When the Storm Got Inside

“Doors only keep trouble out. Once it’s in the room with you, all you’ve got left is your poker face.”

My feet thudded against the floorboards with soft, rapid urgency, each step a percussion note syncing with the frantic rhythm in my chest. The hallway stretched ahead, deceptively familiar—but tonight it felt like a tunnel. Narrowing. Closing.

I need to hurry. I need to get to the front door before Mum returns with Dad's phone.

The thought surged and repeated like a metronome, ticking louder with every step. My breath was tight now, high in my throat, not quite panting but on the edge. I pushed harder, propelled by the fragile illusion that I might still control the narrative if I could just... get out first.

At the front door, my fingers scrambled for the knob—slipped once, twice. The smooth metal felt slick under my skin, coated in the oily sheen of panic. I gritted my teeth and tried again, twisting harder this time.

Locked.

Of course.

Of course the bloody door was locked.

In my haste to stage the perfect little exit—slam the door, vanish clean—I’d skipped the first rule of theatre: check the bloody props. My knuckles pressed against the door, as if I could will it to cooperate through sheer proximity. But it stood impassive. Unmoved. The gatekeeper of a plan now fracturing at the seams.

A low, frustrated sound clawed its way up my throat, but I bit it back. No room for noise. No room for anything but control.

And then—

“Beatrix!”

Her voice landed like a lightning strike.

I froze, mid-breath. Muscles locked. Spine straight. Time fractured.

The tone was unmistakable—sharp, commanding. Tinged with worry, yes, but carrying that particular maternal undertone that sent every nerve in my body into high alert. It was the tone she used when something didn’t add up. When she smelt blood in the water.

A jolt surged through me. For a split second, I almost ran. My entire body screamed for it—knees bent, weight tilted, breath held like prey in the underbrush.

Run.

But logic cut through the instinct with scalpel precision.

Don’t.

If I bolted now, it was over. I’d be confirming every suspicion she’d ever quietly tucked away behind those narrowed eyes. I’d hand her the validity of her concerns on a silver platter.

I turned instead. Slowly. Measured. Jaw clenched so tight I felt the strain echo in my temples.

She was already heading towards me, her eyes fixed on me with that steady, unnerving intensity. The light behind her caught the high planes of her cheekbones, casting the rest in soft shadow. She looked regal, almost. Like a detective in a final scene, right before everything clicks into place.

“Where’s Luke?” she asked.

Even. Controlled. But her eyes moved like scalpels, dissecting my face for fractures in the lie she suspected was coming.

“He’s just left to go meet Dad at his place,” I said.

Calm. Clean. No tremble. The kind of delivery you learn after years of needing to hide things—not big things, not always. Just inconvenient truths. The sort that don’t fit well into dinner table conversations.

And technically—it wasn’t untrue. Luke was leaving. He was going to meet Dad at his place.

He just wasn't using the front door to do it.

I met her gaze without blinking, as though sheer steadiness might obscure the trembling somewhere just behind my ribs. The lie sat on my tongue like cold metal, oddly satisfying in its neatness.

She didn’t answer.

Instead, silence unfolded between us—not passive, but deliberate. A stillness sharpened by the weight of what hadn’t been said. She was watching me, not just my words but the space between them. Watching like someone who knew what guilt looked like even when it was dressed in Sunday best.

Her eyes narrowed.

Not much. Just enough to say I see you.

I stayed rooted. Let her look. Let her measure. The locked door behind me was still warm beneath my palm—taunting in its stillness, whispering that the world I wanted to flee to was just inches away.

But in here—in the amber-lit entryway of my childhood, confronted by my mother—I wasn’t a Guardian.

I was just Beatrix. A daughter wrapped in secrets. A liar mid-performance. And the storm I’d been outrunning was now, unquestionably, inside the house.