Chapter 9: The One-Bed Trope

Sienna

It was too late for anyone sane to still be awake. The house had gone quiet hours ago, wrapped in that strange kind of silence where every tiny sound seems like a scream. The old clock in the hallway ticked like a hammer, each second louder than the last, beating against my nerves.

Ava had only been here three days, but it felt like three months. Three endless days of her laughter echoing through the walls, of her perfume clinging to every corner, of her sitting just a little too close to Jaxon, smiling at him like she still owned him.

And me? I wasn’t even a person anymore. I was a shadow in my own home, invisible, suffocating, unraveling piece by piece.

By the third night, something inside me broke.

I was in the kitchen making a sandwich I didn’t even want, dragging the knife through the bread with too much force, when Jaxon walked in. His hair was messy, his eyes ringed with exhaustion, his shoulders weighed down like he carried the whole world.

For once, he didn’t look like