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LINGERING DOUBTS
Fecha de publicación:
2026-07-17 16:43:00Chapter 9
Helen's POV The alarm on my phone pulled me awake at 4:45 a.m. I reached across the bed instinctively, seeking Julian’s familiar warmth, but my hand met only cold, empty sheets. I frowned, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The spot where my husband should have been was untouched. No dent in the pillow, no discarded pajama pants on the floor. “Julian?” I called softly into the dark master bedroom. No answer. He must have gone for one of his early morning jogs along the cliff path. He did that sometimes when he couldn’t sleep, said the ocean air cleared his head for the day’s investments. I smiled a little, pushing down the tiny flicker of unease. It was fine. Normal. I slipped out of bed, showered quickly, and dressed for the conference in a simple blouse and slacks. My suitcase was already packed by the door. I just needed my laptop charger and I’d be ready to leave for the airport. The house was eerily quiet as I moved downstairs, the only sounds the distant crash of waves and the soft hum of the fridge. After a quick coffee, I realized the charger wasn’t in my bag. I must have left it in Leena’s room or so I thought because where else would it be. I headed upstairs, keeping my steps light so I wouldn’t wake anyone. “Leena?” I knocked gently on her door before opening it. “Honey, it’s Mom. I’m looking for my charger. Can I come in?” The room was dim, lit only by the faint glow of sunrise through the curtains. Leena stirred under the sheets, sitting up with the fabric clutched high to her chest. Her hair was a wild mess, her cheeks flushed pink like she’d been running. “Mom? You’re still here?” "Yes honey, have you seen my charger? I thought i might have left it here.” I stepped inside, eyes scanning the surfaces. The air hit me first—thick, warm, and strangely musky. Like sweat mixed with something heavier, more intimate. Cologne? Or… no. I was imagining things. The bed looked chaotic. Sheets twisted and half-off the mattress, one pillow on the floor. The picture frame on the wall was crooked. Leena’s skin glistened slightly with sweat even though the AC was running. My stomach tightened with an uncomfortable twist I couldn’t name. “Leena, are you feeling okay? You look feverish, and the room smells… different. Stuffier than usual. Did you have another bad dream?” She shifted under the sheet, avoiding my eyes for a split second. “I’m fine, Mom. Just hot. Tossing around a lot. The charger might be on the dresser.” I moved closer, pretending to search while my mind raced. Something felt wrong. The way the sheets were bunched… the faint red marks on her neck that could have been hickeys or just irritation from the pillow. The closet door was closed tight, but the air near it felt warmer. I shook my head. Julian was jogging. Oliver was asleep in his own room. I was being a paranoid mother stressed about leaving for the weekend. I found the charger tucked under a magazine on the nightstand. “Got it. Thanks, honey.” I lingered a moment longer, listening. Was that a faint creak from the closet? No. Just the house settling. I kissed her forehead—her skin was burning hot. “If your father comes back from his jog or Oliver wakes up, tell them to call me when they’re up, okay? I love you. Have a good weekend.” “Safe flight, Mom,” Leena said, forcing a smile. “Love you too.” I closed the door behind me and headed downstairs, wheeling my suitcase to the car. The uneasy feeling clung to me like humidity. I started the engine, then cursed softly. No keys in my pocket. I must have set them down in the kitchen while hunting for the charger earlier. Sighing, I went back inside and grabbed them from the counter. But the doubt pulled me upstairs one last time. I paused outside Leena’s door, listening. Silence now. I cracked it open again quietly. Leena was lying back down, eyes closed, breathing steady. The room still smelled strange, but nothing looked overtly wrong. No Julian. No Oliver. Just my daughter trying to sleep. I was overthinking everything because of travel nerves and the recent family adjustments. I closed the door softly and left for good this time. As I drove toward the airport, the ocean sparkling beside the road, I told myself it was nothing. Julian would text later. Everything was fine. But that heavy, musky scent lingered in my memory the whole way.
