The First Night, Part 1

The Suite was darker than they’d left it, but not dead—there was a faint hum of air through the vents, a pulse of blue from a hidden lamp, the far-off vibration of the elevator tracking their return. Andy led Laura up the stairs, past the living room still spangled with moonlight and TV-glow, into a kitchen bigger than Laura’s childhood living room. She blinked at the rows of white marble, the gleaming burners, the ceiling fixture with orbs the size of grapefruit.

Andy kicked off his shoes at the threshold and rolled up his sleeves, like he’d done this a thousand times. Maybe he had. He fished a package of steak from the fridge, and a bundle of asparagus, and set them out with a precision that was both ridiculous and a little hot.

Laura pulled herself up onto a stool at the counter. She wanted to say something biting, but instead just watched him for a minute, taking in the newness. Andy in an apron was something out of a parallel universe. She half-expected him to bumble, to burn the steak, to set off a fire alarm and then laugh it off. Instead, he was focused, brisk, even kind of elegant in his motions: salt, pepper, a dusting of something green. He worked the pan with an economy of movement, his jaw set in concentration, his eyes on the sizzle as if the fate of the world depended on not overcooking the beef.

“Since when do you know how to cook?” she asked, when the silence felt too thick.

He flipped the steak, the meat hissing. “Since college. I realized I’d either learn or starve to **** on mac and cheese and ramen. Turns out, I like the chemistry.”

Laura snorted. “You would. The only kid in our zip code who thought lunchables were a science project.”

Andy grinned. “The pizza ones were objectively superior.”

“Objectively trash,” Laura said. She picked up a fork from the counter, twirling it like a baton. “If you make me eat asparagus, I’m walking back into the river.”

He glanced at her, eyebrow raised. “You’re welcome to eat the steak and nothing else.”

She jabbed the air with her fork. “Don’t you dare hide broccoli under there.”

Andy laughed softly and resumed his work, whisking butter into the pan juices. “Broccoli would never survive your glare.”

She stuck out her tongue, then let herself relax. The kitchen was bright and warm and nothing like her old house. She tried to picture her mom at this counter, the way she’d have scolded Andy for putting his elbows up, the way she’d have sabotaged the meal by “accidentally” burning something to cover her nerves. There was no echo of her here, only the smooth, careful efficiency of Andy’s new life.

Laura felt a flicker of pride—and something else, something akin to jealousy that he’d gotten so good without her standing over his shoulder, barking instructions, sharing the moment. In his family's old kitchen, she’d have elbowed him the minute he’d drizzled oil unevenly, teased him for his sloppy mise en place. Now, he was the picture of calm efficiency: a clean workspace, perfectly lined spices, a neatly folded apron instead of the stained T-shirts she remembered.

She leaned forward. “You always had a thing for precision. Remember when we built that cardboard robot and you calibrated its arm movement down to the millimeter?”

He shook his head, smiling. “You mean the one that catapulted your stuffed bunny across the living room?”

“Hey, Fluffy needed freedom.” Laura rolled her eyes fondly. “And you were the mastermind who programmed it.”

He plated the food—steak perfectly pink, asparagus lined up like soldiers, a little knob of butter melting into the grain. He set the plate in front of her, along with a glass of water so cold it fogged the rim.

“Bon appétit, mademoiselle,” he said, bowing just enough to make it a joke.

Laura considered the steak. “You trying to seduce me?” She saw the shock on his face and snorted, “I’m not an idiot, Andy. I know what a home-cooked meal means. Especially when it’s better than any food I ever had at home.”

He flushed, but didn’t back down. “Would it work?”

Laura bit into the steak, savoring the char. She made a show of chewing, letting the silence stretch, then pointed at him with the tip of her fork. “Maybe if you hadn’t spent our entire childhood refusing to eat anything that wasn’t shaped like a dinosaur.”

Andy laughed, a real, from-the-gut laugh. “The dino chicken nuggets were elite. Don’t let revisionist history erase that.”

She shrugged. “Fair.”

They ate together, the clink of silverware the only sound for a while. Laura watched Andy across the counter, trying to catalogue the differences: the way his hands had gotten rougher, the ease with which he poured a glass of water without spilling, the little groove between his eyes when he was deep in thought. She wanted to say it was all different, that he was a stranger, but it wasn’t true. He was just more himself than she remembered. Like someone had taken the old Andy and played him at double speed, letting all the sharp edges file down into something almost graceful.

Laura finished her steak and picked at the asparagus. She waited until Andy was done eating, then said, “You going to tell me what happens now?”

Andy set down his fork, wiped his mouth. “We go slow. We figure it out. We do whatever you want, at your pace.”

