Chapter 5: The Confrontation
The smell of coffee pulled Audrey from a deep, dreamless sleep. For a moment, she was disoriented, the crisp white sheets and the solid warmth at her back unfamiliar. Then the previous day crashed back in: her father’s study, the cold fury in her voice, the way Ezra’s hands had gentled her afterwards.
She rolled over. Ezra’s side of the bed was empty, but the indentation on his pillow was still deep. She heard a faint clatter from the kitchen downstairs.
Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the blinds, cutting bright lines across the rumpled duvet. The normalcy of it felt surreal. The world had tilted on its axis, but here was the sun, still rising. She stretched, her body pleasantly sore in a way that had nothing to do with stress.
Her phone was on the nightstand. She picked it up, blinking at the screen. Aria’s text from last night glowed there. He’s home. Mom told him to sleep in the guest room. It’s so quiet. I can’t stand it.
Audrey’s chest tightened. She typed back, her thumbs moving quickly. I’m coming over after I get some coffee in me. Do you want pastries from The Brew?
A reply came almost instantly. Yes. Chocolate croissant. Save me.
A small smile touched Audrey’s lips. Some things never changed.
She pulled on a pair of soft leggings and one of Ezra’s worn-in sweatshirts, the sleeves flopping over her hands. Padding barefoot down the stairs, the scent of coffee grew stronger, mixed with the buttery smell of toast.
Ezra stood at the stove, scrambling eggs in a pan. He was in just his boxers and a t-shirt, his hair adorably messy. He glanced over his shoulder as she entered.
“Hey,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep. “You looked like you needed the rest. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You’re a good man, Ezra Fitz.” She walked up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her face against his back. He leaned into the touch, one hand coming up to cover hers.
“How do you feel?” he asked, keeping his attention on the eggs.
“Empty. And full. I don’t know.” She sighed. “Aria’s a mess. I’m going to take her some breakfast.”
“Want company?”
“No. I think it should just be us today. Girl stuff. Damage assessment.”
He nodded, understanding. He plated the eggs and handed her a mug of coffee, fixed just how she liked it. “Just be careful, okay? That whole situation is… volatile.”
“I know.” She took a sip, the caffeine hitting her system like a blessing. “I just need to see her.”
After a quick shower and changing into real clothes—dark jeans, a simple blouse—Audrey drove to The Brew. The familiarity of Rosewood’s main street in the Saturday morning light was comforting. She got two chocolate croissants and an extra-large latte for Aria.
The Montgomery house looked the same as ever: stately, pristine, quietly wealthy. But it felt different now. The air around it seemed charged, like after a lightning strike. She let herself in with her key.
“Aria?” she called, her voice echoing in the high foyer.
“In here.”
Aria was curled in a massive armchair in the sunroom, wrapped in a blanket despite the warmth. She looked smaller than usual, her eyes puffy.
“I come bearing gifts,” Audrey said, holding up the paper bag.
Aria uncurled a little. “You’re an angel.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, just eating. The rich, flaky pastry was a tangible piece of goodness. Audrey watched her sister. “So. Guest room, huh?”
“All night. I heard him go in there. I heard the door shut.” Aria picked at a piece of chocolate. “Mom made breakfast this morning. She set a place for him at the table. He came down, sat, and she just… didn’t look at him. Didn’t pass him the jam. It was the most brutal thing I’ve ever seen.”
Audrey could picture it perfectly. Ella’s quiet, cutting civility. Byron’s shame filling the room like a smell.
“What did he say to you?” Aria asked quietly. “Yesterday. You never told me.”
Audrey set her coffee down. “I told him I was done. That I wouldn’t lie for him anymore, that he was a coward for letting the truth come from a stranger’s text.” She kept her voice even. “I told him he lost my respect.”
Aria absorbed this, her gaze fixed on the garden outside. “Do you think they’ll get divorced?”
“I don’t know. That’s up to Mom. But he has to do the work now. All of it. No more secretaries running interference.” She reached over, squeezing Aria’s foot through the blanket. “You don’t have to manage their emotions, Ari. That’s not your job.”
“It feels like it is,” Aria whispered. “Everything feels like it’s falling apart. First Ali, now this… it’s like the universe is peeling our family apart layer by layer.”
A cold prickle, unrelated to her father’s affair, traced Audrey’s spine. Ali’s disappearance was a wound that never really scarred over. To hear Aria link it to this… it felt ominous.
“This is different,” Audrey said firmly, pushing the feeling away. “This is just Dad being a selfish idiot. It’s ugly, but it’s… normal ugly. It’s fixable.” She wasn’t sure she believed that, but Aria needed to hear it.
They talked for another hour, the conversation drifting to easier things—school, Aria’s friends, the horrible new haircut of a guy they’d gone to middle school with. It was a lifeline to normalcy.
As Audrey was gathering the empty pastry papers, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. A single text from an unknown number.
You think your dad’s the only one with secrets, big sister?
She stared at it, her blood going still. The phone felt cold in her hand.
“You okay?” Aria asked, noticing her freeze.
Audrey forced a breath. It was just spam. A wrong number. Some idiot trying to scare people. It had to be. The timing was a hideous coincidence.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. She deleted the text, thumb jabbing at the screen. “Just… a promotional thing. Annoying.” She shoved the phone deep into her pocket, as if she could bury the message physically.
She hugged Aria goodbye, the embrace tighter than usual. “Call me if you need anything. Anything at all.”
Driving home, the morning sun felt too bright. She replayed the text in her mind. Big sister. That was specific. Could it be one of Aria’s friends playing a cruel joke? Spencer, maybe? They were all so intense, so dramatic.
But a deeper, colder part of her whispered something else. It whispered about a photo that didn’t exist anymore, deleted from a server years ago. It whispered about the fuzzy, chemical-heavy darkness of a party where hands groped and laughter was too loud, and Jason’s voice had cut through it, sharp and angry. Get the fuck off her.
No. Those were her secrets. Buried. Only Jason and Ezra knew the whole truth about that night. And the girl from college… that was a lifetime ago.
It was spam. It had to be.
She pulled into the driveway of their house on Birch Lane. Ezra was in the front yard now, raking the first fall leaves into a pile. He looked up and waved, a simple, grounding sight.
She got out of the car, the phantom buzz of the text still vibrating in her nerves. She walked towards him, the crunch of leaves under her boots the only sound. He leaned on the rake, studying her face.
“How is she?”
“Hanging in there.” Audrey stopped in front of him, wanting to fall into his arms again, to tell him about the text, to voice the sudden, formless dread. But giving it voice made it real. And if it was nothing—and it was almost certainly nothing—she’d just be dragging him into another ghost story.
So she swallowed it. She pushed it down, where she pushed all the things she refused to be scared of.
“You look like you could use a distraction,” Ezra said softly, his eyes knowing. He wasn’t pushing. He was just offering.
She managed a smile. “Yeah. I really could.”
He bent and kissed her, a gentle, lingering promise against her lips. “Go on inside. I’ll finish this up.”
Audrey walked back to the house, her hand closing around the phone in her pocket. She didn’t take it out. She decided, right then, to forget it. Rosewood was full of whispers and past ghosts. She wouldn’t let them in.
Upstairs, in the quiet of their bedroom, she opened her laptop to work. The screen glowed, a blank document waiting. She positioned her fingers over the keys. She would focus on the words in front of her, the story she could edit and control. Not the one that seemed to be twisting around her family.
Outside, the rake whispered through the grass. A single, scarlet leaf drifted past the window, spinning aimlessly in the still air before disappearing from view.