5. Selena
SELENA
Guilt does not leave after that close call on the third floor.
It settles in and stays.
For days I treat Soren like a stranger living under the same roof.
The first day is the hardest.
I never look at him longer than a second. I never speak to him unless Mom or Dad is standing right there. I walk to the kitchen only when someone else is already in it. I lock my bedroom door the moment I step inside, even in the middle of the afternoon, and don’t come out until Mom calls me.
“Selena, lunch is ready,” she says from the hallway.
I wait until I hear Soren’s voice downstairs answering something Dad asked before I risk opening it.
At the table I keep my eyes on my plate.
“You’re quiet again today,” Mom says, passing me the salad. “Are you really okay?”
“Yeah, Mom,” I answer without looking up. “Just tired.”
I leave the table the moment I’m allowed.
The new pump arrives that afternoon. I hide the box under the bed, assemble it with shaking hands, and force myself through the mechanical routine every time the ache returns.
The flanges are the wrong size. The suction is either too weak or too sharp. It empties me eventually, but it never feels like enough. My body remembers the heat of his mouth and the slow, deliberate pull of his tongue.
The machine feels cold and wrong by comparison.
I come once by accident while I’m pumping that night, thighs clamped around nothing, his name trapped behind my teeth. The shame that follows is so strong I almost throw the whole thing away.
Soren notices, of course he does, the way he always notices when something shifts between us, and after that, he also stops trying to catch my eye in the hallway, stops lingering near my room, stops giving me any sign to break the distance I keep forcing between us.
The next morning I hear him talking to Mom in the foyer.
“I have to leave for a few days,” he says. “Urgent work.”
“Again?” Mom sounds disappointed. “You just got back.”
“It won’t be long.”
I stay in my room until the front door closes.
The house feels larger without him and somehow smaller at the same time. I tell myself the distance is a gift. That locking myself away and buying the new pump is me choosing the right thing over whatever dark, hungry thing opened between us.
But the truth sits under my ribs like a stone: I am only locking the door against myself. The need is already inside.
That night, I try the new pump twice. The first time I stop after ten minutes because the relief is so incomplete it makes me angry.
The second time I keep going until both bottles are full, then sit on the edge of the bed staring at the white liquid.
I hate how much I still want it to be his mouth instead.
I almost go upstairs.
I put on a sleep shirt, open my door, and walk all the way to the bottom of the third floor stairs. My hand is already on the railing when I freeze.
The house is completely quiet. Realizations rush through my mind.
What am I even looking for? He left. He’s gone for who knows how many days and I’m still sitting here waiting for something that isn’t coming.
I turn around and go back to bed.
I cry quietly into my pillow while the motor of the pump hums on the nightstand and milk fills the bottle in useless, empty pulses.
“I hate this,” I whisper to no one. “I hate how much I miss him.”
The third night without him is worse.
My mind starts playing tricks on me. I keep catching myself listening for the front door, half-expecting him to come back early even though I know he won’t.
I don’t even try to study. I lie in bed with the lights off and press my palms against my full breasts, trying to recreate the exact pressure of his hands.
It doesn’t work. Nothing works.
Every time I close my eyes, I feel the phantom weight of his body, the heat of his mouth, the low vibration in his voice when he commands me.
At 1:17 a.m., I get up again.
This time I make it halfway up the stairs before I stop. My heart is beating so hard I can hear it in my ears. I sit down on the step in the dark and wrap my arms around myself, rocking slightly. Milk is seeping through the front of my shirt. I can feel it cooling against my skin.
If I climb those stairs and the room is empty, I will have to admit how much I miss him.
If the room isn’t empty… I don’t know what I’ll do.
I stay there for almost twenty minutes, torn between going up and going back.
In the end, I choose the safer option. I return to my room, try on the pump one more time, and force myself to stay in bed until morning.
By the fourth day the ache is constant—not just in my breasts, but deeper. I move through the house like a ghost. I answer when spoken to. I smile when Mom looks at me too long. And every free second my mind drifts back to the renovated room on the third floor and the man who is no longer in it.
