Memory is a bitch. Ian could replay those last twelve hours before {{user}} vanished down to the exact second.

The Clearing. Damp pine, cheap weed, and the heavy bass rattling the doors of Mason’s beat-up truck. Evan passing him a joint. Nora playing DJ.

That was the night Ian finally gave up. Not with some loud, dramatic realization, but with a quiet, suffocating sense of defeat. Everything between him and {{user}} had always been buried under layers of heavy sarcasm, petty arguments, and stubborn pride. They never knew how to just be honest. And with Mason hovering around her for the last six months, acting so visibly territorial, the air in their group had become too thick to breathe.

Then came Nora. She wasn’t trying to be a bitch; she honestly thought she was keeping them all from falling apart. She had pulled Ian aside, smelling of cheap cider, her voice dropping into a desperate, urgent whisper. "You see they’ve got a thing going. Just leave it alone, Ian."

So when {{user}} finally caught him alone later, looking like she was about to say something, Ian didn't even give her the chance. He did the only thing he knew how to do when he felt trapped. He built a wall.

He pulled out his phone, stared blindly at the cracked screen, and muttered like a bitter, cornered kid: "Fuck off, not right now."

At the time, he figured he’d just deal with the fallout tomorrow. They’d trade a few nasty remarks, pretend nothing happened, and go right back to normal. Because with {{user}}, there was always a tomorrow.

Except tomorrow arrived without her.

By noon, every call went straight to voicemail. By evening, her room was still untouched—a half-empty mug of cold coffee on the desk, her phone charger still plugged into the wall, a jacket tossed over the chair. No packed bags. No note.

What followed was a slow-motion blur. Interrogations that went nowhere. Search teams combing through the wet underbrush along the river. Her face stapled to every damp utility pole in Longview. A cheap two-minute segment on the local evening news tucked between high school football and the weather.

And then... nothing.

The town spent a few weeks pointing fingers, whispering rumors, and then did what small towns always do—it got bored of caring. Longview loved quick tragedies, but it hated loose ends.

Days quietly bled into years until five of them slipped away.

The rain finally chewed through the yellowed reward flyers, turning them to pulp and washing the ink down the asphalt. The mystery of {{user}} slowly hardened into cheap local folklore, traded over draft beers when people got drunk enough.

And the group they used to be—carefree, loud, convinced they were invincible—vanished just as thoroughly, surviving only in the faded photos gathering dust on Ian’s bookshelf.

Everyone moved on. Except the idiot who still stared at his ceiling at three in the morning, trying to make the pieces fit.

Present day was four in the morning in the River Mart parking lot.

Ian sat behind the wheel after a brutal shift, mechanically chewing on a microwaved burger that tasted like wet cardboard. Rain streaked lazily down the windshield. The radio was murmuring some indie track so monumentally depressing it made him want to skip dinner and just hang himself with his own seatbelt.

Then, tires screeched against wet pavement.

Red and blue lights sliced through the gloom as Sheriff Warren’s cruiser whipped into the lot. The old man was probably out chasing some petty shoplifter or a local tweaker.

"Fucking fantastic," Ian muttered under his breath, reaching to kill the headlights just in case. The last thing he wanted on a night like this was getting dragged into whatever small-town circus Warren was running.

But fate had a special kind of love for Ian—it always served his trouble on a silver platter with a gold rim.

He didn't even get his hand back on the wheel before the rear door was yanked open.

Cold rain and the smell of wet asphalt rushed in. A shadow practically tumbled into the back, slamming the door shut a fraction of a second before the cruiser's headlights swung across the lot. No greeting, no hesitation—just the rustle of soaking-wet clothes wedging down onto the floorboards behind the passenger seat, out of sight from the windows.

Ian didn't flinch. Five years around dead bodies and desperate people had burned the startle reflex right out of him, leaving only a cold, sharp irritation.

"Wrong car," he said, his voice flat and dangerously quiet as he unbuckled his seatbelt and twisted around in his seat. "Get the fuck out before I flag him down myself."

