Tides of Grief, Part 1

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

VP and BP Standings
Erin - 88 VP - 2600 BP - 2 Achievs
Sam - 87 VP - 5700 BP - 2 Achievs
Norah - 74 VP - 2350 BP - 3 Achievs
Marissa - 72 VP - 3000 BP - 1 Achiev
Claire - 69 VP - 8900 BP - 2 Achievs
Liesa - 69 VP - 4200 BP - 2 Achievs
Emily - 57 VP - 6100 BP - 1 Achiev (used)
Dawn - 54 VP - 6300 BP - 2 Achievs
Emi - 46 VP - 3550 BP - 1 Achiev
Chloe - 36 VP - 4275 BP - 1 Achiev
Riley - 17 VP - 5600 BP - 2 Achievs
Myra - 14 VP - 4800 BP

The morning didn’t so much arrive as emerge—like an old friend tiptoeing in after a long absence. Andy drifted up from sleep with the distinct impression that his body was already awake, nerves singing even before his brain could organize a thought. His first sensation was warmth; his second, weight. Chloe was sprawled against him, one leg tangled around his thigh, her cheek mashed to his chest, hair a caramel explosion across both their shoulders. She was humming under her breath—low and tuneless, the way children hum when they’re content and don’t care who hears.

She noticed his eyes, and the hum morphed into a giggle. “I thought you were still asleep,” she whispered, tilting her face up. The sheet slipped, and Andy had to recalibrate: Chloe’s smile was wider, looser than he’d ever seen. Her eyes—usually ringed with worry even on her best days—were soft, their gold flecks catching the light.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, voice gravelly. “Too comfortable.”

“Last night was—” She paused, biting her lower lip, and the flush that climbed her cheeks was almost competitive with the sunrise. “I kind of imagined it would be… I don’t know, awkward? Or at least a little scary? But it wasn’t. It was… I mean, I never pictured it being that gentle. Or that much fun.” The final word came out as a breathy, amazed laugh, like she still couldn’t quite believe it.

He wrapped an arm around her back and drew her up until their faces were level. “You were amazing,” he said, and her blush deepened, but this time she didn’t look away.

“I was pretty sure I’d mess it up,” she said. “Or cry. Or, like, do something super embarrassing.” Her hands moved in small, nervous gestures. “But it wasn’t even that scary. You made it easy.” She squinted at him. “You sure you’re not some kind of witch?”

Andy grinned. “Just a guy who likes you. A lot.” He brushed a thumb across her cheek, then let it wander down her neck to where the sheet failed to cover anything.

Chloe snorted. “You like my boobs more than you like me, and I’m okay with that.” To prove her point, she let the covers drop all the way. Her breasts were, frankly, cartoonish—gravity-defying, smooth as melted wax, capped with perfectly rosy nipples that seemed to have missed the memo on modesty. She watched his eyes go wide and smirked, bouncing them experimentally against his chest.

“Can’t help it,” Andy said, surrendering. “They’re magnetic.”

“‘Irresistible **** meets immovable objects’—that’s how I remember physics,” she said. “Also, every time you look at them, my brain does a happy little dance.” She cupped them, weighing one in each palm, then squeezed them together so they almost brushed his chin. “You sure you don’t have a thing for these? You’re staring again.”

“Maybe I have a thing for you staring at me staring,” Andy offered.

She considered, then nodded. “That feels right.” Her hands kneaded herself with more intent, thumb stroking slow circles around her nipple, her eyes never leaving his face. The air between them started to sizzle, and Andy caught the telltale hitch in her breathing.

Played with boobs in front of the Master! +2 VP

“Last night you said you wanted to try something,” she said, voice gone small and wicked at the edges. “You remember?”

Andy did. And she saw it in his face. She giggled, slid down his chest, and arranged her breasts around his half-hard cock as if lining up bun and sausage. “See? Perfect fit,” she said, angling it with the casual expertise of someone who’d spent a lifetime playing with plush toys. “I googled this once, but I always thought it was an internet myth. Like, nobody’s actually into this, right? But here we are.” She clamped them gently around him and squeezed, then started to move, slow and rhythmic, up and down.

Touched Master’s penis! +2 VP

“Is this doing anything for you?” she asked after a few strokes, her expression deadly serious, but her eyes shining. “Because I could do this all day. It’s like stress balls for the soul.” She pressed them tighter, nearly enveloping him.

