Todos os capítulos de Our dirty little secret: Capítulo 131 - Capítulo 140

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

Chapter 139Helen did not mention the receipt again.By morning it might as well have never existed. She stood in the kitchen in one of Julian’s old shirts, sleeves rolled to the elbows, making eggs with the radio on low. She talked about a sale on garden plants, about whether they should finally repaint the guest-room door, about a neighbour who had asked if they were settled now after all the hospital months. Julian answered from behind a mug, voice still rough with sleep. Oliver ate standing up, scrolling his phone, then rinsed his plate and left for campus with a short goodbye that took in the whole kitchen and no one in particular. Lena stayed long enough to wash her own plate and long enough to feel the ordinary weight of a house that was not, for once, tilting toward disaster.Helen kissed Julian’s cheek on her way past him to the fridge. “Don’t work through lunch. You always say you won’t and then you do.”“I’ll try,” he said, and almost smiled.Lena took her bag from the hook