Chapter Six: Cracks at Home
646 Words
Dinner that night was tense in a way Lily hadn't experienced since moving in. Richard kept glancing between her and Ethan with a puzzled frown, clearly picking up on an atmosphere he couldn't quite name, while Susan chattered on about a school fundraiser committee she'd been asked to join, oblivious to the storm brewing across the table.
"Everything okay with you two?" Richard finally asked, when the silence stretched too long even for him to ignore.
"Fine," Ethan and Lily said at the exact same time, which somehow made it obvious that it wasn't.
Richard's frown deepened, but Susan smoothly redirected the conversation, and dinner limped forward under a blanket of forced normalcy. Lily excused herself the moment she could, retreating upstairs, and had barely closed her bedroom door when her phone buzzed with a text from Dana.
It's getting worse. Someone made a whole account dedicated to "exposing" you and Kai. You should see it before someone shows you at school tomorrow.
Lily's stomach dropped as she opened the link Dana had sent. The account had barely been up for a few hours and already had a following, filled with screenshots, speculation, and comments from strangers debating whether the "stepsister scandal" was real or staged for attention. Someone had even dug up an old photo of her from her previous school's yearbook, captioned with something cruel about her being an outsider desperate for attention now that she was living with "the school's golden boy."
She closed the app, feeling sick, and sat on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands, wondering how a photo taken out of context in a chemistry lab had spiraled into something that made her feel like she couldn't breathe.
A soft knock sounded at her door.
"Yeah?" she called, expecting her mother.
Instead, Ethan stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him, his expression stripped of the careful blankness he'd worn all evening. Up close, in the low light of her bedroom lamp, he looked exhausted, guilt written plainly across his features in a way he clearly hadn't wanted anyone downstairs to see.
"I saw the account," he said quietly.
"Great. So did half the school."
"Lily...." He crossed the room, stopping a careful distance away, close enough to talk quietly but far enough to keep some semblance of control. "I need you to trust me on something, even though I can't explain it yet."
"Trust you." She let out a humorless laugh. "You've barely given me a reason to."
"I know." His voice was rough, low, edged with something that sounded almost like desperation. "But everything that's happening right now the rumors, the attention, all of it... it's dangerous. Not just for your reputation. Dangerous in a way you don't understand yet."
Lily stared at him, unease creeping up her spine at the shift in his tone. "What do you mean, dangerous?"
Ethan opened his mouth like he might finally answer her, like he might finally give her one honest, complete explanation for everything strange that had been happening since the moment she'd walked into his house.
Then his phone buzzed sharply in his pocket, and whatever he'd been about to say died instantly on his lips. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and every trace of color drained from his face.
"I have to go," he said abruptly, already moving toward the door.
"Ethan, wait...."
He paused at the threshold, looking back at her with an expression she'd never seen on him before, fear, raw and unmistakable, mixed with something fiercely protective.
"Lock your door tonight," he said. "Don't open it for anyone but me."
And before she could ask why, he was gone, leaving her alone in the dark with her heart pounding and a growing certainty that whatever was coming for them was far worse than a rumor at school.
- Writer
