CROSSING THE LINES

It was late afternoon… at least that’s what the clock on the nightstand claimed. But the storm outside had swallowed the sun hours ago, turning the sky into a bruised watercolor of purples and iron-gray. Blackwater Hall sat in the center of it all like an abandoned cathedral; breathing, shifting, settling its old bones as if the house itself felt the weight of everything Julian had confessed.

I stayed on the floor long after he’d left me alone with the truth, my back pressed against the side of the bed, legs pulled close to my chest as though I needed to keep all my organs from spilling out. My notebook lay open beside me, blank. My thoughts weren’t in any shape to be written, they flickered, erratic, like faulty film in an old projector.

The storm rattled the windows. The sea roared below the cliffs. The air smelled like dust and cedar and the memory of someone else’s pain. I didn’t realize my hands were shaking until I looked down and saw them trembling against my knees. Not a little tremor a deep, full-body shaking that crawled up my arms like electricity. I hadn’t shaken like this in years. Not since… well. Not since then.

And then it hit me. I didn’t have my suitcase. I didn’t have anything except the clothes on my back and the stone-heavy confession sitting where my heart should’ve been. I didn’t even remember dropping my suitcase. Or letting go of it. Or anything after his words:

“I killed my brother because I was too much of a coward to do anything else.”

A coward. A murderer. A protector. A paradox wrapped in human skin.

Lightning flashed across the room, elongating the shadows on the walls until they looked like hands reaching for me. I pressed the heel of my palm to my sternum, breathing through the rising nausea. I needed a moment of silence. But this house didn’t believe in silence.

Blackwater Hall had been built for echoes.

Then. A knock. Soft. Single. Careful.

Not Noah. Not a housekeeper. His knock. I knew it immediately. Julian knocked like someone who wasn’t sure he deserved to be heard. I wiped my face quickly, even though I wasn’t sure who I was trying to look presentable for. I cracked the door open a few inches.

My suitcase sat in the hallway like a loyal dog. And Julian stood behind it. He didn’t look like the man from the stormy confessions or the screaming concerts or the tabloid tragedies. He looked older, somehow softer around the edges, with damp hair falling over his forehead. His shirt was half-buttoned, like he’d tried to get dressed and lost interest halfway through.

His eyes held mine.

Not demanding.

Not pleading.

Just searching.

“I thought you might want this back,” he said, voice roughened by exhaustion and… something else. Something softer.

“Yeah,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine. “Thanks.”

But I didn’t take the suitcase.

And he didn’t step back.

We just stood there, looking at each other as though the storm had pushed us onto the edge of something neither of us had expected. Behind him, the hallway lights flickered in that old-house way; warm, golden, but fragile. The storm outside pressed its fists against the windows, punching gusts of wind into the wood until it creaked like the hull of a ship at war with the sea.

“This house hates good weather,” I murmured.

He huffed out a complicated little laugh. “It hates any weather.”

He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe across from mine, mirroring my stance. The proximity felt intimate in a way I didn’t want to analyze. He was close enough that I could smell the faint traces of smoke and whiskey on him, layered under something warmer like cedar, maybe. Something that felt like a memory I didn’t know I had.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

“No.”

He nodded. “Me neither.”

The hallway hummed with thunder. I could feel it vibrating through the floorboards. Everything around us seemed suspended; the air, the light, even the storm as though the house was waiting for what would happen next.

“You could’ve left the suitcase downstairs,” I said. “Someone else would’ve brought it.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t want someone else touching your things.”

Something warm and sharp pricked under my ribs.

“Inconveniently thoughtful of you,” I whispered.

“I’m trying not to make things worse,” he said softly.

“You already did.”

He accepted it with a small, almost reverent nod. “I know.”

Silence stretched, but not the empty kind. This silence had weight, shape, gravity. The kind that draws two people into each other’s orbit despite every reason to pull away.

“Why did you tell me everything?” I asked, trying to breathe evenly. “You could’ve lied. You could’ve told the cleaned-up version. You could’ve kept me in the dark forever.”

He swallowed, throat bobbing. His eyes didn’t leave mine.

“Because you’re the only person in years who’s looked at me without a script,” he said. “Or judgment. Or hero worship. Or disgust.”

I felt something inside my chest shift like a hinge rusted shut finally loosening.

“You make me feel seen,” he said. “And I forgot what that felt like.”

His honesty hit harder than the storm outside. It hit somewhere beneath my ribs, where a truth I didn’t want to name had been simmering.

“You don’t know me,” I whispered.

“I know you carry ghosts,” he replied. “And I know the look of someone who’s learned to live with them.”

My pulse stuttered. “You don’t get to analyze me.”

“I’m not analyzing you. I’m… recognizing you.”

His voice was gentle. Too gentle. The kind of gentle that lifts something painful very carefully, afraid to make it hurt more. The hallway dimmed slightly as the power flickered. Shadows rolled across his face, softening the angles, making him look younger, almost innocent. Almost.

“I’m not staying for you,” I said. The words felt like stepping onto thin ice.

“I know.”

“And I don’t trust you.”

He nodded. “I don’t expect you to.”

“Good,” I whispered.

“But you also don’t look at me the way you did before,” he said, voice barely above the storm.

My breath caught. “And how’s that?”

“Like I’m a monster.”

The vulnerability in that sentence nearly undid me. He wasn’t asking for redemption. He wasn’t begging for mercy. He was terrified of being irredeemable.

“I don’t look at you like that,” I said slowly. “Not right now.”

His eyes warmed in a way that made the hallway feel smaller. Or maybe it was just us stepping closer without realizing.

“Ava,” he murmured, my name falling from his lips like something delicate.

Lightning flashed bright enough to illuminate the space between us.

It wasn’t much space. It wasn’t enough.

“If you want…” I swallowed. “You can come upstairs tomorrow. Not to talk about Berlin. Just… talk.”

He looked stunned. And then relieved. And then something dangerously close to hopeful.

“I’d like that,” he whispered.

He reached for the handle of the suitcase just as I did, and our fingers brushed; warm skin against warm skin. A spark jumped from his hand into mine, racing up my arm.

We both froze.

He didn’t pull away immediately. Neither did I.

His eyes dropped to where our hands touched. When he looked back at me, something unspoken hummed between us something that felt like the first inhale after drowning.

I stepped back first. If I hadn’t, I wasn’t sure I would’ve at all.

“Goodnight, Julian,” I whispered.

“Goodnight, Ava.”

I closed the door gently.

Not to shut him out. But because if I didn’t, I might have reached for him again.

Behind the door, I heard him pause.

One breath.

Two.

Three.

And then his footsteps, slow and heavy, retreating down the hall. The storm outside raged on. And for the first time since arriving at Blackwater Hall…

I wasn’t sure if leaving was the right choice or if I had already crossed a line that would keep me here far longer than I intended.