I pull out onto the road, heading toward the scenic route that winds through the hills outside Eden, and despite everything—despite the tension, the history, the complications—this feels so damn right.
Dangerously, impossibly right.
My old playlist shuffles on—songs we used to play on repeat, music that defined those summers.
Oasis, Kings of Leon, Jimmy Eat World, Radiohead.
She smiles when a familiar intro starts to‘I Want You’by the Kings of Leon. Her fingers tap unconsciously against her thigh in rhythm, and for a fleeting second it's as though no time has passed at all.
"So," she says after a few minutes of comfortable silence. "Where are we going?"
"Just driving." I shift gears, the engine responding smoothly. "Thought I'd show you what's changed in Eden."
"Has a lot changed?"
"Yes and no." I navigate a familiar curve, the road opening up to reveal rolling hills and distant mountains. "South Eden has. The community's really thriving now. It's been building like this for the last few years—people rebuilding, growing, learning to take care of each other again."
Her eyes are on me, studying my profile.
"After... everything?"
I take a breath, hands gripping the wheel, sun warming my shoulders through the open window.
"Yeah. After everything."
After Scott died—the trust fund that was supposed to go to Jake—it all went back into Eden. Specifically South Eden, where the damage was worst.
Mom and I didn't take a cent, even after he tried to convince me to take the money when he knew he was dying. It still didn't feel right, so we rebuilt the town he destroyed on our own terms for the community.
I keep my eyes on the road because looking at her while talking about this feels too raw.
"The past doesn't control the future here. Scott—or anyone like him—doesn't own a piece of what this town always deserved."
"That's..." She pauses, searching for words. "That's incredible."
Silence settles between us, so she reaches forward and turns up the volume.
Forever Youngby Youth Group fills the car—that haunting, stripped-down melody that always feels like nostalgia made audible. The acoustic guitar is gentle, melancholic, the vocals raw and yearning.
The road stretches ahead, winding through countryside that hasn't changed since we were kids.
"Truth or dare?" she asks suddenly, and the question pulls meback seven years to late-night conversations in this exact car, the game we used to play to pass time on long drives.
I smirk. "Truth."
"Why did you call the studio Meridian Records?"
I let the question linger, considering how much to reveal.
"Meridian," I start, eyes on the horizon. "It's about alignment. The highest point. The moment when everything converges—the right people, the right place, the right time. It's that point where what's meant to be just... is."
She's watching me, processing.
"That's what I wanted to build," I continue. "A space where artists could find that sense of alignment. Within themselves and their music. Where the music could be what it's meant to be without compromise or corruption from the outside world.”
I stop myself before I say too much.
"It felt right."
