Chapter 22: Secrets Between Sheets
The rain hadn’t stopped for hours.
It slammed against the glass in sheets, wild and furious, as if the sky itself had decided to break apart. Lightning cut through the clouds like veins of white fire, followed by thunder that rolled deep and angry across the horizon. The mansion felt smaller tonight — heavy with the kind of silence that exists between two people trying not to say too much.
I sat on the couch, my legs pulled out, a blanket wrapped around me like armor. The generator hummed in the background, its low growl filling the pauses between thunderclaps. The air smelled of wet earth and old wood — that strange mix of comfort and restlessness.
Lucas was there too. He’d stayed after dinner because the roads were flooding, or so he said. I didn’t
