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Noah’s Pov

The house had finally settled into a kind of quiet that didn’t feel stifling, which was odd considering how chaotic everything had been just days earlier. Outside the gates, the reporters lingered, their presence like a bad odor that just wouldn’t go away, although the amount of them had reduced over time.

Those occasional camera flashes still pierced the evening light whenever someone walked by a window. The police were stopping by less often, but they hadn’t completely vanished, and the staff still whispered when they thought nobody was listening, their hushed voices filled with disbelief as they tried to make sense of what had unfolded.

And inside my room, though, there was a fragile calm that I hadn’t felt in quite a while.

Gigi was sprawled on my bed, curled up with one arm tucked beneath her cheek, breathing softly in a way that made the whole space feel quieter. She had insisted on staying over earlier, saying she wouldn’t leave me alone in this house, and honestly, I didn’t argue because I didn’t want to be by myself either.

At some point, she had launched into a story about a ridiculous video she’d seen online, and somewhere in the middle of her rambling, she fell asleep without even realizing it.

Now, the only sign of her earlier enthusiasm was the faint crease in the pillow beneath her and the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders.

I sat at my desk, my notebook open in front of me and a pen loosely held between my fingers as I stared at the half-finished assignment I’d been struggling with for the last hour. The words blurred together, a clear sign that I hadn’t absorbed any of them. No matter how many times I read the same sentence, it just wouldn’t stick.

It wasn’t even that the work was hard; it should’ve been an easy task I could knock out in less than twenty minutes on a normal day. But nothing felt normal anymore...definitely not today, this week, or even my life.

My thoughts drifted, slipping away from the page and into corners I hadn’t allowed myself to explore until now.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was nothing pressing demanding my attention. No raised voices echoing through the halls, no tension thick enough to choke on, and no crises looming that needed to be handled before they got worse. Just... space.

And apparently, that space was risky.

Now that everything had slowed down, I couldn’t push my thoughts away any longer.

I leaned back a bit in my chair, letting out a soft sigh as I rubbed my hand over my face, feeling the faint sting of the bruise on my cheek still lingering even though it was fading. My reflection in the darkened window across the room looked strange, as if I were looking at someone who had been through something I hadn’t fully processed yet.

It was amazing how quickly everything had shifted.

Not just the obvious stuff, like the shocking truth about Keith and what he’d done, or how the mansion had gone from intimidating to feeling hollow and uncomfortable. It was deeper than that, something that had been brewing long before all of this came to light.

I thought about my mother, about how she had looked at me during our last conversation, the words she said that would stick with me no matter how much time went by. Part of me still struggled to reconcile the mother I had always believed in with the woman who had stood in front of me and said she wished she’d never given birth to me.

Even now, sitting in the silence of my room, that memory didn’t hit me like it had at the time. It didn’t strike like a sudden blow or leave me gasping for breath. It sat heavier somewhere deeper, like something settled in and refused to budge.

I didn’t feel angry about it anymore.

I didn’t have the urge to argue with her, to prove her wrong, or to demand something from her she clearly couldn’t give.

I just... understood.

And maybe that was worse.

Because understanding didn’t lessen the pain; it just made it harder to deny that whatever bond we’d had before was gone in a way that couldn’t be repaired.

My grip on the pen tightened as my thoughts shifted again, moving away from her and toward something else that was equally complicated, if not more so.

Ethan.

Adrien.

Even just thinking about them together twisted something in my chest in a way I couldn’t quite put into words.

Everything about them had been a messy tangle from the start, wrapped up in emotions and situations none of us knew how to navigate. My feelings for them weren’t straightforward, and they had never been something I could easily define or explain, even to myself.

With Ethan, I felt a steady familiarity that had grown over time into a constant part of my life. Being around him felt effortless, like I could breathe a little better just being in the same space with him. Even after everything that had happened, that feeling hadn’t faded.

If anything, it had grown clearer.

But then there was Adrien, who had never been easy or simple, and yet somehow mattered just as much in a totally different way. My feelings for him were sharper, more unpredictable, often catching me off guard even when I thought I understood them.

The worst part was that I couldn’t pretend one of those feelings was more important than the other.

I had tried.

I had spent so much time convincing myself I needed to choose, that it would be easier if I could just pick one path and stick to it. But every time I thought I had made a choice, it crumbled the moment I faced it.

Because choosing one meant losing the other, and that thought felt wrong in a way I couldn’t shake off.

So, I had done what seemed like the only option at the time.

I stepped back.

I convinced myself it was the right thing to do, that it was better to step away entirely than to hurt either of them by making a choice I wasn’t sure about