The days had begun to blur together in a comfortable rhythm. Leah spent her mornings working on editing projects, her afternoons exploring the city, and her evenings wrapped in the warmth of Derrick’s company. Yet, despite how happy she was, a strange sense of restlessness had begun to creep in.

  Derrick had been working longer hours lately, leaving early and coming home late. Leah didn’t mind—she understood the demands of his career—but it meant she often found herself alone in the spacious apartment with little to do. She had read through most of the books she had brought with her, reorganized the kitchen cabinets twice, and even resorted to binge-watching an old TV series just to pass the time. But today, none of it seemed to satisfy the gnawing boredom that settled in her chest.

  She wandered through the apartment, sipping a cup of tea, her bare feet padding across the hardwood floors. Even though she had been living there for a few weeks, there were still parts of the apartment she hadn't paid much attention to. The guest room was barely used, and the office was always in pristine condition, as if Derrick hardly ever worked in there.

  As she drifted down the hallway, her eyes landed on a door she had never really thought much about before. It was at the far end of the corridor, slightly recessed into the wall. Something about it suddenly stood out—maybe it was the way the dark wood looked older than the rest of the doors in the apartment or the simple fact that she had never seen it open.

  Curious, Leah walked over and wrapped her fingers around the brass doorknob. She turned it, expecting it to open easily, but to her surprise, it didn’t budge.

  Locked.

  A small frown formed on her lips as she rattled the knob again, this time with a little more force. No luck. Why would Derrick have a locked room in his own apartment? She tried to think back to all their conversations about the place. He had shown her around when she moved in, pointing out the different rooms, explaining where things were, but he had never mentioned this one. It was as if it didn’t exist.

  A flicker of unease passed through her. It wasn’t like Derrick to keep secrets, was it?

  Leah took a step back and examined the door more closely. There was nothing remarkable about it—no sign that it was different from any other door in the apartment, aside from the fact that it was locked. Maybe it was just storage? A room he rarely used? But then, why lock it?

  She chewed on her lip, debating whether or not to bring it up to Derrick. Would he be annoyed if she asked about it? Maybe she was overthinking things—after all, people had locked doors in their homes all the time. Maybe it was just something he had forgotten to mention.

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  Still, the mystery of it nagged at her for the rest of the afternoon. She tried to push it out of her mind, busying herself with work, but every now and then, her gaze would drift back toward the hallway, where the locked door remained firmly closed, hiding whatever secrets lay beyond it.

  The next day, Leah found herself standing in front of the door again. She hadn't meant to, but something kept pulling her back. Her fingers traced the edges of the frame, her thoughts spiraling into possibilities. What if it was something important? What if Derrick was hiding something from her? The idea sent a chill down her spine, even though she quickly dismissed it. Derrick had never given her a reason not to trust him.

  And yet, she couldn't shake the feeling that this was something he hadn't wanted her to find.

  That evening, as she curled up next to Derrick in bed, she almost brought it up. She opened her mouth to ask, but hesitated. Instead, she found herself saying something else entirely.

  “How was work?”

  Derrick let out a tired sigh, rubbing his hand over his face. “Exhausting, as usual. But I closed an important deal today, so at least there’s that.”

  Leah smiled, brushing a hand over his arm. “That’s great. You work too hard.”

  He chuckled, pulling her closer. “And you think too much.”

  She swallowed, her mind briefly flickering back to the locked door. Maybe he was right—maybe she was overthinking. But even as she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t shake the lingering curiosity that had taken root inside her.

  The next day, Leah’s curiosity got the better of her. While Derrick was at work, she searched the apartment, looking for any sign of a key. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, she told herself, but the secrecy of it all gnawed at her. If it was just a storage room, why not tell her?

  She checked drawers in the office, rummaged through the nightstand, even peeked inside the decorative boxes on the bookshelf, but there was nothing. Not a single key that looked like it would fit.

  Her search left her feeling both frustrated and guilty. What was she doing? Snooping around her boyfriend’s apartment like she was in some kind of detective novel? But at the same time, she couldn’t ignore the way her pulse quickened every time she walked past that door.

  That night at dinner, she decided to ask—casually, as if it hadn’t been eating away at her all day.

  “So,” she started, twirling pasta around her fork. “I was walking around earlier, just getting a feel for the place again. And I noticed there’s a door at the end of the hallway.”

  Derrick didn’t look up from his plate. “Yeah?”

  “It’s locked.”

  This time, he did look up, his expression unreadable. For a moment, Leah thought she saw something flash in his eyes—something guarded, something… tense.

  “It’s just storage,” he said smoothly, taking a sip of his wine. “Nothing interesting.”

  Leah nodded slowly, watching him. “Oh. I was just curious. I didn’t realize you had a locked storage room.”

  Derrick smiled, but there was something in it that felt off. “Everyone has things they need to keep put away.”

  The way he said it made a shiver crawl down Leah’s spine. Maybe it was her imagination, maybe she was letting her thoughts spiral too much, but for the first time since she had moved in, something about Derrick didn’t feel quite so easy.

  She let the conversation drop, but her mind didn’t. That night, as she lay in bed beside him, she stared at the ceiling, wide awake.

  What was behind that door?

  And why did she suddenly have the feeling that she wasn’t supposed to find out?