Chapter 62\u00a0<\/p>\n
When we got home, the house felt different somehow, heavier with unspoken truths, charged with secrets about to be shared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So instead of heading upstairs to our separate rooms like we usually did, Tristan and I gravitated toward the living room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tristan settled onto one end of the sectional couch his long frame folding with that fluid grace he\u2019d always possessed. I took the opposite end, tucking my legs beneath me and wrapping my arms around my knees like armor against whatever was coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The silence stretched between us, not uncomfortable exactly, but weighted with anticipation. I could feel him gathering his thoughts, choosing his words carefully the way he always did when something truly mattered to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My heart hammered against my ribs as I waited, because deep down I knew what this conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
would be about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The questions that had been eating at me since I\u2019d learned about Jess, since I\u2019d knelt beside her grave\u00a0<\/p>\n
and felt the crushing weight of everything I hadn\u2019t known about the man sitting across from me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tonight had changed something fundamental between us. He\u2019d shown me his most private places \u2013 the cemetery where he grieved, the hilltop where he found peace, the underground world where he courted death for the simple pleasure of proving he could cheat it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These weren\u2019t things you shared with just anyone. These were gifts given only to people who mattered, people you trusted with the deepest parts of yourself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Was he falling for me? The thought sent heat racing through my veins followed immediately by a chill of fear. The way he\u2019d protected me from the guy earlier at the racing center, the careful distance he maintained even while letting me into his world it all pointed to a man struggling with feelings he wasn\u2019t sure he should have. But I knew I was being delusional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you\u2019ve been meaning to ask me questions,\u201d he said finally, his voice low and rough in the quiet\u00a0<\/p>\n
room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our gaze locked, and I felt that familiar electric current that always seemed to arc between us when we really looked at each other. His gaze was steady but guarded, like he was bracing himself for whatever I might want to know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
20:37 Sat, Jan 3\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 62\u00a0<\/p>\n
11%\u00a0<\/p>\n
The questions had been multiplying in my mind like crops after rain. When had he met her? Had she been his Luna, the woman who stood beside him as he fed the pack? Had they had a proper mating\u00a0<\/p>\n
ceremony with all the ancient rituals and celebrations? Had he loved her the way every woman dreams of\u00a0<\/p>\n
being loved \u2013 completely, desperately, without reservation?\u00a0<\/p>\n
That last question would die with me. Some truths were too dangerous to speak aloud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened to her?\u201d I asked, starting with the one that felt safest, the one that focused on facts\u00a0<\/p>\n
rather than feelings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wanted to know how they\u2019d met, whether he\u2019d looked at her the way he sometimes looked at me like I was something precious and fragile that might disappear if he blinked. But I couldn\u2019t ask that. Some\u00a0<\/p>\n
doors were better left unopened.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tristan\u2019s expression softened, and I watched him slip back into memory like a man returning to a\u00a0<\/p>\n
familiar room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI met Jess when I was coming back from racing one night,\u201d he began, his voice taking on that storyteller quality he\u2019d always had when something truly captured his imagination. \u201cShe stepped right in \u26ab front of my bike, arms spread wide, trying to make me stop.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A smile appeared across his lips, fond and painful all at once. \u201cI couldn\u2019t help but wonder what kind of person was that fearless. Who sees a motorcycle coming at that late hour and thinks, \u2018I\u2019ll just stand here and make it stop with the power of my will\u201c?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I found myself leaning forward despite my resolve to keep distance between us. There was something mesmerizing about watching him remember her, like seeing someone carefully unwrap a Christmas\u00a0<\/p>\n
present.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI helped her fix her car, just a minor issue with the battery connections. The next day, I was shocked to see her at our family house. She\u2019d come to visit Sarah.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
My eyebrows shot up in confusion. \u201cWhat was Sarah doing at your family house?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d Tristan paused, studying my face. \u201cYou didn\u2019t know?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cKnow what?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSarah is my distant cousin. She came after my parents died to help with the \u2018transition, but you\u2019d already left by then. She met Orion and refused to go back home.\u201d The information hit me like a physical blow, rewriting everything I thought I understood about the people in my brother\u2019s life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
20:37 Sat, Jan 3\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 62\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sarah was Tristan\u2019s family. Jess had been her best end. I\u2019d been living in a carefully constructed bubble of ignorance, missing crucial pieces of the puzzle that was my own life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
10%\u00a0<\/p>\n
I absorbed this news like someone watching a move where all the plot twists suddenly made sense. The way Sarah had looked at me with such knowing eyes, the familiarity in her manner, it all clicked into\u00a0<\/p>\n
place now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw Jess at the house, I acted cold toward her, you know the way I also do\u201d I nodded my head already picturing the brooding Tristan, a smile appeared on my face.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut she didn\u2019t let that discourage her. She chased me everywhere until I fell hard for her.\u201cHe continued, his hands running through his hair, just like he always does when he\u2019s frustrated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter we lost our parents, I couldn\u2019t handle the grief. I felt completely alone and started acting like it. I avoided Orion, stayed out at clubs until dawn, got into fights with strangers just to feel something other\u00a0<\/p>\n
than the emptiness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
My chest tightened with guilt and regret. While I\u2019d been in London trying to forget my family existed, he\u2019d been here drowning in the same grief.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed to do something that would hurt as much as I was hurting inside. I got tattoos, started racing, picked fights I couldn\u2019t win, even though I won them with bruises. Anything to make the outside match what I felt inside.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories Drifted Into Soft Silence by Kyx Frost 62 Chapter 62\u00a0 When we got home, the house felt different somehow, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-gear-of-love-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}