s had seven years of time.”

The silence after that was hard, the kind that pressed against Vivian’s ribs.

Thomas set his cup down on the counter but didn’t let go of it, hands braced like he needed the surface to stay steady.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

Vivian’s stomach tightened. Nothing good ever started with that sentence.

“She’s Nineteen now. We need to start making decisions for her future.” His voice stayed rigid, practical, the way it always did when he felt something too deeply. “College applications. What comes next.”

Vivian exhaled slowly. “I know.”

“And if she goes,” Thomas continued, “she stays here. She’ll commute. No campus housing.”

The words hit the air with the weight of something final.

Vivian looked up sharply. “Thomas—”

“No.” He cut her off, not loudly, but with a firmness that closed the space like a door. “It’s not negotiable.”

Vivian stepped closer to the counter, fingers tightening around her mug. “She’ll want independence. Normalcy. She can’t get that living under this roof forever.”

“She’s not living under this roof forever,” Thomas said, jaw tensing. “She’s living under this roof until we know she’s not going to vanish again.”

“She didn’t vanish,” Vivian snapped, her voice breaking with the effort of keeping it quiet. “She got lost”

“And I’m not letting that happen again.”

His voice finally shook—just barely—but enough for her to hear the fear beneath the steel.

Vivian softened, her anger dissolving into something more fragile. “Tom… she’s safe now.”

“She’s here now,” he corrected. “Safe is… different.”

He lifted his mug again, staring into the coffee as if it might give him something solid to hold on to.

“Campus housing means strangers. Less supervision. Less structure.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “Too many places to slip away. Or be taken. And we won’t know until it’s too late.”

Vivian shook her head, not at him but at the picture he was painting — a world made only of threats. A world where Iris was a fragile thing instead of a growing one.

“You’re going to trap her,” she whispered.

Thomas flinched at that, the smallest crack in his guarded posture. “I’m trying to keep her alive.”

Vivian’s chest tightened. “Why do you keep saying this, like the world is not a safe place.”

“It isn’t,” he said, voice steady again. “Not with her. Not after what happened.”

Vivian tried again. “If she wants to experience dorm life—”

“She won’t.” His words were final. “Because we won’t allow it.”

Vivian closed her eyes, inhaling slow, holding back the frustration she didn’t want to spill into another morning argument.

“She’s going to fight this,” she murmured.

Thomas set his cup down. “And we’ll deal with it when she does.”

He walked past her, brushing her shoulder with the side of his arm in a movement that wasn’t affectionate or rude — just inevitable. As he reached the doorway, he paused.

“She’s staying here,” he repeated quietly. “I won’t lose her again, Vivian. Not like that. Not ever.”

And then he left the kitchen, leaving Vivian standing in the thin morning light with a coffee gone cold in her hands and a fear settling heavy in her chest — the fear that the walls Thomas wanted to build around Iris might end up pushing her away all over again

When Thomas’s footsteps faded down the hall, the silence folded in around her like a heavy cloak. Vivian set her mug down gently, afraid even the soft clink against the counter might crack something open inside her.

For years, she had forced herself to believe the official version — that Iris had wandered off. That kids get distracted.

That accidents happen.

But Iris’s return had shattered that lie in a single glance. In the quiet way she moved. In the way she listened for footsteps before she spoke. In the instinctive pause she carried in her body — not fear, exactly, but something learned. Something shaped over time.

And Iris had spoken so highly of the couple who raised her.

Showered her with kindness.

Protected her.

Loved her.

So if they weren’t the ones who hurt her…

Then who had?

Vivian’s breath trembled.

It hadn’t been an accident.

It had never been an accident.

She had been taken.

By who?

And why?

And how much had been planned from the beginning?

Another thought slid in, darker and colder:

Were her foster parents involved?

Or had they simply become part of someone else’s design — unwitting guardians in a puzzle meant to keep Iris hidden?

The questions crawled through Vivian’s mind like cold fingers, gripping at the spaces she’d avoided for seven years. She felt nauseous suddenly, a wave of guilt and fear rising sharp beneath her ribs.

The worst question, the one she barely let herself touch, flickered at the edges of her thinking

Did Thomas know more than he said he did?

He had always been too calm in the aftermath. Too controlled. Too… certain of the story they told the police. There were nights when she caught him staring into the dark with a clenched jaw, like he was holding something behind his teeth.

Vivian shut her eyes, pushing the thought away violently.

No.

No, that was impossible.

Thomas was broken, not deceitful.

Wounded, not withholding.

A man who had lost his daughter and blamed himself so deeply that controlling every inch of Iris’s future was the only way he knew how to breathe.