Último capítulo
Our dirty little secret WHAT RETURNS
Chapter 52The rest of the morning moved under a different kind of pressure.Julian remembered enough. That fact sat in the house like a third pulse beneath every ordinary sound. Helen came downstairs twenty minutes after the kitchen incident, hair still damp from a slow shower, and Julian greeted her with the same married warmth he had been rebuilding over the past two days—hand at her back, a quiet comment about coffee, the easy proximity of a man who was relearning his wife. Nothing in his expression gave away what had happened in the kitchen before she woke. Lena watched it from the table and felt the split in him as clearly as if it had been spoken out loud.Oliver noticed something. He always did. His eyes moved between Julian and Lena more than once during breakfast, sharp with unanswered questions, but he didn’t ask them in front of Helen. Ava read the room with equal accuracy and stayed composed, offering Helen more small details about the college years whenever conversation
Our dirty little secret REGONITION O'ClOCK
Chapter 51 Lena.The next morning the house was slow to wake.Helen was still upstairs, drained from the previous day’s outings and the emotional weight of the wedding memory. Oliver’s door remained closed. Ava had not yet come out of the guest room. The hallway held the heavy quiet of people who had all slept poorly for different reasons.Lena was already in the kitchen when she heard footsteps on the stairs.Julian came down carefully, one hand on the railing, still favoring the side of his ribs. He looked tired. His hair was slightly disordered from sleep, and he moved like someone who had spent half the night turning something over in his mind. He didn’t notice her at first. He went straight to the cupboard for a glass, then to the sink.When he turned and saw her, he stopped.For a second neither of them spoke. The early light cut across the kitchen floor between them. Julian’s expression shifted through several things at once—recognition, confusion, and something sharper undern
Our dirty little secret THE RETURN OF CLOSENESS
Chapter 50JulianOnce the wedding memory settled, Helen and Julian began moving through the house like a couple again.It happened in stages, but the stages came quickly. The careful stranger-distance of the first days after the hospital gave way to small, automatic gestures—Julian’s hand at the small of Helen’s back when they walked through a doorway, Helen adjusting the collar of his shirt without thinking, the two of them sharing quiet remarks in the kitchen that no longer sounded like polite negotiation. By the next afternoon they had decided to leave the house together for the first time since coming home.“We’re going for a drive,” Helen announced, standing in the living room with her bag over her shoulder. “Not far. Just out. The doctor said short outings were fine if we didn’t overdo it.”Julian had the car keys in his hand already. “We’ll be back before dinner.”Oliver looked up from the chair near the window. “Do you want company?”“No,” Helen said, and the word was gentle
Our dirty little secret SOMETHING LIKE MARRIED
Chapter 49The wedding memory changed the way Helen and Julian occupied the same space.It was not dramatic. There was no sudden return of the full seven months, no overnight transformation into the couple they had been before the accident. But the polite distance that had defined every interaction since the hospital began to thin almost immediately. They stopped moving around each other like careful strangers sharing a house. Small, married habits started reappearing without either of them seeming to decide on them consciously.The next morning made it obvious.Lena came downstairs to find Helen standing at the stove and Julian behind her, one hand resting lightly at the side of her waist while he reached past her for a mug. The contact lasted only a second, but it was natural in a way nothing between them had been since they came home. Helen did not stiffen or step away. She adjusted the pan and said something under her breath that made Julian huff a quiet almost-laugh.Oliver, alre
Our dirty little secret THE WEDDING
Chapter 48 Lena.The first memory that truly belonged to the last seven months returned in the evening.It did not arrive gently.Julian and Helen were on the couch with one of the more recent photo albums open between them. Ava had gone to the kitchen for water. Oliver stood near the doorway, half-watching. Lena sat on the floor again, sorting the last of the loose pictures into piles. The house was quiet except for the soft turn of pages and the distant sound of the refrigerator.Helen’s hand stopped on a photograph near the middle of the album.It was not a professional picture. Just a slightly blurred shot of her and Julian standing under a string of lights, her hand on his chest, both of them caught mid-laugh. Lena had taken it herself a few minutes after the short ceremony.Helen stared at it for a long time.Then her breathing changed.“I remember the lights,” she said.Julian looked at her immediately. “What?”Helen’s fingers pressed against the edge of the photo. Her voice w
Our dirty little secret MORE OF THE PAST
Chapter 46Lena.Julian’s memories did not stop at the blue-tiled kitchen.Once that first older fragment broke through, others began following it in uneven waves, as if the door he had opened refused to close cleanly. The next day brought three more pieces before noon, none of them connected to Helen or the last seven months. All of them belonged to the life he had lived with Claire and a much younger Oliver.They were sitting in the living room again when the second one hit.Julian had been holding a glass of water, half-listening to Ava describe the layout of the old college apartment to Helen, when his hand tightened around the glass hard enough to make the water tremble.“I remember a birthday,” he said suddenly.Everyone turned.“Not a recent one.” His eyes were unfocused, fixed on something in the middle distance. “Oliver’s. He turned seven. There was a cake with blue frosting. Claire spent an hour trying to write his name on it and the letters kept sliding. He laughed. She did
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