“Definitely working,” Andy said, and meant it. It was more than the physical sensation—though that was more than enough—it was Chloe, seeing him, teasing him, making fun of herself and the situation without an ounce of shame or self-consciousness. She rolled her shoulders, giving a bounce that nearly launched his cock from between her breasts. When it popped loose, she caught it with her hand and guided it back.

She kissed the tip as it passed her lips, then looked up, daring him to say something. “You look like you’re about to explode,” she said, not quite hiding her pride. “Should I be worried?”

“You should be careful,” Andy countered, and Chloe laughed so hard the whole operation went off the rails for a second. She got it back under control, then redoubled her efforts, squeezing his shaft between her breasts and working him with an earnest, almost comical devotion.

“Is this—what’s the right word?—ethical?” Chloe asked, not breaking rhythm. “Like, if I get you off with my boobs, do I get bonus points? Or just regular ones?”

“Bonus!” Andy gasped, voice tight.

“I knew it!” She pumped faster, her own arousal clearly rising—her nipples were flushed dark, and her eyes had gone almost glazed with focus. “I want to see you come, Andy. I want to feel it. Please?”

The last word did him in. He came, hard, splattering her chest and neck with milky jets. Chloe giggled, looking down at the mess like she’d just completed a science experiment. “I can see why people do this,” she said, spreading the cum across her skin with both hands, then licking a taste off one finger. “Salty. Like caviar, but more intimate.” She caught his look and laughed again, flopping back on the pillow and letting the residue dry on her chest.

Titjob! +3 VP
Pearl Necklace! +2 VP

“Ten out of ten, would recommend,” she said, eyes closed in bliss.

They lay together, side by side, the post-orgasm haze settling around them like a soft fog. Andy turned, kissed the side of her face, then her shoulder, his fingers touching her nipples.

“Next time, I want to see if I can get them both in my mouth at once,” he said.

“Next time?” she asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

He grinned. “If you want.”

Chloe laughed, rolling so she was nose-to-nose with him. “You really don’t mind that I’m, like, a cartoon character now? I mean, this is a little much, right?” She pressed her breasts together and watched them billow.

“I love it,” Andy said. “But mostly, I love you.”

Chloe blinked, and her expression softened. “Say that again.”

He did, this time slower, more deliberate. “I love you.”

She melted against him, kissing his jaw, his mouth, the line of his neck. “I love you too,” she whispered, and in the silence that followed, Andy felt something in him shift, click into place.

After a while, Chloe swung her legs out of bed, then turned back and waggled her eyebrows. “Want to shower with me?” she asked. “I feel like we’re going to need a bigger towel.”

The shower was a blur of heat and steam, hands sliding over slick skin, laughter echoing off the glass. Chloe was fearless: she pressed her body against Andy’s, her breasts flattening between them, her hands unhurried as she lathered him up and rinsed him down. She made a game of seeing how many times she could make him gasp, and he retaliated by scrubbing her back until she moaned.

“Now I know why people do this in movies,” Chloe said, turning in slow circles under the spray. “It’s so… soapy.”

He laughed, then pulled her close and kissed her, water pouring down their faces, the world outside the shower forgotten.

They dried off together, Chloe insisting on wrapping Andy in a bath sheet and then tucking herself inside with him, so they shuffled to the kitchen like a two-headed monster. Breakfast was simple: eggs, toast, and whatever fruit Chloe found in the fridge. They moved around each other in practiced silence, Chloe humming that same contented, tuneless melody as she cooked. She cracked eggs with one hand, the other still wrapped in a towel around her chest. Andy found himself staring, and when she caught him, she winked.

“I could get used to this,” Chloe said, sliding eggs onto a plate. “It’s like a sitcom, only nobody’s a jerk and everyone’s naked.”

Andy took the plate from her, set it on the table, and gestured for her to sit. She did, and he sat beside her, close enough that their legs touched. They ate in quiet, letting the food and the morning do their work.

Halfway through, Andy reached over and ran a finger down her bare arm. “You look relaxed,” he said. “You seem happy.”

Chloe nodded, mouth full. She swallowed, then said, “I am. For the first time in a long time, I’m not pretending to be. I know where I belong. And it’s here.”