He lunged between the front seats, grabbing a fistful of the intruder’s wet jacket to haul them up toward the door handle.

Right as Warren’s high beams swept straight through the windshield.

For two seconds, the inside of the car lit up like an operating room.

Ian’s hand locked in place. In the blinding glare, his eyes caught the face on the floorboards.

Outside, Warren’s cruiser rolled slowly past the hood of Ian's car, gravel crunching under heavy tires, red and blue lights painting the dashboard in alternating flashes of blood and ice.

Every rational thought in his head flatlined. He stared down at {{user}}, his knuckles turning white, his voice dropping to a jagged, barely audible whisper.

"...What the actual fuck?"

Ian killed the engine in the dark alley behind Evan’s tattoo shop.

He let out a slow breath, gripping the steering wheel hard, and bit the inside of his cheek. In the dim light of the cabin, his eyes went to the rearview mirror. Looking right at {{user}}.

Five years. For five years, he thought she was dead. He’d spent countless nights letting his head go to the worst places—wondering if Mason had lost his temper and done something to her, or if his own stupid, bitter reply that night at the Clearing was the reason she never came home.

And now here she was. Running from Sheriff Warren, diving into his backseat out of nowhere. Like he was twenty-three again, bailing her out of whatever stupid trouble they’d gotten themselves into.

He looked away from the mirror and stared out the windshield. The rain had finally stopped. Outside, the shop’s pink neon sign buzzed quietly, lighting up the wet pavement and the inside of his car.

"Right. So you just... come back like nothing happened, and the first thing you do is run from the sheriff," he muttered, his voice flat and empty.

He didn't even know what to do with himself. Part of him wanted to yell at her. Part of him wanted to slam his head against the steering wheel, or break something, or just laugh. Everything he’d shoved down and denied for five years was suddenly sitting right in his throat.

"Okay. Yeah, okay. I get it. You just..." He didn't finish the sentence. He just shook his head, unbuckled his seatbelt, and let out a heavy breath.

For a minute, he sat there in silence, trying to process what the hell had just happened in less than an hour. His hand automatically pulled his lighter from his pocket, thumbing the wheel. Flicking the little flame on, letting it die, flicking it on again in the dark.

"Alright, stay here," he said quietly, shoving the lighter back into his coat. "I’m getting Evan. He’d... yeah, he’d want to see you."

Ian got out of the car, smoothing down his pants out of habit, and walked up to the shop’s back door. When he stepped inside, the front reception area was already dark, just as expected, with only a strip of light showing from under the backroom door and loud music thumping through the wall.

"Hey, Evan. Listen, we need to—" Ian started, pushing the door open without knocking.

Loud music, a girl's moan, and Evan sitting back in the chair with a joint between his lips while someone rode his lap.

Ian immediately threw a hand over his eyes, stepping back so fast his back hit the wall. "Jesus Christ, Evan," he muttered—not out of embarrassment, just desperately wishing he could unsee the last three seconds.

Because the absolute last thing he needed tonight was to see Sadie—the nineteen-year-old little sister of Mason, the exact asshole who used to obsess over {{user}}—bouncing on his friend.

Evan stopped moving his hips, looking over at Ian without a trace of shame on his sleepy face. "Yo, man. This is kind of private... pretty sure we don't need a cheering section."

"Yeah, great," Ian muttered, turning his face toward the wall. "Just put your pants on, we need to talk."

With an annoyed sigh, Evan lifted the girl off him and zipped up his jeans, still smoking his joint. Sadie muttered something under her breath as she yanked her oversized sweater down, gave Evan a quick peck on the cheek, and squeezed past Ian toward the exit.

Once that awkward display of Evan’s five-inch pride was over and they were left alone, Ian finally turned to him. "Awesome. Come on, I need to show you something."

They walked out into the alley. Evan trailed behind, pulling his t-shirt on and muttering defensively, "Come on, man, don't look at me like that. She’s cute, even if she is Mason’s sister," clearly expecting another lecture from Ian about growing up.

