Chapter 7: The Unraveling Thread

The first week after their parents returned felt like walking a tightrope made of razor wire. Mornings were routine: coffee in the kitchen, small talk about weather and work, Sophia sketching at the dining table while Julian coded in the great room with his laptop angled so no one could see the screen. Afternoons stretched long and quiet—parents at errands or golf, leaving the house to its familiar creaks and echoes. Evenings were the danger zone: family dinner at the long oak table, forced laughter over takeout or Mom’s reheated casseroles, everyone pretending the air wasn’t thick with unspoken things.

But the nights belonged to them.

They developed signals—subtle, deniable. A glance across the dinner table that lingered one second too long. Julian’s foot hooking hers under the table, toe tracing slow circles on her ankle until she had to press her thighs together to keep from squirming. Sophia brushing past him in the hallway, hip grazing his, hoodie unzipped just enough to flash bare skin. By ten, when the parents’ bedroom door clicked shut upstairs, one of them would slip into the other’s room—door locked, lights off, bodies colliding in the dark with the urgency of people who knew the clock was always ticking.

Tuesday night it was her room again. Julian pinned her to the lavender wall—same spot she’d once hung posters of bands she no longer listened to—hoodie shoved up, shorts yanked down, cock sliding into her from behind while she braced both hands against the paint. He fucked her slow at first—deep, grinding rolls that made her bite her own forearm to stay quiet—then faster, hand clamped over her mouth, whispering filth against her ear.