Chapter 282: Two Boys, One Crisis
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The silence had stretched on for so long that I honestly thought it might just last forever, like a fragile truce none of us wanted to shatter. But the tension hanging in the air that evening felt heavier, more palpable, as if the room itself recognized we had hit a point where we could no longer pretend things were fine.
We were in the sitting room, the same one that had seen too much in recent weeks, yet somehow it looked just as it always did, with that warm glow from the lamp in the corner and the lingering scent of polished wood.
I was on one end of the couch, Ethan had plopped himself in the armchair to my left, leaning back with one ankle resting on his knee. At first glance, he looked relaxed, but if you watched him for more than a second, you could see the way his fingers tapped lightly against the armrest in a steady, restless rhythm, revealing that his mind was clearly racing.
Adrien was on the other end of the couch...close enough for comfort but not too close, his arm draped along the backrest like he owned the place, even if the slight tension in his shoulders hinted otherwise.
The silence had lingered for a while now, but it was different from the comfortable quiet we’d managed to rebuild recently. This felt charged, like the air before a storm that had been brewing just out of sight.
I knew it was coming.
I’d always known this day would arrive because there was no way we could keep avoiding the truth forever without it catching up to us.
Slowly, I lowered the cup of tea a maid had brought in for me, my fingers lingering on it a moment longer than necessary, as if letting go of it meant I was also letting go of the last excuse to avoid what was about to go down.
"I think..." my voice trailed off, and I almost choked on the words as they got stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat. It felt too huge to contain in a single sentence.
Neither of them interrupted, which honestly made it feel worse.
I took a quiet breath and tried again, my voice a bit steadier this time despite the tightness in my chest.