Lekyi winked. “Exactly. Give Aries my regrets, will you? I’ll make it up to you boys next week.”
Collin nodded, jaw tight behind the smile. “Have a magical evening. Can’t wait for the poetic retelling.”
Lekyi gave a casual wave and trotted off down the path, disappearing into the tall grass like he’d never weighed anything down in his life.
Collin lifted his hand in return. Then he kicked the gate open with a solid thud.
He dropped his bookbag on the dinner table and collapsed into the blue armchair like it might absorb his disappointment. So much for dinner with his two best friends. Instead, they were off chasing kisses and moonlight.
Of course.
He could try someone else. Nic was probably off with Helen, whispering sweet nothings and stealing pie from her kitchen. River was likely buried under another night shift at the hospital. Uriah had that cough again. The twins didn’t go out after dark, and Arion was still off wandering the countryside with his father.
So many friends. And still—he was alone.
Wasn’t that just perfect.
He stared out the window at the old oak. The sky was obnoxiously blue, the meadow too green. Sunlight spilled through the branches like it had something to celebrate. It cast golden patterns on the grass—shifting, lovely, pointless.
If Dragonfly were still here, they’d be sitting under another oak by the lake. They’d be watching the sunset colors ripple across the water, maybe talking, maybe not. He could almost hear her laugh—soft, amused, the way it sounded when he said something accidentally clever.
But the sound dissolved before he could hold it. The image slipped through him, and what lingered wasn’t warmth. It was the ache she always left behind.
He went into his room and sat on the edge of his bed with a slow, heavy exhale. He reached beneath it and pulled out the wooden crate—Aries had found it weeks ago, stashed in a dusty corner of the study. Collin had moved it here, telling himself he’d open it soon. Again and again, he hadn’t.
He set it on his lap. The lid bore a single name, written in looping script, Jiah. The J curved just like his own. His fingers hovered there, as if touching it might break some sacred spell.
What would be inside? He needed to know. But...
His chest tightened. He took a breath, trying to calm his heart—too fast, too loud. Then, with one swift motion, he wrenched the lid free.
Dust rose. Inside—piles of yellowed papers. Some were loose, others bound with string into uneven bundles. Two distinct hands. Two lives, pressed between pages.
Collin stared. These weren’t discarded documents. These were journals. Their journals. Mother’s and Father’s.
His pulse quickened. Their voices. Their secrets. The small, unspoken thoughts of the two people he’d loved and lost. It was all here—in an ordinary box that suddenly felt too heavy to hold.
He blinked hard, mind spinning. Part of him wanted to dive in, to read every word, to know them—truly know them. But another part, stronger, pulled back. What if he didn’t like what he found? These weren’t storybook parents, weren’t fictional heroes living tidy, noble lives on paper. They were human. Fallible.
What if they were cruel in moments? Jealous? Petty? What if they had wanted something different than the life he believed they cherished? What if they regretted it all?
He had put them on pedestals—Jiah, brave and unwavering; Ismene, warm and thoughtful. What if the pages told a different story?
Was it wrong to read them?
The thoughts churned. His throat ached.
He reached for the stack of Jiah’s loose papers—his hands shaking. Ismene’s were bound, careful and ordered, of course. Father’s were messier, barely held together by time and pressure.
As he lifted the top few pages, a small envelope slipped free, yellowed and creased at the edges.
Collin turned it over.
And froze.
His name. Written in Jiah’s familiar scrawl.
A chill shot through him. His heartbeat stuttered, then returned with such ferocity it made him sweat. This was for him. Words his father had left. Not to the world. Not to history. Tohim.
