The cleaning continues, steady and patient, as if the plane is some kind of worry stone.
“And Rue, at the Stocking. During the blackout, Maddie let them into the store all night, gave them coffee, never asked questions. Just kept the place warm.”
There’s a gash in the countertop near my thumb that I trace without thinking. It’s curved, almost a question mark, which feels both too literal and too perfect. I fall silent.
Melvin pauses, then sets the plane carefully on the cloth and finally, finally, looks at me straight on. My spine goes rigid, like I’m back in tenth grade and just got called out in front of the class.
“She needs someone who sees her,” he says, voice all gravel and steel. “Not the ghost standing behind her.”
My palms flatten on the counter, pressing down until the edge bites into my skin. The follow-up question slides out, barely audible, as if talking any louder might trigger some irreversible change.
“Is it wrong?” I ask.
Melvin flips the plane, eying the blade with the careful affection of a craftsman. The metal flashes under the ceiling light, line of brightness cutting the space between us.
“Drew loved her.” Solid, certain, carved-in-stone. “He wouldn’t want her embalmed in this place.”
The fridge hums. The silence is a living thing, old and familiar, stretching between us as if it has always known the shape of these words. My thumb circles the scratch one last time, like maybe if I do it enough, I’ll sand down the jagged edges inside me, too.
“Goodnight, Melvin,” I say.
He nods, once, the kind of nod that means the rest is up to you; I gather myself, stand, and walk out without looking back, because if I did, I might have to admit that something in here just shifted for good.
On the sidewalk, the hardware store’s sign glows yellow down at my boots. I stand in the light, dig for my phone, squint at the screen. Scroll to Maddie’s thread and hover, thumb poised.
“Tomorrow. Wear shoes you can get dirty in,” I type.
I press send before I can lose my nerve or talk myself out of it, before I can convince myself that running away is easier. Message sent. Delivered. No take backs.
Chapter 5
Jordan’s truck turns in at exactly three-oh-two the next afternoon, tires crunching up my drive. I’m already out on the porch steps, jittery in the practical shoes I’d dug from the back of my closet, my hands twisting in my lap. For the last twenty minutes, I’ve been rehearsing how I’ll play this cool, how I’ll act like it’s just any other day, and I’ve failed spectacularly at all of it.
Jordan doesn’t get out. Their arm dangles out the driver’s window; fingers tap a rhythm on the door, quick and restless, like they can’t sit still. Another flannel today, open over a gray tank that hugs their torso, sleeves rolled to bare their forearms and the tattoos I pretend I haven’t noticed but absolutely have. Their sandy hair’s up in that mess of a bun, and I’m not thinking about it, not at all, which is a lie I tell myself as easily as breathing.
I climb into the passenger seat, inhaling warm woodsmoke, black coffee, and something that’s just Jordan, earthy and electric and now as familiar to me as my own skin.
“Hey,” they say, voice casual. Their eyes flick over me, making my heart stutter.
“Hey yourself.” I tug the door shut, the latch thudding home—and it feels final, like closing a chapter and not just a door.
Jordan shifts the truck into reverse, and we’re rolling, down my little street lined with houses and gardens and porch swings nobody ever uses. The quiet between us isn’t awkward, exactly, but it’s sharp-edged, tinged with something that makes my pulse leap.
I break first, because of course I do. “So,” I say, listening to the radio’s gentle thrum (indie folk, maybe, just loud enough to taste but not enough to claim our attention), “Where are we going?”
They grin, just quick and crooked. “Nope.”
“Nope?”
Jordan’s mouth does that thing, corner tugging up in amusement. “Nope. It’s a surprise. Didn’t I say to wear shoes you could get dirty? Gotta keep the mystery alive.”
I cross my arms, eyeing the familiar storefronts of Sleighbell Springs out the window. Same as always; static, as if the whole town is caught between breaths. The steadiness is both a comfort and a complaint.
“You know I hate surprises,” I remind them.
Another grin, this one bigger. “I do. That’s why it’s a surprise and not, say, a color-coded itinerary in your inbox that you can stress-read the night before.”
We turn off Main Street, start winding past the school, the community garden, the park where summer concerts are a ritual. Trees crowd closer; houses thin out. The road narrows, growing wild around the edges, and something inside me does a little somersault. I think I know where we’re going.