He squeezed her hand under the table. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”

They finished breakfast, then lingered at the table, Chloe doodling shapes on a napkin, Andy sipping coffee and thinking about the day ahead. Eventually, Chloe stood, stretching her arms over her head, and let the towel slip to the floor.

“I should probably get dressed,” she said, but she made no move to do so. Instead, she walked over to where Andy sat, bent down, and kissed the top of his head.

“I think you’re ready,” she said, eyes twinkling. “Riley’s probably waiting for you downstairs.”

Andy arched an eyebrow. So it was planned. He had a sneaking suspicion of what might be going on, some sort of preparations for a small party for him, for his birthday. He wasn't sure he wanted any party, with Laura's birthday approaching, but he didn't have the heart to tell the girls that. He could do a cake and a few presents, for their sakes. And for the first time in years, he'd be surrounded by people he loved and who loved him. Idly, he wished he could send out some cards to the friends he had made outside of the set, Harper and Laura, to see if they would be able to join. But he doubted they could, given the speeds of the various seasons. So Andy stood, collected his clothes, and dressed in the soft light of the suite. Chloe slipped into a sundress, the fabric doing almost nothing to hide her figure. She caught him looking again, and grinned.

“If you keep staring, I’m never going to let you leave,” she said, then added, “which, now that I say it out loud, is kind of tempting.”

He laughed, shouldered his bag, and walked with her to the elevator.

They rode down in silence, but it was the good kind, full of warmth and anticipation. When the doors opened in the main lobby, Riley was waiting, leaning against a pillar, her hair wild as ever, green and brown eyes scanning the space.

Chloe squeezed Andy’s hand, then turned to Riley. “He’s all yours,” she said, and there was an ease in her voice Andy had never heard before.

Riley caught Andy’s eye, then Chloe’s, and smirked. “Nice dress, Chloe. Very… aerodynamic.”

Chloe stuck her tongue out, then kissed Andy on the cheek and walked off, her hips swaying with confidence.

Andy watched her go, feeling a pull in his chest, a warmth that lingered even as Riley beckoned him over.

Riley didn’t bother with hellos or “How was your night?” She just caught Andy by the sleeve and led him straight out of the hotel, her pace brisk and her intent so clear that the air between them felt pre-charged with something electric. For a few seconds, Andy tried to match her stride, but her urgency was a **** of nature; he was a passenger, not a participant.

They followed a winding trail behind the main buildings, a thread of crushed shell that soon vanished into the brush. It was humid as hell, the heat clinging to their shirts even in the patchwork shade. Above, the sky was bruised blue and slick with haze. Cicadas screamed in the canopy with a **** that made it impossible to think straight.

Andy shot Riley a glance, and she caught it, never breaking stride. “It’s a new path made from my memories,” she said, the words clipped but not unfriendly. “I unlocked it with my BPs. Figured, fuck it. I needed a place to walk without running into would-be bachelorette parties and promotional signage.”

Riley 5600 BP - 2500 BP = 3100 BP

They rounded a bend and found themselves in a grove. The air here was so thick and hot it felt like wading into a bath. But Andy recognized the trees, and for a moment, he thought it couldn’t be. These were the aspen trees of the Willow Run Preserve, the woods surrounding the river, and the footbridge. Riley stopped by a fallen log polished smooth by decades of sun and rain. She dusted it off, sat, and waited until Andy joined her.

For a while, she just stared at the earth, hands braced on the log, breathing slow and even. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet it might have belonged to someone else.

“I used to come out here with Laura. Before everything got… loud.” She glanced sideways, lips quirked in a half-smile. “She’d dare me to climb the highest trees. I’d try, fall, cry about it. She’d call me a baby, then help me up, then cry with me so I wouldn’t feel like a loser.” Riley snorted. “That was her in a nutshell—an asshole with a rescue complex. God, I miss her.”

Andy didn’t know if she wanted a response, so he just waited.

Riley looked up, eyes tracking a squirrel as it made a suicidal dash across a branch overhead. “I keep thinking I’ll forget these places. That memory is, you know, degradable. But it’s not. It’s all still there, just sharper than it should be.” She flexed her hands, as if testing the air for strength. “You remember when she broke her arm? Seventh grade. She told everyone she fell off a horse, but it was this log. She dared me to follow, jumped, then screamed like she’d been shot when it snapped.”

