April 21, 1980

The house was dark when Noah slipped his key into the door. Not quite dark, but the kind that felt waiting. The porch light burned sharply against the street, and as soon as he pushed the door open, the familiar smell of antiseptic and lemon polish clung to him.

His mother was in the living room.

Margaret Bennett sat perfectly upright in her armchair, knitting needles abandoned in her lap. The lamp on the side table threw her shadow long across the wall, her lips pressed tight into a line. She didn’t need to look at the clock for Noah to know what time it was.

“You’re late.”

Her voice was low, flat — which was worse than raised.

“It’s only—” Noah glanced at the wall clock, wincing. “—seven-thirty.”

“You know the rule,” she said. Not shouting. Not even sharp. Just steady. “Home by seven. Always.”

Noah set his backpack down, heat crawling up the back of his neck. “I wasn’t doing anything bad.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“I was with Caleb.”

Something flickered in her expression, but she smoothed it away too quickly. “That’s no excuse to break curfew.”

“I’m seventeen,” Noah said, and the words came out more desperate than he wanted. “Seventeen, Mom. I don’t need to be treated like I’m ten anymore.”

Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t raise your voice to me.”

He shut his mouth, chest rising fast with the words he didn’t say. For a moment, the silence stretched between them, tense as glass about to crack.

Then she moved. Slowly, deliberately, she reached for the envelope on the side table. Noah’s stomach dropped.

“Is this yours?” she asked.

The paper was folded, creased from where it had been tucked away — hidden, he thought. Hidden well enough. Until now.

Her fingers pinched the corner of the letter. The one he’d written weeks ago, maybe months, but never given. The one with Caleb’s name written softly at the top, with words he could barely admit to himself beneath.

Noah’s mouth went dry. “Where did you—”

“It doesn’t matter where I found it.” Her voice was sharper now, the calm peeling back to something colder. “What matters is what it says.”

“Mom—”

“Do you think I don’t see what’s happening?” she demanded, her hand trembling just slightly as she held the letter like it was something poisonous. “All these late nights, all this… secrecy. And this.” She shook the paper once. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

Noah felt his chest tightening, breath trapped somewhere it couldn’t reach. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying!” His voice cracked, louder than he meant. “I just—he’s my best friend!”

“Friends don’t write things like this,” she snapped, her voice finally rising, breaking through the composure she clung to. “This isn’t what I raised you for, Noah. This isn’t what God wants.”

Her hand tightened around the letter. She whispered then, almost to herself, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…” Her lips moved like the words might protect the house from the thing she thought had already crept inside.

Her eyes found Noah again, sharp and searching. “Tell me the truth. Is Caleb just your friend… or is he something more?”

The air in the room thickened. Noah’s mouth opened, but no sound came. His silence was answer enough.

Margaret’s breath caught. “Dear Lord,” she murmured, crossing herself quickly, her hand trembling. “Not in my house. Not in my family.”

“Mom—”

“No.” Her voice cut through his, firm, shaking at the edges. “Do you understand what you’re playing with? Sin dresses itself up as comfort, Noah. It feels easy. It feels safe. But it’s the devil’s trick. That boy—” she lifted the letter again, waving it like evidence—“he is pulling you away from God. He is temptation, nothing more.”

“No!” The word ripped out of Noah before he even thought. His hands clenched at his sides, his chest burning. “He’s not temptation. He’s not some devil in disguise. He’s Caleb. He’s the only person who actually listens to me, who doesn’t treat me like I’m a child or a sinner every time I breathe wrong.”

Margaret flinched at the sharpness in his tone, but he pressed on, voice shaking with anger and something deeper. “You don’t even know him. You don’t know how kind he is, how much he cares. He’s not pulling me away from anything—he’s the reason I feel like I can keep going at all.”

Her face hardened, but her voice wavered. “Noah, stop—”

“You want to call him temptation? Then what does that make you?” His voice cracked. “Because every time you slam a door, every time you tell me I’m failing God just for existing—don’t you see? You’re the one pushing me away.”

Margaret’s face went pale at his words, then flushed with color, her whole body trembling with a fury she rarely allowed herself to show. “Don’t you dare put me in the same breath as that boy,” she hissed. “I am your mother. I am the only one standing between you and eternal damnation.”

“You’re not protecting me,” Noah shot back. His chest heaved as if every word had been locked up for years, now bursting out all at once. “You’re trapping me. You think God wants me locked in this house, walking on eggshells, praying every time I feel something real?”

Margaret’s hand shook as she slammed the letter down on the table like it was poison. “You’re seventeen, Noah. You don’t know what real is. That boy is leading you straight to hell, and if you keep defending him, you’ll drag this whole family down with you.”

“He’s not leading me anywhere!” Noah’s voice cracked under the strain, but he didn’t falter. “I chose him. Me. Because when I’m with Caleb, I feel—” he struggled for the word, his throat raw—“I feel human. Like, I’m not just some puppet you want me to be. And if that’s hell, then maybe hell is better than this.”

Margaret recoiled as if he’d struck her. For a moment, the silence was deafening, broken only by Noah’s ragged breathing and the faint tick of the wall clock.

Then her face hardened into something Noah had only seen once before, years ago, when she’d caught him sneaking out for the first time. Cold. Absolute. Final.

“If you ever see him again,” she said slowly, each word sharp as glass, “if you so much as speak to that boy, he will not step foot in this house. And you will answer not just to me, but to God Himself.”

Her words hit harder than if she’d struck him.

For a moment, all he could do was stare at her, the silence thick and burning. His throat ached, but no sound came.

Margaret set the letter down with sharp precision, like she couldn’t bear to hold it anymore. Her hands returned to her lap, folded tight enough that her knuckles whitened.

“You will not see him past school anymore,” she said firmly. “Do you understand me? Whatever this is, it ends now.”

Noah’s vision blurred. He blinked hard, but the tears wouldn’t stop pricking at the corners. His chest rose and fell too quickly, caught between fury and heartbreak.

“You don’t understand at all.” His voice cracked, raw and thin, but the words still cut the air.

Margaret’s jaw tightened, her expression immovable, carved in stone. “Then make me understand.”

Noah’s lips parted. He almost said it—almost let the words slip that Caleb was more than a friend, more than temptation, that what he felt was not corruption but the only thing in his life that made him feel alive. But the truth lodged in his throat like glass. To say it out loud would shatter everything, and he wasn’t sure what pieces would be left.

So instead, he swallowed it down. Bitter. Burning.

“No,” he whispered. “You wouldn’t listen anyway.”

Her eyes flashed, but she didn’t speak.

Noah turned, his footsteps sharp against the polished floor as he moved toward the stairs. Every creak of the wood sounded louder than it should have, like the house itself was listening, judging, pressing the weight of silence on his shoulders.

He didn’t look back.

The letter sat abandoned on the table below, its folds soft from his hands but held now only in her shadow.

And for the first time, Noah didn’t feel like the house was quiet.

He felt like it was empty… like the walls themselves had chosen her side, leaving him to climb into a room that no longer belonged to him at all.