He wasn’t hiding anything.

He couldn’t be.

Vivian steadied herself, exhaling slowly. She forced her hands to unclench, forced the questions back into the shadows where they had lived for years.

She was being paranoid.

Exhausted.

Overrun by old fears and new ones.

Thomas wasn’t the mystery here.

Whoever took Iris was.

And someday — Vivian feared — that truth would come back for all of them.

_________________

Ava slumped onto the edge of the couch, phone forgotten beside her. Her parents were out. Finally. Quiet. Free. She had called Ethan over knowing it was the only time she could see him without interruptions. Even so… Iris was probably in her room somewhere, probably listening, probably…

There.

That thought twisted in her chest, a tangle of frustration and irritation.

It had been months since she’d last been with him — back when school was in session, when the days were predictable and parents weren’t hovering every time Iris was awake. Since Iris had returned, their parents had practically been on call 24/7, rushing at her sister’s beck and call, leaving Ava to feel like she was constantly stepping around someone else’s shadow.

And now, she wanted Ethan. She wanted him here. She wanted him near. She didn’t care that Iris’s presence complicated things.

The sound of the door clicking made her heart leap. Ethan stepped inside, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, grin crooked and familiar, hair slightly mussed.

“Hey,” he said, trying to sound casual.

Ava smirked, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Finally. I figured I’d have to sneak you in while the coast was clear.”

He laughed softly, a little nervous, a little hungry. “Smart move. I was starting to wonder if I’d get away with it.”

The air between them pulsed with something that didn’t need words. Ava leaned closer, brushing a hand against his arm, heart racing. Every glance, every brush of fingers felt like a spark, like electricity tracing along skin.

“You’ve been… distracted,” Ethan murmured, teasing, but there was an edge in his voice that mirrored her own tension.

“Maybe I’m distracted by you,” Ava replied, letting her words linger. She stepped closer, pressing against him, feeling the heat of familiarity and the ache of months apart.

Their lips met in a slow, urgent kiss, hands brushing, bodies pressing close. Familiar. Dangerous. Each touch a reminder of the last time, of everything they had shared, of the moments they’d stolen when the world wasn’t watching.

Ava broke the kiss, chest heaving. “I don’t care if she’s here,” she murmured, eyes flashing. “I want you.”

Ethan’s eyes darkened, responding in kind. Their breaths mingled, hearts hammering, the house silent around them — save for the faint echo of distant rooms.

Their kiss lasted all the way up to her room, losing pieces of clothing with each step they took.

You could hear the soft giggles coming from Ava as Ethan carried her up, ass first with her long legs wrapping around his body, with one swift move, he kicked the door open and they collapsed on her bed.

He was Rock hard and yet she took him in her mouth, fireworks exploded in his brain. There was this thing she did with her tongue that no one else could

“Ava” he growled, writhing on the bed, wanting her to stop and at the same time go deeper.

She let out a guttural laugh enjoying what she did to him but not being able to control her self any longer. In one swift move, she put her lips on his and took him inside her, letting out a gasp

She had missed him.

At this point she didn’t care if Iris heard her, she rode him hard and fast with moans that matched her pace.

When it was over, Ava sank back slightly, still flushed, still pressing close to him. The tension lingered in the room, heavy and thrilling. She glanced toward the hallway again, irritation creeping in. Iris’s presence made everything feel smaller, more complicated, as if the world itself had been rearranged around her sister. Why does she have to be everywhere? Ava thought. Why can’t anything just be mine for a second?

—————————

God, he wanted her.

He wanted Ava.

But even in the heat of that moment, something kept tugging at the edges of his mind.

Iris.

Her name. Her presence in the house. For some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, even when she wasn’t there. Innocent, random, unavoidable. A fragment here, a flicker there — small, quiet, but impossible to ignore.

It wasn’t desire. Not like Ava. Not even close. Just… curiosity, confusion, a weird pull he didn’t understand. Why did her name appear in his thoughts now? Why did he imagine talking to her, hearing her voice, just for a moment? The thought alone made his chest tighten.

He shook his head, trying to push it down, but it lingered stubbornly, like a shadow at the edge of his mind. He didn’t want it to, didn’t even like that it was there. And yet, there it was, quiet, insistent, complicated.

He tried to focus on the warmth still lingering from Ava, the closeness, the pulse of desire that had just been. But the more he tried, the more Iris crept in, a subtle echo in the back of his thoughts, a question without an answer.

Finally, he grabbed his phone, thumb hovering, heart pounding from everything that had just happened and everything he couldn’t explain. Simple, small, impossible. One word. One start of something he wasn’t ready to face — and yet couldn’t resist.

Hi.