Andy nodded. “She made me sign her cast,” he said, the memory coming back full-color. “She threatened to haunt me if I didn’t.”

Riley laughed, a real sound, then sobered. “She would have. She’s probably haunting you anyway.”

They sat a while longer. The cicadas droned on. Andy felt sweat bead under his shirt, then run down his spine in sticky trails.

Riley stood, suddenly restless, and led him deeper into the green. “I don’t have a script for this,” she muttered. “Don’t expect me to get weepy. If I do, I’ll deny it.”

Andy smiled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

The path forked, then merged again, opening into a clearing where the sunlight pooled like molten gold. It was atop a cliff, with a spectacular view of the ocean. At the far side, a stone bench hunched beneath a snarl of wisteria and wild grape, the vines so thick they’d started to fuse with the rock. The air here smelled of damp earth and overripe fruit, a sweetness almost suffocating.

Riley dropped onto the bench, patted the space beside her. "This is where she made me eat a mud pie," she said. "Told me it was chocolate and I believed her."

Andy sat, watching the memory play across Riley's face.

"She was a nightmare that day," Riley continued, her tone almost fond. "Kept saying I'd grow worms in my stomach. Then when I started crying, she hugged me and promised to take me to the hospital if I got sick." She looked at Andy, eyes gone distant. "You were reading under that oak tree over there. You gave me your juice box after."

Andy remembered: the way Laura had alternated between tormenting and comforting Riley, how she'd stolen half his sandwich when he wasn't looking. "She loved pranks, but sometimes she’d go too far, and she’d only realize after. I think... Her parents never showed her how to love properly. I like to think she'd have found a balance, if she had grown up. She used to climb up there," he said, pointing to a branch that hung over the river, "and drop leaves on our heads, pretending they were birds." Riley nodded.

“She was ours,” Riley replied, voice just above a whisper. “At least for a while.”

The silence after that was different. Not empty, but full of all the things they couldn’t or wouldn’t say. Riley leaned back, arms draped over the bench, face tipped to the mess of leaves overhead.

“She would have liked it here,” Andy said, surprising himself.

Riley’s mouth twitched. “She’d complain about the bugs, then spend an hour naming them all.”

“She was obsessed with Latin,” Andy remembered. “She made me call her Regulus for a week. She’d have lost her mind, talking with Claire.”

Riley grinned. “She told me she wanted to start a cult and make us her acolytes. Said I had to wear a robe and call her ‘your celestial highness.’ Dawn would have had a fit.”

They both laughed, soft and brief. Then Riley’s smile faded, and she looked away. “It’s weird, the things you remember,” she said. “Never the big stuff. Always the crumbs.”

Andy glanced at her, wanting to ask what she remembered most, but unsure if he had the right. So he waited.

Riley answered anyway. “She once said that every time you forget a day, it disappears forever. I used to write down what happened, even the boring days, just so I wouldn’t lose them. Most of my old notebooks are full of nothing: weather, what we ate, which teacher pissed me off. But sometimes I’d get a day like this, and it would feel… safe. Like a time capsule.” Her hands fidgeted in her lap. “You ever do that?”

Andy shrugged. “I remember everything. But I tried, if nothing else, to emphasize certain moments. I never stuck with it. Felt like I was lying, trying to make myself more interesting.”

Riley nodded, as if she’d expected that. “Laura said if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes memory. I never figured out how she could be so wise, at times.” She paused, looking at the ocean. “I miss her so much, still. She was the only friend I had who truly got me. She was my Sam, if it makes sense.”

It did. Andy said nothing, because what could he say, that had not already been said? They fell silent again, the vines overhead creaking in the wind.

After a long time, Riley stood. “There’s one more place I need to show you,” she said, and the words sounded heavier than before. Andy followed, and as they walked, he realized his shirt was soaked through, but he barely noticed. All he felt was the hush of the woods and Riley’s presence just ahead, leading him into the heart of memory.

The path narrowed as Riley led Andy up a low rise, ducking beneath a canopy of wild grape and honeysuckle. The forest floor changed, underfoot: the usual pelt of needles and twigs gave way to a fine green, lush with moss, as if someone had rolled out the world’s softest rug for them alone. Up ahead, a clearing appeared—sunlit, elliptical, set off from the rest of the woods by a low ring of stones.

