Read Chapter 15: — THE THING ADRIAN NEVER KNEW

The outbreak stripped away privacy.

There were too few staff, too few rooms, too many hours spent together under fluorescent lights. Secrets survived badly.

Adrian finally learned why Lena had left him during a night shift in which neither had enough energy to protect the past.

They were sitting in a supply room drinking instant coffee because the staff lounge had become an overflow charting area.

“My father told you we fought,” Lena said.

“He told me you asked something about my mother.”

“He never told you what?”

“No.”

She looked at him for a long time.

“My mother believed, when she was younger, that your mother and my father were in love.”

Adrian frowned.

“They were close.”

“I know that now.”

“Lena.”

“She said their marriage broke partly because my father was emotionally somewhere else. Then he moved into the same university housing block as your family. He mentored you. Paid attention to you. Helped with everything.”

Her voice tightened.

“And I was his daughter, and I could barely get him to ask how my day was.”

Adrian said nothing.

“I started thinking things that sound ridiculous now. I wondered whether there was something no one had told us. Whether you could be…”

She stopped.

“My brother?”

The word landed between them.

“Yes.”

Adrian leaned back against the shelves.

For several seconds he looked stunned.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was ashamed. Then I confronted my father. He hit me.”

Adrian went very still.

“He what?”

“Once. He regretted it. That isn’t the point.”

“It is a point.”

“I left. You were applying overseas. Everything felt contaminated. I thought ending it was the only way to stop thinking about it.”

“And you let me believe you stopped loving me.”

Lena’s eyes filled.

“I thought that would hurt less than saying I was terrified our whole relationship might be a mistake.”

Adrian looked down at his hands.

“I spent eight years trying to become a man you might regret leaving.”

“I spent eight years trying not to regret it.”

They both laughed once, painfully.

Then the emergency alarm sounded.

There was no time for resolution.

Perhaps that was appropriate.

They had lost years because they had tried to resolve uncertainty by disappearing.

This time, they stood and ran toward it together.