She frowned. “That’s not what I mean. I mean—what do I do now? I’m not thirteen anymore. I’m… I don’t know what I am.”

He considered. “You’re Laura,” he said, as if that was the most obvious answer in the world.

She looked down at her hands. “I don’t remember anything after the river. I don’t remember dying. I just remember the cold, and then this. But I know things I shouldn’t. Like… I know how to drive. I know what an iPhone is. I know about climate change and TikTok and all of that. But I don’t remember learning any of it. It’s like someone downloaded the world into my brain, but skipped all the updates between then and now.”

Andy was quiet. He’d always been better at listening than talking.

“It’s not that I’m scared,” Laura said, twisting her fingers together. “I’m just… fractured. I keep waiting for someone to tell me which version of me is the real one. Am I the girl who died? Or am I the woman who can eat rare steak and make jokes about being seduced?”

Andy smiled, soft. “Why not both?”

She rolled her eyes, but the tension had bled out of her shoulders. “Because it’s impossible. You can’t be two people at once.”

He shook his head. “You’ve always been impossible. It’s basically your brand.”

She studied him, as if searching for a trick. But there was nothing there except the old, stubborn loyalty that had gotten them both in trouble a million times. She made a face at him, but she was grinning now, for real.

Laura let herself breathe. She felt the fracture—the weird time-lag, the double-exposure of childhood and adulthood—but for the first time, it didn’t feel like something to be ashamed of. If Andy was still himself, then maybe she could be too. Maybe it was enough just to be alive and eating steak and calling her best friend a dork.

She pulled her hand back and flicked a chunk of asparagus at him. “You’re still a loser.”

He caught it, popped it in his mouth, and grinned.

“You love me anyway,” he said, a challenge.

She didn’t answer, not with words. Instead, she stood, walked around the counter, and hugged him from behind, arms tight around his ribs. He tensed at first, then relaxed, his hands finding her wrists and holding them in place.

Hugged the Master! +1 VP

They stood like that, quiet, the only sound the fridge humming in the background.

After a minute, Laura let go and turned, looking for something sweet. She found a bowl of strawberries in the fridge, rinsed a few, and lined them up on a plate like tiny grenades.

She ate the first one, then offered him the second.

“If you ever cook for anyone else, I’ll haunt you,” she said, serious.

Andy took the berry, met her gaze. “Promise?”

She nodded.

He smiled, and for a second, the past and present blurred, and they were just two kids in the kitchen, daring each other to eat one more, betting on who could make the other laugh first.

This time, Laura won.

After they’d eaten and put away the plates, Laura wandered through the Suite, exploring the edges. The place was too clean, like a model home or the set of a reality show—which, Andy admitted, it technically was. The den was a museum of comfort: battered sectional couch, oversize TV, a Nintendo Switch and a battered GameCube both hooked up to the same flatscreen. On the shelf below, half a dozen controllers were coiled in a tangle, and a stack of games—Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Smash, the holy trinity—sat in faded boxes.

Laura flopped onto the couch, found the GameCube controller, twiddled the joystick and watched the screen come to life, the logo glimmering into existence. She didn’t look up when Andy came in, just tossed him the spare controller with a flick of her wrist.

He caught it without looking. “Really?”

“Don’t pretend you’re above it,” she said. “You’ve been dying for a rematch since forever.”

He sat next to her, leaving a polite six-inch gap, then promptly erased it by slouching sideways so his knee touched hers. They booted up Mario Kart. The start screen music—unchanged for thirty years—echoed in the room, so familiar it made Laura’s throat ache.

She picked Yoshi. Andy went for Waluigi, just to annoy her.

“You’re so basic,” she said. “Waluigi is for cowards.”

Andy grinned. “You only say that because you’re terrified of his bomb.”

He set the cup to the Special Cup, and Laura rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”

They started, and for the first two laps it was a dead heat, the way it always had been. Every corner, every shortcut, every secret boost—Laura remembered them all, like they’d been etched into her DNA. She drifted, hopped, landed a spiny shell with surgical precision, watched Andy’s kart spin out and then rocket back in her rearview mirror.

She won the first race by half a length.

She tossed the controller onto her lap. “Still got it.”

Andy watched her with a secret smile. “You never lost it. I just thought I’d go easy on you since you’re technically a new driver’s license holder.”

Laura snorted. “Don’t patronize me.”

They ran it back. Laura won again, but this time Andy’s race was sloppy, his karts drifting wide at every hairpin, his thumb lingering a beat too long on the banana button.

After the third race, Laura put down the controller. “Okay, now I know you’re throwing.”