In the exact center was a single, pale boulder, so clean it almost looked manmade. Andy could see someone had carved it: the letters were shallow but precise, the stone marbled with new lichen but still sharp, as if just completed. There were flowers at its base. Not the kind you bought in a store, but tiny wild asters, roots and all, stuck in the ground in careful rows.

Riley walked straight to the rock and stood over it, shoulders squared, hands in her pockets. She didn’t look at Andy—didn’t look at anything but the inscription.

He followed. As he stepped into the clearing, the drone of the cicadas seemed to recede, replaced by a hush that wasn’t quite silence. He read the stone.

JOHN ANTHONY BENNETT, JR.
02/10/2025 – 02/11/2025
You went to find your dad.
You were never mine to keep,
but you will always be mine to love.

Andy’s breath hitched, just a little.

Riley stared at the rock for a long time. Then she crouched, set her palm flat against the cool surface, and let out a laugh that was so bitter it could have burned through steel.

“It looks the same, even though it’s not the real grave,” she said, her voice paper-thin. “But it’s been hard, not having a place to visit, here.” She picked a blade of grass, flicked it away. “This is where I come when I need to remember. Or forget. Depends on the day.”

Andy tried to imagine what to say, and found there was nothing—no condolence, no gesture, that could stand in this place without tipping it over. So he knelt, a few feet behind her, and waited.

Riley didn’t look up. “You know what’s funny?” she asked, but the word “funny” was like glass in her mouth. “Before I got pregnant, I didn’t even want a kid. I was barely keeping my shit together, and with John deployed, I didn’t want any kids to raise alone for months to an end. I had nothing to give. But he showed up anyway. Just before John left. John was so happy, and so devastated that he would miss his arrival. He promised it’d be his last deployment. And when I knew I was pregnant, suddenly I realized I wanted this child, I wanted him more than anything. I wanted the best of John and myself to live on.”

She gripped the stone, white-knuckled. “When he was born and they took him away to the incubator, they told me to name him. As if that would fix anything. I named him for his dad, because I figured the world owed John at least one good thing. But it didn’t matter. He was gone before he got a single sunburn, or scraped a knee, before I could even kiss him, or even cried for milk.” She laughed again, a sound like bones clicking together. “He never even cried, Andy. He was just gone.”

Andy stared at his hands, the urge to say something—anything—rising and falling in his chest like a tide.

“I came here last week,” Riley said. “I never got to tell him I loved him, before he died. That he was a miracle. That I will always miss him. I wanted to say it face to face, but I couldn’t, so I just kept talking to the rock. Isn’t that insane? Like, the only place I can say it out loud is in front of a fake headstone, in a forest full of bugs.” She thumped the stone, hard enough to sting her palm. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do with all this. Am I supposed to be angry? Am I supposed to just… get over it? Or do I keep coming back here, forever, until the wind eats my name too?”

She shuddered, then sat down hard beside the stone, elbows on knees. Her voice dropped to a hush. “You know what gets me? John chose his life. He went out a hero, and yes, I miss him, I grieved him, but I’m proud of him, too. But the baby? I was pissed. I was so fucking pissed that the universe would let me make a life, then take it away before I even got to show him a baseball game, or teach him to ride a bike, or read him a book. I had a list, Andy. I had a whole damn list of things I was going to do. I wrote it down, on the back of a grocery receipt. And now it’s just… nothing.” She drew a spiral in the dirt with her heel, then wiped it away.

“If I had one wish,” she whispered, “I’d bring him back. Just for a day. Just for an hour. I’d do it in a heartbeat. Even if it wrecked me.”

She put her head in her hands and started to shake. Not crying, not at first—just a silent trembling, as if the words had physically scraped something out of her. But then the shaking grew, deepening, and after a moment, the tears came: sharp, involuntary, nothing like the staged breakdowns you saw in movies. These were the tears that didn’t ask permission, that broke and kept breaking, until it was impossible to breathe.

Andy moved to her side. He hesitated for a moment, then put his arm around her, pulling her in. Riley didn’t resist. She folded into him, all elbows and bone, and sobbed like she’d been holding it in since the day the world cracked open.

