All Chapters of Our dirty little secret: Chapter 131 - Chapter 138

Chapter 131 Oliver texted Tessa before Helen had finished unpacking. Lena only knew because she was in the kitchen when his phone lit on the counter and the preview showed Tessa’s name and a single word — Tonight? — above his reply. He picked the phone up, caught Lena looking, and did not bother to hide the screen. “She’s coming over,” he said. “Helen already said the living room’s free. We’ll be upstairs.” Not a question. Not quite a challenge. The porch terms still stood; this was him using them. Tessa arrived just after eight with a tote bag and damp hair, as if she’d come straight from a shower. Helen greeted her at the door with the easy warmth she extended to anyone Oliver brought into the house, offered drinks, asked about campus, and then retreated to the sofa with Julian and a programme neither of them was fully watching. Lena stayed in the kitchen long enough to be polite, long enough to see Tessa’s hand brush Oliver’s as they took the stairs, and then she went to h

Chapter 133 Lena barely slept. The wall had gone quiet after Tessa left, but the sounds stayed in her head — the bedframe, the bitten-off cry, Oliver’s groan through the plaster. By morning she was short with everyone. Helen asked if the malaria was flaring again; Lena said she was fine and took her coffee upstairs so she wouldn’t have to watch Oliver move through the kitchen like the night before had cost him nothing. She texted Ava before nine: Are you free today. Ava: For you or for drama. Lena: Both. Ava arrived mid-morning with a paper bag and no patience for small talk. Helen was out at the shops. Julian was in the study with the door half closed. Oliver had left for campus early. The house was as empty as it got on a weekday. “You look like you want to break something,” Ava said, setting the bag on Lena’s desk. “Oliver had Tessa over last night.” “I assumed. The polite-boy version or the through-the-wall version?” “Through the wall.” Ava’s mouth twitched wi

Chapter 135Helen sent them out for groceries just after six.She was mid-recipe, missing cream and the right potatoes, and Julian already had the car keys in his hand when she listed the rest. Oliver was on campus. Ava was across town. Lena was the only other person in the house with free hands.“Go with him,” Helen said, not looking up from the pan. “He’ll come back with the wrong kind of cream and tell me it’s the same.”Julian didn’t argue. Lena took her jacket.The car smelled faintly of the coastal trip — salt and the paper air freshener Helen had hung from the mirror and forgotten. Julian drove the first stretch without speaking. Lena watched the houses pass and counted the number of times she had been alone with him since his memory came back. Too few for how much still sat between them. Too many for how careful they were supposed to be.“She was happy when we got home,” Julian said at a red light.“I know.”“I keep waiting for the house to give her a reason not to be.”Lena s

Chapter 137 Helen left mid-morning for a long stretch with Ava — coffee, the shops, a browse through the place they used to haunt before the accident. She took her time at the door, checking her bag, reminding Julian about a bill on the table, kissing Lena’s cheek on the way out. “We’ll be back after lunch,” she said. “Don’t live off toast.” The car pulled away. Oliver had already gone to campus with a bag and a short goodbye. The front door settled in its frame. The house emptied in stages until the only sounds left were the fridge cycling and the clock in the hall. Lena stayed in the kitchen with a glass of water she wasn’t drinking. She heard Julian move through the study, then the hallway, then stop in the doorway behind her. She didn’t turn around at first. She knew that silence. Full memory. No audience. The same held-breath quiet from the service lane behind the supermarket, from the locked study, from every hour they had sworn would be the last. “We said we wouldn’t