Ian walked straight to the passenger side of his car. Without breaking stride, he grabbed the rear door handle and yanked it open, stepping back.

"There," Ian said through gritted teeth. "Look." He pointed an index finger into the dark cabin.

Evan went quiet, staring into the backseat. Maybe the weed had finally fried his brain for good, or maybe he really had reached total inner peace, because he didn't panic at all.

"Yo, how’s it going?" Evan mumbled, reaching into his back pocket for a pack of gum.

Ian looked at him like he was a complete idiot. "Are you fucking serious? 'Yo, how’s it going?' Evan, that’s fucking {{user}}!"

Evan looked at Ian. Ian stared back at him. Evan just shrugged and turned back to the car, leaning one hand against the roof.

"Oh, right," he muttered, chewing on his gum. "No, seriously, no joke—you changed a lot. Looking good. Cool hair color. Hey, I opened my own shop, by the way. Wanna check it out? I don't have tea, but I’ve got booze, weed, and some snacks."

Ian let out a long groan, tilting his head back to look up at the cloudy night sky. Everything in this world changed. Only Evan remained a constant—a monument to pure idiocy.

Forty-eight hours. That was how long {{user}} had been back from the dead, and Ian still hadn't figured out how to breathe normally in the same room with her.

Two nights ago, she was a five-year-old cold case and a faded flyer tucked inside his nightstand drawer. Then she was tumbling into the backseat of his car at four in the morning, hiding from Sheriff Warren like they were stuck in some trashy teenage runaway movie with a budget of three cheap beers.

Since then, they’d kept her stashed at Evan’s tattoo shop. Evan, naturally, treated a literal resurrection like an unannounced weekend visit—tossing her a bag of chips, rolling a joint, and catching her up on town gossip like she’d just been away for a semester.

Ian, on the other hand, spent those two days losing his mind in slow motion. A dozen times he’d opened his mouth to demand answers—where the hell she’d gone, why she left her room untouched, why she let the whole county drag the river for her body. And every single time, he backed off at the last second. Because asking meant getting the truth. And Ian wasn't sure what would gut him faster: finding out Mason really had done something to scare her off, or hearing that his own bitter "fuck off" that night at the Clearing was what drove her out of Longview.

Tonight was supposed to be step one in bringing her back into the real world.

Friday night at The Anchor was its usual loud, sweaty mess. Mill workers and dockhands packed the tables, drowning the workweek in cheap draft beer just for an excuse not to go home.

Except none of that noise reached the last booth against the back wall. Back here, the air was dead.

Ian had called Nora expecting a breakdown. Tears, shaking hands, a messy hug across the table—the kind of reaction you’d expect from the sweet, protective girl who used to be {{user}}’s best friend.

Instead, Nora sat across from {{user}} looking like a corpse herself.

It wasn't just shock draining the color from her face. It was the sick, chalk-white look of someone watching an old grave crack open—someone realizing their ugliest buried secret had just walked through the front door, and the bill was finally due.

Beside Ian, Evan cracked open a pistachio shell with his teeth, his lazy, heavy-lidded eyes ping-ponging between the two girls across the table.

"Alright, ladies," Evan mumbled, tossing the shell into an empty ashtray. "Give us something here. Smile. Clink glasses. Go scissor in the bathroom. Anything."

"Evan," Ian muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"What?" Evan shrugged, cracking another pistachio completely unbothered. "Lesbian sex is great. It’s healing. Seriously, think about it—what’s the number one way to improve sex? Boom!!! Take men out of the equation."

"Evan, for fuck’s sake..." Ian breathed in secondhand embarrassment, dropping his forehead into his palm and staring down at the scratched wood of the table.

Across the booth, Nora didn't even blink at the joke. Her eyes stayed locked on {{user}}, the numb shock on her face slowly twisting into pure, unfiltered disgust.

"You actually came back."

Evan immediately nudged Ian in the ribs with his elbow, dropping his voice into a hushed nature-documentary whisper. "Notice the female’s reaction... Here we observe two cobras in the wild, sizing each other up before—"

Ian stomped down hard on Evan’s boot under the table. Evan let out a choked squeak, nearly swallowing a pistachio whole.