He held her, feeling every jagged inhale, every stuttered exhale. He wanted to tell her it was okay, that she was allowed to grieve, that the pain was proof she’d done something right. But he knew better. This was not his pain to narrate.

For a long time, they sat there, the two of them and the stone, and the buzzing of the cicadas, and the ghosts of all the things that could have been.

Andy’s mind whirled, chasing after the right words. He thought of the wish the game promised. The one with the most VP would earn a true wish—a single change to reality, enormous in scope.

He could tell her. He could give her hope.

But something in him—a memory of Chloe’s warning, or maybe the hard-won wisdom of a man who has made a similar useless wish every day for sixteen years—said, Not yet. She doesn’t need hope she might never fulfill. She needs to be seen, and held, and allowed to fall apart.

So Andy did the only thing he could. He stayed, and he held her, and he let her grief run until it burned itself out, leaving nothing but the ache, and the memory, and the grass, and the stone.

---

When it was over, neither of them moved right away. Riley sat slumped, eyes scorched dry, face turned away, as if she could hide from what had just come out of her. Andy’s arm was still around her, but the grip had loosened; it was more a suggestion than an embrace, a line in the sand if she needed it.

After a time, Riley straightened. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, blinked into the middle distance, and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean for that to go full Greek tragedy.”

Andy shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said, and meant it.

They stayed like that for a while, silent. A breeze picked up, nudging the tall grass around the stone until it looked like a green tide lapping at the base. Riley watched the motion, then reached down and smoothed a patch of grass with her palm, flattening it into a makeshift nest.

“I guess it never really goes away,” she said, more to herself than to Andy. “You think you’re fine, and then you’re right back in the same moment, raw as the day it happened.” She chuckled, voice spent. “That’s grief for you. The world’s shittiest boomerang.”

Andy nodded, not trusting his voice.

She pushed herself up, hands braced against her knees. “Let’s go,” she said, eyes averted. “I don’t like to linger.”

They wound back through the trees, the air heavier now, as if the woods themselves were absorbing the residue of what had passed. Neither said much, but Riley’s gait had changed; she moved slower, less like she was walking toward something and more like she was being ferried back by the current.

At the fork in the trail, she paused. “This way,” she said, leading Andy back to the bench beneath the sprawling vines.

The bench was in deep shade now. Riley collapsed onto it, let her arms drape over the back like she was surrendering to gravity. Andy joined her at the far end, giving her space, but the intimacy lingered—an afterimage of comfort that neither wanted to break.

They sat, listening to the cicadas ramp back up. Somewhere, a woodpecker drummed against a hollow trunk. The world, for all its harshness, was still spinning, still making room for their pain.

After a long time, Riley said, “Do you ever think about her?” The question was soft, almost lost in the noise.

Andy looked down at his hands, then at the patch of light stippling the moss near his feet. “Every day,” he said, surprised by how easy it was to admit.

Riley closed her eyes, then opened them, scanning the tangled canopy above. “She was the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me,” she said. “Do you know what I mean?”

He did.

“She made me feel like I could be anything,” Riley continued. “But she also made me feel like an idiot, sometimes.” She shrugged. “That was the deal, I guess.”

Andy considered, then said, “She was fire. She burned so hot, sometimes she hurt people without meaning to. But she always tried to fix it.”

“She tried, right up to the end.”

A flock of small birds flickered through the vines, scattering sunlight onto their faces. For a moment, the space felt less like a graveyard and more like a sanctuary—a place made for remembrance, not regret.

Riley picked at a thread on her sleeve. “I still have all her letters,” she said, voice gone distant. “Even the ones she wrote to other people. I stole a few from her locker once. Just so I’d have them, in case she ever stopped talking to me.”

Andy let the silence settle. “What was she to you?” he asked, quietly.

Riley’s answer came slow. “She was my proof,” she said. “That I could be loved, I guess. Even if it wasn’t the way I wanted. Even if it was only for a second.”

Andy remembered the way Laura had laughed—head back, eyes closed, like she couldn’t imagine a world where joy was off-limits. He remembered the fights, too, the slammed doors and the crying that followed. He remembered her hugs, always too tight, and the way she’d scrawl little notes in the margins of his homework: You’re smarter than you think, dummy. He remembered how she’d once said, Promise me you won’t let me disappear, Andy. Promise.

