9
Amelia.
The air in our house felt poisoned and thick with secrets.
For days I’d sensed it brewing. The looks had worsened at church. And now there was the stiff silence from my mother, the way my father’s hand hovered over my shoulder but never quite touched. I tried to pretend I was the same daughter I’d always been, but my body gave me away: I flinched when anyone brushed too close, my eyes darting to doors and windows, always watching for Nathan, always afraid someone else was too.
I heard the news before I saw it—the rumors flaring hotter than ever, someone had seen us in the office, or thought they had, and tongues were wagging like banners in a storm. My phone vibrated with frantic texts from choir girls, a message from my mother that was just a single, breathless question: Is
