All Chapters of Our love to hide: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

It started with rain.Not the soft kind.The flood-the-garden, tear-the-branches-down kind.Nathan was the first to notice the leak just past midnight, water trailing down the hallway wall like tears.Ethan ran for buckets.Vanessa grabbed towels.And Evan?He stood in the middle of the living room, arms crossed, watching the ceiling swell.By morning, the leak had turned into a minor cave-in in the guest bathroom.No one was hurt. But the damage was obvious.The city inspector arrived with a clipboard and a polite but firm frown.“I’m afraid if the repairs aren’t addressed in sixty days, the house could be deemed structurally unfit for occupancy.”Nathan barely blinked.Ethan stood straighter.Vanessa folded her arms. “You tried to shut us down before. Didn’t work then either.”The man didn’t argue. Just handed over a checklist.That afternoon, Ethan gathered at the house.Kitchen table. Big energy.“The roof’s failing. The city’s watching. But we’ve survived worse.”He looked around

The rain came in soft drizzles that morning, tracing silver rivulets down the glass walls of the hospital atrium where Isabelle sat, fingers trembling around a lukewarm paper cup of coffee. The silence around her was too clean, too sterile, broken only by the occasional intercom call and distant rolling of gurney wheels. She hated hospitals. The last time she was in one, her mother had died. Now, she sat again in another antiseptic hall, this time for a different kind of reckoning.Sarah hadn't spoken to her since the interview.Lucas had moved back to Texas.And Vanessa who had once clung to her with broken sobs had cut her off completely.Isabelle had never known this kind of silence before.She took a breath, steadying her hands as she pulled out her phone. The screen glowed with a message from Ethan. A simple one: "If you're ready, come. You deserve your own ending, too."She stared at it for a long time.Ethan had every right to hate her. They all did. Her silence, her cowardice

The morning light bled slowly through the gauzy curtains, and Ethan found himself wide awake long before the alarm clock blinked 6:00 AM. He hadn’t really slept, not with the ache in his chest that still whispered of everything they’d lost and everything they’d barely survived.Nathan’s arm was draped around him loosely, protective even in sleep. His breath, warm and steady against Ethan’s shoulder, was a grounding rhythm in the chaos of Ethan’s thoughts.But today was different. Today was the memorial.They hadn’t held it earlier. Not when the media circus had devoured every corner of their lives. Not when the hospital visits had consumed them. And not when Ethan’s mental health had been so fragile, even thinking about closure had felt like trying to swim through glass.But now... now, they are ready.Sort of.Ethan untangled himself from Nathan carefully, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek before slipping out of bed. He stood in front of the mirror, staring at the boy who had once hi

The community center sat nestled between two aging brick buildings, its newly painted mural of outstretched hands and blooming flowers already marked by the spray of protest graffiti. But inside, the air pulsed with life. Youth of all shades, sizes, and stories filled the room, some laughing cautiously, others with stiff postures and guarded eyes. They were here for something they didn’t know they needed. And at the heart of it all stood Sarah and Isabelle.Sarah paced in front of the semicircle of foldable chairs, holding a clipboard and a spark that hadn’t glowed in her since the scandal broke. She wore a t-shirt that read You Are Not Broken in bold rainbow letters, and her eyes, though shadowed by exhaustion, brimmed with purpose.Isabelle sat at the back of the room with her laptop, managing logistics and answering the steady stream of texts and emails that never ceased since the announcement of the support group. Her fingers moved fast, but her gaze never strayed too far from Sar

Chapter 80 – The Quiet After the FireThe quiet came without warning.Not the peaceful kind. Not the earned kind.It was the kind that crept in after chaos had burned itself out, leaving behind ash and unanswered questions. The kind that made every sound too loud and every silence unbearable.Ethan noticed it first in the mornings.The apartment they’d moved into after everything after courtrooms, headlines, protests, and whispered threats was modest and deliberately forgettable. Neutral walls. Generic furniture. A place meant to disappear into. But the quiet lingered there like a presence.Nathan woke earlier now. Always before sunrise. He’d slip out of bed carefully, as if Ethan were made of glass, and disappear into the kitchen or onto the small balcony overlooking the city. Sometimes he made coffee. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he just stood there, hands wrapped around nothing, staring at a world that no longer knew what to do with them.Ethan lay awake most mornings, pretending