He had promised. And no matter how much it had hurt, he had kept that promise, even when it had threatened to break him.

Riley spoke again, softer. “Do you think we keep her alive, by talking about her? Or are we just keeping ourselves from moving on?”

Andy looked at her: the cracks in her armor, the way she never quite let her guard down even when she was falling apart. He thought of Chloe, of the way she carried her grief, quiet and private, never letting it out except in safe places. He thought of the others, too—how everyone here was, in one way or another, surviving the past.

“I think it’s both,” he said. “But I think it matters that we remember. Otherwise, who will?”

Riley nodded, a slow, grudging motion. “We’re the last ones left,” she said. “The only ones who really knew her that well. That’s messed up.”

“It is,” Andy agreed. “But it’s also a kind of gift.”

Riley snorted. “If this is a gift, I want the receipt.”

They both laughed, the tension dissolving. It wasn’t a clean break, but it was something.

For a while, neither spoke. They watched the sky change color, the patches of light on the forest floor stretching and curling as the sun moved west.

Then Riley said, “If you ever need to talk, about her or anything else—just, you know. Don’t be a stranger.”

Andy nodded. “Same goes for you.”

They sat in silence, the world moving around them, two keepers of memory guarding a story that would never be told the same way twice.

---

The world drifted, as if time had fallen out of gear. Riley’s head rested on Andy’s shoulder, her breathing deep and even, but he could tell from the set of her jaw that she wasn’t at rest—not really. Grief didn’t give you time off; it just learned to hide better.

They sat this way for maybe twenty minutes, maybe more. Andy didn’t move, afraid any gesture would break the spell. He let the hush of the woods settle around them, the drone of insects, the far-off caw of a jay. Sometimes the best comfort was in simply holding still.

He only realized Riley was crying again when the first drop hit his sleeve. Not the ragged, world-ending sobs from before—these were quieter, the kind that crept up and overflowed before you even knew they were there.

“Sorry,” Riley said, wiping at her face with the heel of her hand. She shifted, sitting up, and Andy caught the microsecond where her composure shattered and she had to rebuild it, brick by brick.

But something was different. Maybe it was the shade, maybe it was the exhaustion, but Riley’s mask didn’t fit right anymore. Her hands shook as she pulled them from her pockets. When she spoke, her voice was bright and jagged, not quite under her control.

“I know you probably think I’m a trainwreck,” she said, eyes fixed on the dappled light at her feet. “But I swear, I was doing okay before. I had it managed. I was even happy, sometimes.”

Andy opened his mouth to reassure her—maybe to protest, to say that trainwrecks were his type—but Riley waved him off. “Don’t. I need to get this out while I still can.”

Her hair, already wild from the humidity and the wind, seemed to twitch as she spoke. Not a metaphor: it actually twitched, a stray lock snapping against her cheek like a horse’s tail. Andy watched, not entirely sure it wasn’t a trick of the light.

“I hate that I can’t control it,” Riley said, fists tight in her lap. “I hate that every time I feel something too hard, I end up…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

Andy looked closer: the tips of her hair were starting to curl, not in a normal way but in tight, purposeful spirals, winding together as if knotting themselves by choice.

“Shit,” Riley muttered. “Not now.”

Andy reached out—hesitated, then laid his hand over hers. Her whole arm tensed.

“You okay?” he asked, keeping his tone low and calm.

Riley started to answer, but her hair moved again, this time with real intent. In a blink, a heavy coil whipped around her right wrist, then another around her left, pinning her hands to her thighs. More locks joined in, looping her arms to her sides, snug and unyielding.

She sucked in a breath, then exhaled, the sound somewhere between a laugh and a scream.

“See?” she said, voice trembling. “Every time. It’s like my own body can’t stand me feeling things. It has to punish me.”

Andy watched, unable to look away. The hair was more than just rope: it was alive, writhing over Riley’s shoulders and arms, flattening her against the bench with a **** that was at once protective and suffocating.

“I can’t—” she started, then broke off. “I can’t move when it does this. Not until it lets me.”

Andy slid closer, careful not to startle her. “How long does it last?”

