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The Narrative Trap
Last Updated:
2025-10-30 02:14:40
Latest chapter
Crossing the line The Part Where It Hurts
Ava’s POVThe moment the door clicked shut behind me, something inside my chest gave way—quietly, like a thread snapping under too much tension.I leaned against the door, eyes closed, breathing in the leftover scent of cold air and Ethan’s cologne, the ghost of his voice still vibrating in my head.If all you can give is a little… then I’ll take a little.I should’ve felt relief. He didn’t push. He didn’t demand. He didn’t look at me like I was broken beyond repair.And yet—My hands were still shaking.Because everything I didn’t tell him was still sitting between us, heavier than anything I had confessed.Because he had looked at me like he knew I was lying even when I hadn’t said a word.Because I didn’t know how long I could keep pretending I wasn’t drowning.I pushed away from the door and walked into the apartment. It felt small tonight—too small, too quiet, too aware. I set my phone on the counter and stared at it like it might start buzzing with another threat.Nothing.Just
Crossing the line Aftershocks
Ethan’s POV I didn’t sleep. Not for more than a few minutes at a time. Every time I drifted off, something jerked me awake—noise from the street, the hum of my phone, my own pulse kicking too hard. By sunrise, I was up, showered, and pacing the length of my living room like an animal in a cage. Ava’s text from last night was still burned into my screen: Yeah. Tomorrow. No emojis. No softness. No breath between the words. Just a yes that didn’t feel like a yes at all. Something was wrong. Not “bad day” wrong. Not “work stress” wrong. Something deeper, sharper, the kind of wrong that gets under your skin and doesn’t let go. I felt it before I saw her. Felt it again watching that damned op-ed blow up online—everyone arguing about ethics and silence and scandals like they were entertainment. And somehow… Somehow her name kept circling the edges without ever being said out loud. I didn’t know why. I just knew she was in the middle of it. And I hated that she didn’t call me.
Crossing the line The Sound of Pressure
Ava’s POVThe Chronicle’s legal notice sat in my inbox like a live wire. I’d closed the email, reopened it, closed it again, then turned my laptop off entirely—as if shutting the lid could shut down the consequences waiting on the other side.It didn’t.Every time I blinked, the words rewrote themselves behind my eyes: Ms. Reynolds, this is a formal notice. We need to discuss today’s developments. Please call us back immediately..I wasn’t even breathing right. Each inhale felt shallow, each exhale too quick. I paced my apartment because sitting still made it worse, but moving didn’t help either. The storm outside had thinned to a soft drizzle, but somehow the quiet in here felt louder.My phone buzzed again.Not a friend.Not Ethan.Unknown number.I stared at it as the call faded out. They weren’t giving up.I shoved the phone under a pillow like it could muffle the problem.My new job schedule was on the fridge, a neat little lineup of stability—morning check-ins, afternoon coordi
Crossing the line Lines Redrawn
Ava’s POV The morning after Ethan’s game, the city sounded different — thinner somehow, stretched tight like a wire pulled too far. My phone hadn’t stopped vibrating since dawn, not with messages or calls, but with notifications from strangers, trending hashtags, clipped game footage looping on timelines like a wound on repeat. Ethan Cole Losing His Calm —Is Pressure Cracking Him? The Scandal Season Continues. No one was calling it what it really was: a man unraveling under the weight the world kept dropping on him. I shut off the screen and exhaled. My apartment was quiet, too quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t soothe — it scraped. A reminder of how everything in my life had been ripped open and rearranged in the span of weeks. The Chronicle badge no longer hung on the hook by my door. My inbox was nearly empty. My notebook, once overflowing with interviews and deadlines, now held a list of shifts from my new administrative job at a literacy nonprofit. It was good work. Hone
Crossing the line The Truth in Motion
Ava’s POVThe apartment is too quiet for how loud my mind feels.Technically I should be finishing the online onboarding for the temp admin job I start Monday — the kind of job you get when you need to pay rent fast and you’re blacklisted from your actual career. Nothing glamorous. Nothing creative. Sorting files for a logistics firm and answering phones for managers who’ll never learn my name.It’s the opposite of journalism.Which is the point.The Chronicle made sure of that.My laptop is open on the coffee table, the training modules frozen mid-sentence, but I can’t bring myself to click “next.” Not when the game coverage is flickering across the TV — the arena lights flashing, the commentators hyped, the entire city buzzing with anticipation for Ethan’s second game post-scandal.I shouldn’t be watching.It’s masochistic.But I can’t look away.My hands are wrapped around a mug of tea I haven’t sipped in twenty minutes. It’s gone cold. Everything in this room feels cold.The comme
Crossing the line The Brother’s Shadow
Ethan’s POVTyler wasn’t supposed to be home.I realized that the second I pushed open the door to the condo and found him sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at something on his phone with the kind of stillness that meant trouble.He didn’t look up when I stepped in. “You saw it?”My pulse kicked. “Saw what?”He finally lifted his eyes. Not angry. Not shocked. Worse—calm. Like the quiet before a building collapses.“Ava’s draft.”My stomach dropped.“How—”“It was sent to me,” he said. “Anonymous inbox. Probably someone from the newsroom. Or someone who wants to watch you burn.”A cold rush slid down my spine. I set my keys on the counter, careful, like sudden movements might set him off.“What exactly did you see?”Tyler held up his phone—screen glowing with paragraphs I recognized far too easily. That raw confession. That one line that had branded itself in my mind:Truth isn’t always clean. Sometimes it stains, and you wear it anyway.My chest tightened. “You read t
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