Chapter 5: The Longest Hallway

Morning came like a hangover—slow, painful, and impossible to ignore.

Elijah had barely slept, drifting in and out of restless dreams where Sam's voice whispered accusations in his ear and her blue eyes looked at him with disappointment so sharp it felt like dying. Every time he'd finally managed to drift off, some sound from her room would jolt him awake—the creak of her bed, footsteps across the floor, the soft whisper of her door opening and closing.

Was she having trouble sleeping too? Or was she just getting on with her life, already moving past what had happened between them like it meant nothing?

The thought made his stomach clench with something that felt dangerously close to jealousy.

By six AM, he gave up on sleep entirely and headed downstairs, hoping to grab coffee and maybe some peace before the rest of the house woke up. But as he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he found Sam already there, perched on a barstool with her laptop open and a steaming mug clutched between her hands.

She was wearing an oversized sleep shirt that hung off one shoulder, her hair tumbled around her face in waves that caught the early morning light streaming through the windows. She looked soft and rumpled and absolutely beautiful, and for a moment all Elijah could do was stand there like an idiot, remembering how she'd felt in his arms just twelve hours ago.

Then she looked up, and the careful blankness in her eyes hit him like cold water.

"Morning," she said quietly, her voice neutral enough to be speaking to a stranger.

"Morning." His own voice came out rougher than intended, still thick with sleep and something else he didn't want to name. "You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep." She turned back to her laptop screen, effectively dismissing him. "Working on my portfolio."

The tension in the kitchen was thick enough to choke on. Every mundane detail—the hum of the refrigerator, the distant sound of birds outside, the soft click of her typing—felt amplified, loaded with meaning. This was their new reality, apparently. Polite strangers sharing space, pretending yesterday had never happened.

Elijah moved toward the coffee maker, hyperaware of every step that brought him closer to where she sat. When he reached past her for a mug, the movement brought him close enough to smell her shampoo, and his body responded immediately—a rush of heat and want that had nothing to do with morning coffee and everything to do with the memory of her naked and gasping beneath his hands.

"Excuse me," he muttered, trying to step back, but she chose that moment to shift on her stool, and suddenly they were pressed together—his hip against her thigh, his arm brushing her shoulder.

The contact lasted maybe two seconds, but it was enough to send electricity racing through his nervous system. Sam sucked in a sharp breath, her fingers freezing on the keyboard, and when he looked down at her, he could see her pulse jumping at the base of her throat.

"Sorry," he said, but neither of them moved away.

For a heartbeat, the careful distance between them wavered. Her eyes met his, and he saw everything she wasn't saying—the hurt, the confusion, the desire that was still very much alive despite his spectacular handling of their aftermath. It would be so easy to lean down, to brush his lips against that fluttering pulse, to whisper an apology that actually meant something.

Instead, the sound of footsteps on the stairs broke the spell, and they jerked apart like guilty teenagers.

"Good morning, early birds," David said cheerfully as he entered the kitchen, already dressed for work in one of his perfectly pressed suits. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"Just wanted to get a head start on the day," Sam said smoothly, closing her laptop with a soft snap. "I promised Mom I'd help her reorganize the gallery storage room."

"And I have that economics reading to catch up on," Elijah added, pouring coffee with hands that were steadier than they had any right to be.

David nodded approvingly. "Good to see you both taking your responsibilities seriously. Helen and I were just saying last night how proud we are of how well you two have been getting along this summer."

The innocent comment landed like a bomb in the middle of the kitchen. Elijah's coffee mug froze halfway to his lips, and Sam made a choking sound that she quickly disguised as a cough. Getting along? If only their father knew what kind of "getting along" they'd been doing.

"We've learned to tolerate each other," Sam said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Isn't that right, Elijah?"

The word 'tolerate' felt like a knife between his ribs, especially when he remembered how she'd whispered his name like a prayer just yesterday. But he forced himself to nod, to play along with whatever game she was starting.

"We've reached a... understanding," he said carefully.

"That's wonderful," David beamed, completely oblivious to the undercurrents swirling around him. "I know it wasn't easy at first, blending two families, but you've both matured so much. Your mother and I couldn't be happier with how things have turned out."

Helen chose that moment to appear in the kitchen, already dressed for her day at the gallery, her graying hair pulled back in an elegant chignon. "Couldn't be happier with what?" she asked, pressing a kiss to David's cheek.

"How well our kids are getting along," David said proudly. "No more of those terrible fights they used to have."

Helen's face lit up with maternal satisfaction. "Oh, I noticed that too. Remember how they used to go at each other? All that screaming and slamming doors? I was so worried we'd made a mistake, trying to force them to be siblings."

Every word felt like another twist of the knife. Because they were right—the fighting had stopped. But not because he and Sam had learned to get along. It had stopped because all that anger and frustration had finally found its proper outlet, transformed into something desperate and hungry that had nothing to do with sibling rivalry and everything to do with wanting what they couldn't have.

"We just needed time to figure each other out," Sam said, her voice steady despite the way her knuckles had gone white around her coffee mug. "Sometimes people fight because they don't know how else to... connect."

The word hung in the air between them, loaded with meaning that only they could understand. Elijah met her eyes across the kitchen and saw something there that made his chest tight—not anger, not hurt, but a kind of desperate honesty that cut him to the bone.

"Well, whatever changed, I'm grateful for it," Helen said warmly. "Having a peaceful house makes such a difference. No more worrying about you two killing each other while we're at work."