Riley’s eyes flicked to his, the panic there raw and bright. “Depends. Sometimes a few minutes. Sometimes… longer.” She pulled at the bonds, but they only cinched tighter. “You don’t have to stay.”

He heard the subtext: Please stay. Please don’t look at me like I’m broken.

Andy settled in beside her, hands on his knees. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “But if you want me to shut up, I can do that, too.”

Riley tried to laugh, but it came out as a gasp. “You really know how to pick a girl, huh?” she said, the words aimed at the sky. “Maybe next time you should try someone with fewer… issues.”

Andy shrugged. “I like complicated.”

For a moment, the only sound was the bench creaking as Riley shifted against her hair-bonds. Sweat beaded on her brow, and Andy realized she was holding her breath, bracing against the humiliation.

He wanted to help, but there was nothing to do—no spell to break the curse, no clever fix. All he could offer was company, the old-school kind. So he started to talk.

He told her a story about Laura’s terrible jokes, about the time he and Sam had stayed up all night to prank their professor only to get caught before they even started. He told her about the first round on the island, and discussed the speculations on whatever Mildred could be.

Little by little, Riley’s breathing slowed. Her eyes drifted shut, her posture relaxing even as the hair held her tight.

When she could speak, she did. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I know it’s weird. I know I’m weird.”

Andy squeezed her knee, just once. “Weird is good,” he said. “It’s the only thing I trust.”

They waited, together, as the shadows inched across the clearing. After what felt like an hour but was probably less, Riley’s hair began to slacken. The coils loosened their grip, then slid away, retracting in long, embarrassed shanks to her shoulders. For a second, Riley just sat, arms free but unmoving, as if she had to relearn how to be in her own skin.

She flexed her fingers, looked at Andy, then at her lap. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said. “It’s always when I least want it. It’s like the universe is playing a joke.”

Andy leaned back, letting the bench hold his weight. “You didn’t scare me,” he said. “And I’m glad you let me stay.”

Riley looked at him, really looked, and for once her eyes were not guarded. “You’re a better person than I give you credit for,” she said.

Andy smiled, shrugged. “I have my moments.”

For the first time, Riley’s hair lay still. The world felt quieter, less haunted. She exhaled, slow and deep.

“I guess I needed that,” she said. “The falling apart, I mean.”

Andy nodded. “We all do, sometimes.”

They sat in the hush, not touching but close enough to share the same patch of sunlight. Riley’s hands rested open in her lap, unbound, the lines on her wrists already fading.

She tilted her head, eyes half-closed. “If you tell anyone about this—especially Chloe—I will kill you.”

Andy laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Riley smiled, small and real. “Good.”

They let the silence stretch, and this time, it was a comfort.

---

They left the bench when the sun was low and the air had started to cool, the long blue shadows of the vines draping over the path like a closing curtain. Neither of them said a word. It didn’t feel like a silence that needed to be filled; it was more like walking through a cathedral after the service was over, the echoes still lingering in the air.

The trail was different now, less a memory lane and more a way home. The undergrowth glowed with the last edge of daylight, every leaf edged in gold. The cicadas were quieter, replaced by the faint chirring of crickets and the distant slap of waves against the rocks. Andy noticed that his feet felt lighter than they had in years, like something had been burned off and left behind on the forest floor.

He glanced at Riley as they crested the hill overlooking the hotel. Her face was unreadable, but softer somehow—the lines of anger and pain smudged by exhaustion. She moved with a looseness he’d never seen, as if the day’s confessions had made her bones less brittle.

As they crossed the lawn toward the main doors, Riley stopped him with a hand on his arm. She looked up at him, green and brown eyes bright in the dusk.

“Thanks for not trying to fix it,” she said, voice quiet but steady. “Most people would.”

Andy shrugged. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

She smiled, brief and real. “That’s why it worked.”

They entered the lobby together, the glass doors sliding open with a hush. Inside, the lights were warm and welcoming, the distant laughter from the bar mixing with the clink of glasses and the hum of the resort winding down for the night.

At the elevator, Riley waited, hands in her pockets. Andy stood beside her, neither close nor distant, just present.

“I need to wash my face, Andy,” she said softly, “But I’ll get there in a while. This time, I guess you got to see me cry for once.”

“That’s okay, Riley,” he said, and watched as she left and the elevator doors slid shut, taking him up to the Suite.