LOGINShare
Chapter 19: Eight Days
publish date:
2026-10-22 11:33:23
Latest chapter
My Idol Lives Next Door (And He's Pretending to Hate Me) Chapter 28: Four O'Clock
"Marlow Junction," said Kai, reading the screen of his phone with the grim satisfaction of a man who had found a villain. "That's where they've stopped the train. Forty minutes from here by road. Maybe fifty, if the motorway's kind." "The motorway is never kind," said Elara. "Then I'll be unkind back." They stood on the empty platform under the red letters of the arrivals board. Behind them, a cleaner pushed a mop in slow, philosophical circles. Elara's phone showed 8:19. Yuna, on the other end of the line, was breathing carefully, like someone trying not to cry in a carriage full of strangers. "They're letting people off at Marlow," Yuna said. "The announcement says buses will come eventually. I don't think eventually is going to be today." "Stay on the platform," said Elara. "Don't move. Don't board any bus. Someone is coming." "Who?" "Kai." A pause. "The boy who threw a canapé at me once?" "At a stranger," said Kai, offended. "It was a misunderstanding. I'm a changed man.
My Idol Lives Next Door (And He's Pretending to Hate Me) Chapter 27: Learning the Steps
The X-ray said sprain, not break. "A bad one," Julian told them in the waiting room at midnight, still in the coat he had thrown on over his pajamas. He had driven Ji-an to the hospital himself, with Mina in the back seat gripping her hand. "Grade two. She's in a splint. No weight for three weeks, no dancing for six." Ji-an, in a wheelchair with her foot propped up, was crying quietly into a tissue. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." "Stop it," said Elara. She crouched in front of her and took both her hands. "You are the best thing that ever happened to this group, and you will be the best thing that happens to it next year. Tomorrow you're going to sit in the front row and heckle us." "Supportively?" "Extremely supportively." Ji-an laughed through her tears. Behind them, Mina cleared her throat. "There's someone we could ask," she said. "Yuna." Elara went still. Yuna had been the fifth dancer for two years. She had left eight months ago, when her mother fell ill and she moved ba
My Idol Lives Next Door (And He's Pretending to Hate Me) Chapter 26: The Smallest Hours
At five in the morning, the conservatory smelled of wet earth and orchids, and Elara was bleeding into her sock. It was a very small amount. She sat on the edge of a stone planter with her left foot in her lap and the tape unwound, frowning at a blister the size of a coin. The glass walls were still dark. Beyond them, the garden lay gray and silent, and somewhere in the old house above her, the clock struck the hour with the weary politeness of a clock that had seen everything. Two nights of almost no sleep. Eight hundred repetitions of the same bridge. A closing slot, a second song, and four thousand tickets sold to people who wanted a masked stranger more than they wanted her. She pressed her thumbs against her eyes. *Breathe.* "You're bleeding on a hundred-year-old floor." She did not jump. She had, she realized, been listening for the sound of the door. He stood in the arch between the conservatory and the corridor, in a dark sweater with the sleeves pushed up, black mask i
My Idol Lives Next Door (And He's Pretending to Hate Me) Chapter 25: Four Chairs
Elara stepped back from the door. The handle finished its slow turn, and the latch released with a small, definite click. The door swung inward a hand's width, then wider, and lamplight spilled into the corridor in a long gold wedge. He stood in the opening with one hand on the frame. A dark shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows, the black mask in place. In his other hand he held the paper bag she had left on the floor, folded flat and neat, the way a person folds something they do not intend to throw away. "I don't litter," he said. "I didn't say you did." "You were thinking it." "I was thinking you ate the sandwich." "I was hungry." A pause. "It was adequate." She pressed her lips together so he wouldn't see her smile. Behind him, she caught a slice of the room: the corner of a piano, a desk buried in paper, a lamp throwing its warm circle across the carpet. His eyes followed hers there, and he shifted half a step to block the view. "Don't look at the desk." "I'm looking at
My Idol Lives Next Door (And He's Pretending to Hate Me) Chapter 24: The Fourth Chair
Elara woke up in her own bed with a wool coat folded over her feet and no memory of how she had gotten there. She sat up. Gray light filled the room. The coat was black, heavy, and smelled of cedar and cold night air, and a small card still lay in its pocket where she had left it. *THANK YOU FOR STAYING.* *R.* She read it four times. Then she put it back, pulled the coat around her shoulders, and went to find a hairbrush with the dignity of a girl who was not smiling. Three days to the concert. --- Visiting hours at the Hale Memorial began at two. "One at a time," said the nurse at the desk, a small woman with iron-gray hair and the posture of a sergeant. "Ten minutes each. Nobody sits on the bed. Nobody argues with the monitor." "We're his family," said Kai. "Then you know he needs rest." "We *will* let him rest." "You are shouting." "I'm *enthusiastic.*" She looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at the five of them lined up in the corridor: Adr
My Idol Lives Next Door (And He's Pretending to Hate Me) Chapter 23: Visiting Hours
Elara had never heard a house go silent so fast. She took the stairs two at a time, one hand on the rail. The study door stood wide open. The grandfather lay on the carpet beside his overturned chair, one hand pressed flat to his chest, his face the color of old paper. Julian knelt beside him with two fingers on the old man's wrist, and his voice was perfectly steady. "Grandfather, look at me. Can you tell me your name?" "Don't be ridiculous." "Humor me." "Hale. Same as yours." A wheeze. "Same as the rest of this appalling family." "Good." Julian's eyes flicked to the housekeeper in the doorway. "Ambulance?" "Four minutes, Master Julian." "Tell them irregular rapid pulse, chest tightness, conscious and talking." He did not look up. "And someone get his coat." Elara turned to go, and glanced back up the staircase. His door was open. He stood in the doorway in the dark, one hand gripping the frame so hard that his knuckles had gone white. The black mask turned toward the stair
You May Also Like
Meet My Brothers
Red Thirteen6.1M viewsThe Untouchable Ex-Wife
Mizuki Sei2.7M viewsCold Showers
Symplyayisha844.4K viewsWanted: Billionaire's Wife And Their Genius Twin Babies
Pamela980.8K viewsMy Billionaire Husband Killed Me, I Came Back As His Enemy
readlashes75 viewsThe APOCALYPSE bows to my FOUR MEN!
CagalieYula135 viewsGodFather Frank Mafia Boss
Adev_Stories159 viewsMy Disabled Mate
Prolly119 views