The casual comment hit like a slap. No more worrying? If only they knew what their children were actually doing while they were gone, what kind of "peace" they'd actually negotiated.

"We should probably get going," David said, glancing at his watch. "The Morrison meeting is at nine, and traffic's going to be brutal."

"Of course," Helen agreed, gathering her purse and gallery keys. "You two have a good day. Try not to work too hard."

They moved around the kitchen with the practiced efficiency of a couple who'd been married for years, sharing kisses and casual touches, discussing their evening plans with the comfortable intimacy of people who had nothing to hide.

Watching them, Elijah felt the full weight of what he'd done—what they'd done—settle on his shoulders like lead. These were good people. People who'd opened their hearts and homes to create something beautiful out of tragedy and loss. People who trusted their children to honor the family they'd built together.

And he'd betrayed that trust in the most fundamental way possible.

When the front door finally closed behind their parents, the silence that settled over the kitchen was deafening. Sam continued staring at her closed laptop, her coffee growing cold in her hands, while Elijah stood frozen by the counter, his own mug forgotten.

"That was fun," Sam said finally, her voice carefully neutral.

"Sam—"

"Don't." She held up a hand without looking at him. "Just... don't. I can't handle whatever guilt-ridden speech you're about to give me right now."

But he could see the way her shoulders were shaking, could hear the brittle edge in her voice that meant she was barely holding herself together. Yesterday's anger had burned off, leaving behind something raw and wounded that was somehow worse than her fury.

"They're good people," he said quietly. "They don't deserve—"

"What? To have their perfect blended family revealed as a lie?" Sam's laugh was sharp, bitter. "News flash, Elijah—it was already a lie. We've been lying to them for years, pretending to be something we're not. Yesterday just made it official."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" She finally looked at him, and the pain in her eyes made his chest ache. "When was the last time you actually thought of me as your sister? Not stepsister, not some girl your dad married into the family, but actual sister?"

The question hung between them like an accusation because they both knew the answer. Never. He'd never once looked at Sam and thought 'sister.' From the very beginning, she'd been something else—something dangerous and forbidden that he'd spent years trying not to notice.

"I thought so," she said when he didn't answer. "So don't stand there acting like we corrupted something pure. We just finally stopped pretending."

She slid off the barstool, gathering her laptop and coffee mug with movements that were carefully controlled. But as she passed him on her way out of the kitchen, she paused, so close he could feel the heat radiating from her skin.

"The hallway," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

"What?"

"Between our rooms. It used to feel like no-man's-land, remember? Neutral territory where we could pass each other without having to acknowledge what was happening."

He remembered. Those careful choreographed dances they'd performed, timing their movements to avoid contact, eyes straight ahead, pretending the other didn't exist.

"Now it just feels like the longest hallway in the world," she continued. "Every step an eternity, every breath a reminder of what I can't have."

The confession was quiet, devastating, and before he could find words to respond, she was gone, leaving him alone with the lingering scent of her perfume and the echo of footsteps that sounded like goodbye.

The rest of the day passed in a haze of careful avoidance. Sam disappeared into her room with her laptop and didn't emerge except for brief forays to the bathroom or kitchen, always timing her movements to avoid him. Elijah tried to focus on his textbooks, but every word on the page blurred together into meaningless symbols.

Instead, he found himself listening for sounds from next door—the soft click of her keyboard, the whisper of pages turning, the creak of her chair. Once, he heard what sounded like crying, soft and muffled, and he'd actually stood up and walked to his door before forcing himself to turn around.

What right did he have to comfort her when he was the one who'd caused her pain?

Lunch was a minefield of polite conversation over sandwiches neither of them really wanted. Dinner was worse—their parents full of stories about their respective days, asking questions about summer plans and fall classes that felt like speaking in a foreign language.

Through it all, Sam played her part perfectly. She smiled at the right moments, laughed at David's terrible jokes, asked Helen about the new artist she was representing. The only sign of strain was the way she avoided looking directly at Elijah, as if the sight of him was too much to bear.

He tried to follow her lead, to act normal, but everything felt wrong. The kitchen table where they'd eaten hundreds of family meals now felt like foreign territory. The living room where they'd grudgingly watched movies together seemed like a stage set for a play he no longer knew how to perform.

And the hallway—God, the hallway between their rooms had become exactly what Sam said it was. The longest stretch of hardwood floor in existence, every step echoing with memory and regret and the weight of everything they couldn't say.

By the time their parents went to bed, Elijah was ready to crawl out of his own skin. He stood at his bedroom window, looking out at the quiet suburban street, and wondered how everything had changed so completely in the span of twenty-four hours.

A soft knock on his door made him freeze.

"Elijah?" Sam's voice was barely audible through the wood. "Can we... can we talk?"

His heart hammered against his ribs as he crossed to the door, his hand hesitating on the knob. This was his chance—to apologize properly, to explain why he'd acted like such a coward, to maybe find some way to make sense of the mess they'd created.

But when he opened the door, Sam was already walking away, her shoulders rigid with hurt and disappointment.

"Never mind," she said without turning around. "I forgot you don't actually want to talk to me."

Her bedroom door closed with a soft click that felt like the end of everything, leaving Elijah alone in the longest hallway in the world, surrounded by the ghosts of what they'd shared and the crushing weight of what he'd thrown away.