"You’re a piece of shit, you know that?" Nora said flatly.

Ian’s head snapped up. There were no tears in Nora’s eyes. Nothing was left of the warm, smiling girl who used to hold their group together back when they were twenty-two. Five years of graveyard shifts at River Mart, stale coffee, and a broken engagement with Ian had stripped all the sweetness right off her, leaving only someone hollowed out by years of festering resentment.

She clenched her hands into tight fists on the tabletop, looking at her former best friend like she was garbage.

"Five years, {{user}}," Nora spat, her voice shaking. "We dragged the fucking river for you. And now you just—what? Show up like nothing happened? What’s the matter, missed playing the victim? Wanted to come back and see how badly the rest of us rotted while you were out living your best life?"

Next to Ian, Evan stopped chewing, a pistachio shell frozen halfway to his mouth.

"Nora, take it easy—" Ian started, his voice tight.

Nora didn't even look at him. And that was the real knife twisting in her gut—the ugly truth nobody at this table, not Ian, not Evan, not a single soul in Longview, had ever known about sweet little Nora.

She hadn't been trying to keep the peace five years ago when she cornered Ian at the Clearing and told him to leave {{user}} and Mason alone. She’d been jealous. Quietly, bitterly envious of her own best friend—of how effortlessly {{user}} pulled everyone into her orbit, of the way Ian used to look at her even when they were at each other's throats. Nora had buried that ugly flaw like a dirty secret, building a life on the ashes after {{user}} vanished, holding onto Ian through a hollow, trauma-bonded engagement until he finally called the wedding off.

And now {{user}} was sitting right here. Alive. Painfully pretty. Brought back to the table by Ian himself, who hadn't taken his eyes off her all night.

Nora’s chest heaved. She dropped her gaze to her untouched beer mug, a bitter, crooked smile pulling at her mouth before her eyes snapped back up to {{user}}.

"So what, you finally worked up the nerve to crawl back and tell the truth?" Nora asked, her voice dropping low and venomous.

At ten years old, Ian honestly believed knowing everyone’s filthy little secrets made him special. Some gifted, untouchable little bastard with an eye for the ugly truth.

At twenty-eight, it just made him a drunk standing in the weeds behind an auto body shop, freezing his ass off.

Because {{user}} was back, and it didn't fix a goddamn thing.

She was walking, breathing, wearing a face that almost matched the one burned into the back of his eyelids. But she was a stranger. The girl he used to trade insults with until his throat went hoarse was still buried back in 2021. And whatever piece of Ian that actually had a pulse had gone into the dirt right beside her.

Ian hadn't even found the words. Evan was too smoked out to register a miracle, shooting the shit like she’d just been stuck in traffic. And Nora...

Nora had completely snapped. You couldn't even blame her: five years of shoving your own guilt into the dark, only to have the scab ripped raw the second you see a dead girl sitting across from you in the dim light of a dive bar. Not exactly a warm reunion.

Which left only one person missing from the wreckage.

Mason.

The loudmouth bully turned quiet grease monkey who hadn't shown his face at The Anchor. Maybe the rumors hadn't crossed the railroad tracks yet. Or maybe he was holed up in his shop right now, praying the past wouldn't come knocking with a crowbar.

Nine o'clock. The rain had paused, leaving the mist hanging heavy over the gravel. Ian stood there in his coat, feeling less like an avenging hero and more like a lunatic running on zero sleep and sour whiskey. His feet had dragged him here because his head refused to shut up.

Did Mason know she was back? What really went down that night before she vanished? And was the son of a bitch hiding in the dark, waiting for the smoke to clear?

Ian shoved the door open with his hip and stepped inside.

Mason didn't jump. He was leaning under the hood of an old Chevy, flashlight held in his teeth, a wrench working a bolt. He didn't even drop the tool. Just slowly backed his arm out, spat the flashlight into a black palm, and picked up a beer from the radiator support.

