All Chapters of Our dirty little secret: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Chapter 82Lena.Helen and Julian left for a clinic appointment at nine-thirty.Oliver had an early lecture and was already gone. Ava was across town in her own apartment. For the first time in weeks, the house was fully empty in daylight.Lena almost went to campus.Instead she stood in the quiet kitchen, listened to the fridge hum, and felt the absence of every watching person like a door swinging open.Her phone lit.Julian: Appointment runs until noon. House is empty.A second message followed almost immediately: If you’re still home.Lena stared at the screen. The careful weeks of banked heat, porch arguments, and north-entrance jealousy narrowed to a single unlocked fact: no Helen in the next room, no Oliver in the hallway, no Ava measuring the temperature from the guest room that no longer held her.She typed: I’m here.Julian was back in twenty minutes. He must have left Helen at the clinic with a plausible excuse—forms, parking, a need to collect something. Lena did not ask.

Chapter 84Lena.The announcement left the auditorium buzzing.Students spilled into the corridor in clusters, phones already out, packing lists being screenshotted, someone complaining about having to cancel a shift, someone else asking whether the station had decent Wi‑Fi. The trip was no longer a rumor. It was a coach leaving Monday morning with the entire unit on it.Lena moved with the flow toward the main doors, the printed information sheet still warm from the assistant’s hand. This was the second school trip thry were embarking on but this time Noah was tagging along. Around her the talk was all practical: departure time, bag size limits, whether the dorms had enough power points for a full corridor of phone chargers. A guy from the back row was already announcing he would bring a portable kettle. A girl from the seminar was counting out loud how many pairs of socks counted as “enough.”Noah caught up with her near the steps, bag half-zipped, expression alert in the way people

Chapter 86 Tuesday.Breakfast started at half past seven.The main hall filled in stages as people came down from the dorms in layers of jumpers and waterproofs. Staff took a quick headcount at the door. The food was simple — toast, cereal, fruit, tea and coffee in large flasks — and the noise was the particular morning noise of a full class still waking up. Lena sat with her roommates. Noah joined the table a few minutes later with a plate of toast and the look of someone who had already been outside.“Wind’s stronger than yesterday,” he said. “Staff say the first site will be fine if we don’t hang around on the exposed edge.”Across the room Tessa was at a table with her seminar group, hair tied back, already writing something in a small notebook. Oliver sat further down with the same two classmates from the coach, headphones around his neck, eating without much conversation.By eight-thirty the class was assembled in the briefing room. The day’s plan went up on the screen: morning

Chapter 88 Thursday. Thursday morning started with the paired assessment task. Staff posted the list after breakfast. Names side by side on the board in the briefing room. Lena found hers halfway down — paired with Noah. A small, practical relief. Oliver had been placed with someone from the overlapping cohort. Tessa with a girl from the seminar. The class studied the board, made a few jokes, then filed out toward the nearer site with clipboards and the wind already picking up. The work was structured and timed. Each pair had a section of pools and a set list of observations to complete before midday. Noah was easy to work with — organised, quick with the measurements, ready to double-check without making a performance of it. They moved through the list steadily. Once, when Lena’s fingers slipped on a wet page, he took the clipboard without comment and held it steady until she finished writing. Around them the rest of the class worked their own sections. Oliver’s pair was fu

Chapter 90Friday By the time the official alarm went off, Lena had already been lying awake for twenty minutes with the dawn still under her skin.Her roommates stirred, groaned, reached for phones. The corridor outside filled with the usual morning sounds — doors, footsteps, someone complaining that the shower queue was already forming. Lena got up, dressed in layers for the day, and avoided looking at herself too long in the small mirror above the desk. Her body still held the residual heat of the landing: Oliver’s hands, the slow stretch of him inside her, the grey light on his face as he watched her come apart.Breakfast was the same as the other mornings and completely different.The main hall filled in stages. Lena sat with her roommates and ate toast she only half tasted. Noah joined them a few minutes later, hair damp from a quick shower, easy in the way he had been all week. He asked if she was ready for the oral check and the longer write-up session. She said yes. Across t