The late afternoon sun filtered through the window of Annie's bedroom on the opposite side of the room, casting long, honey-colored streaks across the hardwood floor. The air smelled of paint, old paper, and the faint, sugary scent of the blue raspberry lollipops Riley had brought as a peace offering.
Ellie sat cross-legged on a floor cushion, flipping through one of Annie's poetry books, while Riley lounged on the bean bag chair, tossing a stress ball against the ceiling. Annie was tucked away in the corner, her black hair tied back in a messy knot, focused intensely on a canvas.
"I'm just saying," Riley said, catching the ball with a theatrical flourish, "if the football team loses on Friday, the blame rests entirely on Kyson's inability to keep his ego in his jersey. The team needs Ethan. I mean, I don't need him- he scares the life out of me, but the scoreboard does."
Ellie rolled her eyes, her silver tongue sharpening. "The scoreboard needs a miracle, Riley. And you need to stop talking about the team like you're the lead scout. You're only here because I promised Annie you wouldn't be annoying."
"I am a delight," Riley smirked, casting a playful, flirty glance toward the corner. "Right, Annie? Tell her I'm the preferred twin today."
Annie didn't look up, her brush stroking a deep indigo onto the canvas. Her fair skin looked almost translucent in the light.
"You're the only twin currently throwing things in my bedroom, Riley. So you're winning by default."
Her voice was quiet, lacking its usual soft lilt. It was a ghost of her usual self.
Riley's smirk faded slightly. He sat up, his gaze wandering to the stack of canvases leaning against the wall. There were dozens of them- dark, frantic landscapes and abstract splashes of grey and violet. Stress paintings. But behind a tattered drop cloth, his eyes caught the edge of a different piece. He leaned over, pulling it out slightly.
It was a portrait. The detail was staggering: the sharp line of a jaw, messy black hair, and green eyes that seemed to burn through the oil paint with a mixture of possessive loyalty and warmth.
"Whoa," Riley breathed, his flirtatious energy vanishing. "Annie... this is incredible. It looks like he's actually in the room."
The room went silent. Annie's brush stopped mid-air. Ellie stood up slowly, walking over to stand beside her brother. She looked at the painting of Ethan, then at the hollow circles under her best friend's blue eyes. The separation wasn't just a rule Dylan had enforced, it was a slow-acting poison.
"Annie," Ellie said softly, stepping closer and placing a hand on Annie's shoulder. "How are you actually doing? With the ban? With... him?"
Annie tightened her grip on the brush until her knuckles turned white. "I'm fine. I'm just following my dad's rules. It's better this way. No more fights on the field. No more drama with Kyson."
"You're vibrating, Annie," Ellie countered, her voice thick with protective empathy. "You've painted him fifty times in three weeks. You aren't eating. You're disappearing right in front of us."
"I have to be strong," Annie whispered, her voice trembling. "If I break, then Margaret wins. If I reach out, my dad gets hurt. I can't be the reason everything falls apart again."
"Annie, look at me," Ellie moved in front of her, forcing Annie to drop the brush. "It's okay to not be okay. You lost your mom, and then the one person who makes you feel safe was ripped away. You don't have to carry the weight of this whole house on your own."
That was the crack in the dam.
A single, jagged sob escaped Annie's throat, and then the wall crumbled. She collapsed into Ellie's arms, her small frame shaking with a grief so deep it seemed to come from her very bones. It wasn't just about Ethan, and it wasn't just about her mother- it was the suffocating pressure of years of silence.
The pain wasn't just a heartache, it was a physical memory. It was the coldness of the water, the smell of the "suicide" cover-up, and the phantom sensation of Ethan's hands on her chest, desperately forcing air back into her lungs while the world tried to let her die.
She pulled back just an inch, her blue eyes shimmering with tears and a sudden, sharp clarity. She looked at Ellie's worried face and Riley's stunned expression.
"Everyone thinks I moved away because I was depressed," Annie rasped, her voice raw. "Everyone thinks I tried to end it. They look at me with pity, or they look at me like I'm broken."
She wiped a tear away, her gaze shifting to the painting of the boy with the green eyes.
"But Ethan didn't save me from myself that night," she whispered, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly steady tone. "He saved me from someoneelse. And I think it's time I told you the truth, atleast some of it."
"Go on," Ellie urged, her voice barely a whisper. She held Annie's hands tightly, her own knuckles white. Riley had gone completely still on the bean bag, the stress ball forgotten on the floor. Annie took a shuddering breath, the air hitching in her chest.
"Almost four years ago... it wasn't just words. I was being bullied, Ellie. Physically. It started small, but it turned so aggressive, so fast." She looked down at her lap, her black hair veiling her face.
"The rumors started then- the ones about me being depressed. They were a smokescreen. A cover."
She reached for the hem of her oversized sweater, her fingers trembling violently. Slowly, she lifted the fabric. Across the pale skin of her abdomen sat a jagged, silver-white line- a long, thick scar that looked like a map of a nightmare.
"At one point, they tried to gut me," Annie whispered, a fresh sob breaking through. "They wanted to leave me there to bleed out. I got away just in time... and I've always been good at bandaging myself up anyway."
Riley let out a choked sound of horror, but Annie didn't stop. The dam hadn't just cracked, it had vanished.
"Then, the day of the bridge," she continued, her blue eyes fixed on the painting of Ethan as if his painted gaze could give her strength. "Kyson and I had gotten into a massive fight. I just needed to breathe, so I went for a walk. I ended up at the old bridge on Field Street. I didn't see them coming. I got ambushed."
She turned her wrists over, revealing the faint, thin lines that the town had used as "proof" of her instability.
"They cut me. They wanted it to look like I'd given up. Then they pushed me off the bridge and into the lake." Annie's voice dropped to a terrifying, hollow flatline. "I remember the cold. I remember the weight of my clothes pulling me down. I almost drowned. I did die, for a minute. If Ethan hadn't been there... if he hadn't jumped in and pulled me out... if he hadn't forced the air back into my lungs..."
She broke down again, burying her face in her hands.
"The town thought it was a suicide attempt. Everyone looked at me like I was a ticking time bomb. My dad was so scared he sent me away immediately. You guys, my old therapist... and Ethan... you're the only ones who know the truth."
A heavy, suffocating silence filled the room. Ellie's face was a mask of cold, silver-tongued fury, her eyes shimmering with tears for her friend.
"Was it-?" Ellie started, her voice laced with a lethal edge as she thought of Vanessa, or Peggy, or even the shadows in Annie's own house. "Annie, was it them?"
Annie wiped her face with the back of her hand, her expression closing off as she retreated back into her shell, the weight of the secret settling back onto her shoulders.
"No comment," Annie whispered, her voice trembling but final.