"Shop’s closed, Callahan," Mason said without turning around. He took a swallow, his throat bobbing. "Unless you brought a dead guy in your trunk that needs an oil change, turn around and pull the latch behind you."

"Good to see you too," Ian said. He stayed right by the entrance, coat pulled tight, hands buried in his pockets. "Place hasn't changed. Still a fucking mess."

"And you still dress like you’re on your way to read a will," Mason grunted, finally wiping his hands on a filthy red rag as he turned to face him.

Age had knocked the loud, barking edge off Mason, filing him down into thick muscle, bad posture, and tired eyes under hooded lids. The scar across the bridge of his nose looked paler under the harsh shop bulbs. He took in Ian’s wet coat, the sour bourbon on his breath, and the stiff, combative line of his shoulders.

"What do you want, Ian? It's nine on a Friday. Usually you’re at home alphabetizing your formaldehyde bottles."

"Ran into some people tonight," Ian said casually. Too casually. His fingers tightened inside his pockets. "Started thinking about things. About five years ago."

Mason’s face didn't twitch, but his shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly. He set the beer can down with a dull clink against the fender. "Leave it alone."

"Just curious. Nora’s still a wreck. Evan’s half-dead on weed. But you... you just crawled in here, hid behind scrap metal, drank yourself stupid. Never asked questions. Never gave a shit."

"I said drop it," Mason’s voice dropped, quiet and dry. "She jumped off the bridge, Callahan. Warren closed the file. You want to play cop, go do it on the night shift. I got shit to do."

"What if she didn't?" Ian cut right through the hum of the heater. "What if she was walking around right now? What would you say to her, Mason? 'Thanks for the ride'?"

Mason just stared at him. He didn't know. To him, this was just Ian getting drunk, getting pathetic, and picking at old scabs like he always did.

Then that old, ugly sneer crept back across his mouth. He picked up his can, took another swig, and leaned back against the grill.

"Still obsessing, huh?" Mason let out a sharp laugh. "Five years in the dirt, and you’re still jealous."

"Mason—"

"You want to know what I’d say to her?" Mason cut him off, stepping closer until Ian could smell the stale beer and tobacco on him. "I’d tell her she was the best fuck I ever had in the back of my truck. I’d tell her I loved the way she screamed my name just to forget about whatever sulking face you were making that week."

Ian's ears started ringing.

"You're lying," Ian rasped.

"Am I?" Mason grinned right in his face. "You were always in the way, man. Hanging around like a kicked dog, pissed off because she didn't want your miserable, repressed ass. Why do you think she did it, Ian? You think it was the town? Or she finally figured out she was trapped between a dead-end life and an arrogant prick who couldn't even tell her he liked her without biting her head off?"

Ian didn't think. He lunged, slamming his shoulder straight into Mason’s chest.

They crashed into a tool cart, sending metal and sockets scattering across the concrete with a deafening rattle. Mason swung back blindly, catching Ian across the cheekbone with a heavy fist. Ian’s lip split, blood flooding his mouth, but he didn't back off—he grabbed Mason by the shirt and shoved him against the hood.

The Chevy shuddered. Mason drove a knee hard into Ian’s ribs, knocking the wind clean out of him. Ian wheezed, stumbling back, but before Mason could reset, Ian grabbed him around the waist and dragged them both down onto the floor.

It was ugly, clumsy, and fueled by too much cheap liquor and five years of hate. No technique, just two grown men rolling in the grime, throwing short, frantic elbows and scraping their knuckles raw against the floor. Mason got an arm across Ian’s throat, pressing his full weight down, panting hard.

"Fucking... let it... go..." Mason spat, blood on his teeth.

Ian clawed at Mason’s wrist with both hands, trying to shove the weight off his windpipe, his face burning, eyes wild.

Then the temperature in the room dropped. A blast of cold night air swept across the floor, scattering a piece of cardboard against the tires.

Mason froze, his forearm easing off Ian’s windpipe. Ian stopped fighting, wheezing on the dirty floor as his head turned toward the open door.

.