Chương 4
After we hung up, I went upstairs and closed my bedroom door.
I opened my laptop and watched the recording again.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I needed to notice what I missed.
The first time, fear had controlled everything.
The second time, I saw details.
Arthur had not looked surprised when he found Chloe.
He had looked annoyed.
There was a difference.
I paused the video.
Then I noticed something else.
Before he touched Chloe's shoulder, he looked toward the nightstand.
Toward the empty space where the glass had been.
My skin prickled.
He was not checking if she was okay.
He was checking if something was left behind.
I rewound the video.
Again.
Again.
There.
For less than a second, his hand moved toward the nightstand drawer.
But he stopped when Chloe moved.
I walked over to the drawer.
My hand hovered above the handle.
I had not opened it since last night.
I pulled it out.
Inside were ordinary things.
A charger.
A notebook.
A pair of earrings.
A receipt from a grocery store.
Nothing.
I almost laughed at myself.
The fear had made me search for ghosts.
Then I noticed the receipt.
It was not mine.
I picked it up.
The date was three days earlier.
The store was a pharmacy near our neighborhood.
The items were printed at the bottom.
Pain reliever.
Bandages.
Sleep aid.
My eyes stopped on the last item.
Sleep aid.
I sat down slowly.
It was not proof.
It could mean anything.
But it was another piece of something I did not understand.
I photographed the receipt.
Then I heard footsteps outside my door.
I closed the drawer quickly.
“Rebecca?”
Arthur’s voice.
I stood still.
“What?”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
The answer came faster than I expected.
Silence followed.
Then he laughed quietly.
“Okay.”
The sound made my shoulders tense.
“I just wanted to apologize if I made you uncomfortable last night.”
I did not respond.
“I had too much to drink.”
A lie.
A careful one.
“I don’t remember everything.”
Another lie.
I opened the door but kept the chain locked.
Arthur stood there with a disappointed expression.
The same expression he probably used when students disappointed him decades ago.
“I feel like you’re upset with me.”
“I am.”
He blinked.
“Why?”
Because I watched you.
Because I know.
Because I am tired of pretending.
Instead, I said, “Because you ignored my boundaries.”
Arthur lowered his eyes.
For a moment, he looked almost hurt.
Then he looked back at me.
“I think you have a very negative view of me.”
“That’s possible.”
He seemed surprised by my answer.
Most people wanted to defend themselves.
Most people wanted to prove they were right.
I was too tired.
“I hope one day you’ll see I’m not the person you think I am.”
I stared at him.
“I hope so too.”
He walked away.
The moment he disappeared downstairs, my phone buzzed again.
A message from David.
I found something.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
What?
A few seconds passed.
Then his reply appeared.
My dad deleted messages from his phone this morning.
I stared at the words.
How do you know?
I checked the family account.
He changed his password last night.
That made no sense.
Why would Arthur change a password unless he thought something happened?
I typed another message.
Can you access the old account?
Not without him knowing.
I looked at the hallway.
The house suddenly felt like a place full of locked doors.
Not physical ones.
Emotional ones.
The kind families built over years.
I went downstairs around noon because staying upstairs made me feel like I was hiding.
Chloe was sitting on the couch watching television.
Arthur was outside cutting branches from a bush near the driveway.
For a few minutes, nothing happened.
Then Chloe muted the television.
“Can I ask you something?”
I looked at her.
“Sure.”
She hesitated.
That alone was unusual.
“What happened last night?”
I kept my expression calm.
“You came home drunk.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I mean before that.”
I waited.
She looked uncomfortable.
“Did my dad come into your room?”
The room became very quiet.
I did not answer immediately.
Chloe watched my face.
And in that moment, I saw something I had never seen from her before.
Not arrogance.
Not annoyance.
Fear.
“Why would you ask that?” I said.
She looked away.
“Because I woke up once.”
“When?”
“After I drank the juice.”
My heartbeat changed.
“What do you remember?”
“Not much.”
She rubbed her arms.
“But I remember hearing someone talking.”
“Who?”
Her lips parted.
Then closed.
“I don’t know.”
A car door slammed outside.
Chloe flinched.
The reaction was small.
But I noticed.
Because suddenly I understood something.
Maybe Chloe was not just the person who drank the glass.
Maybe she was someone who had been living inside the same house with the same warning signs.
And maybe she had been ignoring them too.
Maybe she had been ignoring them too.
Chloe looked toward the window, where Arthur’s reflection moved across the glass as he worked outside.
“He has always been like that,” she whispered.
I watched her carefully.
“Like what?”
She shrugged, but the movement looked forced.
“Controlling.”
The word hung there.
Not enough to explain everything.
Enough to change something.
“You never said that before.”
She gave a small, humorless laugh.
“You never asked.”
That answer irritated me because it was true.
I had spent two years judging Chloe from the outside.
She had spent two years judging me from the outside.
Maybe that was exactly how Arthur and Evelyn liked things.
Everyone separated.
Everyone suspicious of everyone else.
Nobody looking closely at the person who caused the problems.
“What do you mean controlling?” I asked.
Chloe grabbed the remote and turned the television back on.
The conversation was over.
Or she wanted me to think it was.
“He just likes things his way.”
May you like
“That’s not an answer.”
She looked at me.
