Chapter 280: Loving Them Both
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘⭒❊✿❊⭒∘∙⊱⋅•
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.