I tell myself that when he comes home I will stay strong. I will keep the door locked. I will use the pump. I will not climb those stairs again.
I almost believe it.
He comes home two days after that.
I hear the front door, the low murmur of Mom’s greeting voice, the solid sound of his footsteps on the stairs.
“Welcome back,” Mom says. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine,” Soren answers. His voice is closer than I expect. “Where’s Selena?”
“In her room, I think. She’s been keeping to herself these past few days.”
My heart starts racing so hard I have to sit on the edge of my bed and breathe through it. Excitement and dread twist together until I can’t tell them apart. I stare at the ceiling and tell myself I will not go to him.
By midnight, when the house is quiet.
My breasts are heavy again.
My skin feels too tight.
I slip out of bed, bare feet silent on the hardwood, and climb the narrow stairs to the third floor room.
The door is unlocked.
Soren is standing near the window with his back to me, still in the dark dress shirt he wore at work, sleeves rolled to the elbows.
The room is fully renovated—the walls are fresh and clean, the old mattress and dusty boxes are gone, replaced by a proper bed and simple modern furniture.
The interior designer he hired must have finished everything within the week he was away.
He turns around the moment the door clicks shut. His mismatched eyes find me in the low light. For a long second neither of us speaks.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
I don’t answer. I lock the door behind me anyway and stay where I am, hands knotted in the hem of my sleep shirt. The silence stretches. He reads it for what it is.
His jaw tightens slightly. When he speaks again the frustration is clearer, but the tone stays measured.
“You fucking confuse me. Ignoring me for days and now you suddenly decide to face me? By the way you acted, I thought we were already done.”
The words land hard. I force myself to meet his eyes.
“I tried,” I say, my voice quieter than I want it to be. “I locked the door every time. I bought a new pump so I wouldn’t need you. I stayed next to Mom and Dad whenever you were in the house. I told myself if I just kept enough distance, it would stop.”
He doesn’t move closer. He just watches me, jaw tight, the controlled stillness that always makes my stomach drop.
I force myself to hold his gaze. The age gap and everything it means rises first, heavy and unavoidable.
“You’re thirty. I’m nineteen. Eleven years, Soren.
Even though we’re not blood related, by paper you’re still my stepbrother.
Dad would never forgive either of us. Mom would be devastated.
If anyone found out what we’ve already done, it would tear this family apart.
Everything would change. Everything would be ruined.
I keep telling myself that should be enough to make me stay away.
That the consequences are too big. That it’s wrong on every level that matters. ”
Silence stretches between us. The lamp on the table throws a low amber circle across the floor. Outside the window the night is completely still.
Soren’s voice is quieter when he finally speaks.
“Then why did you still climb to this room?”
The question hangs in the air for a long moment. My throat tightens. The real answer finally breaks free.
“Because… because I’m starting to like you.” I let that sit in the air before continuing.
“It started as relief. That’s all it was supposed to be.
My body was in pain and you knew how to take it away.
I told myself that was the only reason I let you touch me.
That once the pressure was gone I would be able to walk away and pretend none of it happened.
But it isn’t just relief anymore. It’s the way you look at me when you do it.
The way your hands never rush. The way you hold me like you already decided I’m yours.
I think about your mouth on me when I’m alone.
I think about the sounds I made for you.
I think about how safe and terrified I felt at the same time.
It started as just needing the ache gone.
Now, I need you. And that scares the hell out of me.
Still, I climbed these stairs tonight. Still, I locked the door behind me.
Still, I’m standing here hoping you’ll touch me again even though I know exactly how dangerous that is. ”
The quiet that follows is longer this time.
Neither of us looks away.
When Soren finally answers, his voice is quiet, mature and stripped of the frustration that met me at the door.
“I know what this is. I know the years between us. I know what it would do to this family. I’ve known since the first time I put my hands on you that there is no clean way out of it.
I told myself the same things you did—that it was only about helping you, that I could stop whenever I decided to.
I left for almost a week thinking distance would make it easier. ”
He takes one step closer, then another, until he reaches me.