All Chapters of The Girl He Never Knew : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

ELENA'S POV I stood in the dimly lit hallway outside Noah’s dorm room, clutching the folded piece of paper like it might burn me. The corridor was quiet and my heart was beating so hard it made me feel dizzy.This was a terrible idea. I knew it. But I couldn’t shake the image of Noah from that hospital night. He had whispered things in his sleep, fragments about pressure and failure and not being enough. And now I understood more of why.I had spent the last two nights unable to sleep, sitting at my desk with my laptop glowing in the dark. What started as quiet curiosity had turned into something deeper. I told myself I was just being thorough, the way any journalist would be. But really, I was looking for answers about the man who still haunted Noah.His stepfather.Public records weren’t hard to find once I knew where to look. Parole hearings. Court transcripts. Release schedules. It took hours of digging through dry, official documents until I found it — the exact date he would wa

ELENA'S POV The power hadn't come back on. The only light came from three thick vanilla candles melting into uneven pools on the marble counter. Steam rose from the surface of the water turning the glass shower doors completely opaque.Noah was sitting in the middle of the tub, his long legs bent at the knees, his forearms resting flat against the rim. He had his back to me.He hadn't said a word since he’d asked me to come in here. He’d just handed me a black sponge, sat down in the steaming water, and waited.I stood behind the tub, my knees shaking under my oversized hoodie. It was quiet and the quiet was infinitely more terrifying."You're freezing," Noah muttered. He didn't turn around, but I could see the line of his shoulders drop a fraction. "Just sit down, El. You’re making the floor look nervous."I swallowed the lump in my throat, slowly dropping to my knees on the plush bath mat behind him. The ceramic edge of the tub was hot against my thighs. I dipped the black sponge i

ELENA’S POVMy phone blowing up didn't wake me. The sudden, icy pit in my stomach did.It was an aggressive buzz against my wooden desk that started at exactly 6:15 AM, drilling through my thin dorm mattress until the air in the room felt totally unbreathable. I rolled over, blinking through the gray morning light, and grabbed the screen.My eyes couldn't even focus at first. Twenty-three unread iMessages from the girls on the varsity media team. Nine missed calls from my supervisor at the media office. One from Lora saying she won't be back early today.And then, a direct link to the Ridgewood Independent—the underground campus blog that Lucas Kane ran like his own personal burn book.My thumb hovered over the glass screen, shaking so bad it took me three tries just to tap the link.The page loaded, and my heart straight-up stopped.It was us. The hospital waiting room from two nights ago. The lighting was terrible—that sickly, fluorescent green of an emergency room wing—but the phot

ELENA’S POVThe press room felt like a meat locker.The air conditioning was cranking, but it didn't do anything to clear out the heavy, suffocating scent of cheap coffee, damp rain jackets, and the predatory hunger of thirty reporters crammed into a space meant for fifteen. They were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, lenses clicking, microphones hoisted like weapons toward the elevated podium at the front of the room.I stood all the way in the back, my shoulders pinned against the block wall near the exit doors. My hands were shoved deep into the pockets of my oversized black blazer, my fingers curling tightly around my phone. I didn't want to be here. Every single cell in my body had screamed at me to skip this briefing, to lock myself in my dorm room and let the campus news cycle chew me up in peace.But my supervisor at the athletic office had made it clear: “If you skip the briefing, Elena, it looks like a confession. Put on your badge, stand in the room, and do your job.”So there

ELENA’S POVThe hotel clerk looked genuinely sorry as he delivered the news.“I’m so sorry, Miss Voss. Due to the regional tournament overflow, we’re completely overbooked. We only have one room left and it only has one king bed.”I stared at him. “You’re joking.”He wasn’t.Noah stood beside me, silent and tense, his gym bag slung over one shoulder. I could feel the heat radiating off him even though we weren’t touching. After the long bus ride and the disaster of a game, neither of us had the energy for this.“We’ll take it,” Noah said before I could argue.I shot him a look, but he was already grabbing the key cards.The elevator ride up to the seventh floor was painfully quiet. When we stepped into the room, the reality hit us both at once.It was actually one bed.A very large, very luxurious king bed with crisp white sheets and way too many pillows. The kind of bed that mocked two people who had spent years pretending they couldn’t stand each other.Noah dropped his bag near the