They lay in bed beside each other, hands entwined, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Silence pressed between us like a third presence. Ever since we came back upstairs from the chaos that had unfolded below, Aldrich had been unusually quiet. I had asked him countless times what was wrong, but his answer had been the same every single time—

“Nothing.”

But who was he trying to fool? I knew him too well to fall for that lie.

Darkness crept into the room, swallowing the light inch by inch, and the air grew heavier with tension. Something was bothering him, something he was not ready to share. That cognition alone pained...