Andy didn’t even pretend. He turned, folding a leg up on the couch, the controller resting in his lap. “Maybe I just want you to feel good.”

She shoved his shoulder. “You are the worst kind of person.”

He shrugged, grinning. “You’re the best at Mario Kart, Laura. You always were.”

She rolled her eyes, but her cheeks were red. “Prove it,” she said. “No more babying.”

Andy raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Bring it, old man.”

The next race was different. Andy’s kart came off the line like a bullet, perfect drift on every turn, coins collected in geometric patterns. He dodged every shell, sniped Laura with a green shell at the finish, and looked smug doing it. He won three in a row, then stopped, setting the controller aside with exaggerated care.

Laura stared at him, not even mad, just stunned. “When did you get so good?”

Andy shrugged. “After you left, I didn’t have anyone to play with. So I got obsessed.”

Laura didn’t speak. She just sat there, thinking of sixteen years of lost races, of Andy in his apartment, running time trials against a ghost. Of how lonely that must have been.

“You practiced for sixteen years?” she asked, soft.

Andy shrugged, as if it was nothing. “It was our thing,” he said. “I wanted to keep it alive.”

She looked at the screen, the Rainbow Road glittering in the dark. “Did it work?”

He nodded, slow. “You’re here.”

Laura stared at him, something fragile in her expression. For a second, she looked thirteen again, then thirty, then both at once. “God, you’re such a dork.”

He grinned, but it faded quickly. “You want to go again? It’s good to finally not have to hold back. There'd be no contest with anyone else around this place, if I didn’t.”

She did. This time, she didn’t care about the outcome. She just wanted to play. They lost track of time, the races blurring together, the old banter returning with every lap. Sometimes she won, mostly Andy did. They trash-talked, laughed, and shouted every time a blue shell landed.

Between races, the talk turned less competitive.

“Part of me still feels like I’m someone else’s memory.” Laura said, between bites of a Twizzler Andy had unearthed from the pantry.

He thought about it. “I know what you mean. I used to dream I was the version of me you’d remember, instead of the one I actually turned into.”

Laura chewed on the end of the licorice, frowning. “I keep getting these flashes. Of things I never learned. I know how to do long division, or change a tire, or write a check, but I never actually did any of those things. It’s like someone uploaded all the boring stuff but skipped over the fun.”

Andy picked at the controller, not looking at her. “You think it’s because you missed out?”

She shrugged. “I think it’s because I died. Or maybe because I got stuck at thirteen. I don’t know.” She let out a breath, long and thin. “It’s like, I’m not sad about missing prom or graduation or any of that. I’m sad that I missed the parts that don’t have names. The feeling of sitting on a couch at midnight with your best friend and eating all the junk food before your parents wake up. The little stuff.”

Andy nodded, slow. “I missed you, too.”

Laura picked another course. “You know, in all my weird quantum memories, I can’t ever picture you actually grown up. Like, I knew you would be, but I couldn’t see it. Not until today.”

He looked at her, puzzled. “Is it bad?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just… different. Good, I think.” She reached over and pinched his bicep. “You got swole, by the way. Is that just for the harem?”

Andy snorted. “Did you just call me swole?” He chuckled. “It’s for self-defense. You never know when the Host will throw you into a mud-wrestling challenge.”

Laura grinned. “That’s not even a joke, is it?”

He shook his head. “You’d be amazed.”

She thought for a minute, then: “You know what the weirdest part is?”

He waited.

She pointed at the screen, where the credits rolled over a constellation of kart racers. “I don’t feel like a kid anymore. But I don’t feel like an adult, either. It’s like I’m both. I can remember every dumb fight we ever had, but I also… I don’t know, I feel like I could write a whole book about what it’s like to lose someone. Or to come back.” She paused. “Is that normal?”

Andy reached over, squeezed her hand. “It is for you.”

She didn’t pull away.

They played another hour, racing and eating junk food and pretending that time had not just bent around them. When Laura finally put down the controller for good, she leaned back, legs stretched out in front of her, feet propped on the coffee table. Andy mirrored her pose, the two of them sprawled and spent, victory screens still rotating behind them.

After a minute, Laura spoke. “It’s not fair, you know.”

He glanced over. “What isn’t?”

She gestured at the TV, the room, the whole situation. “That you had to do all the living without me. That you’re so good at this now, and I’m just catching up.”

Andy smiled, soft. “You’ll get there.”

Laura looked at him, and for the first time since she came back, she didn’t feel fractured. She felt… enough. The room was quiet, the TV’s background music a soft drone, and the only thing that mattered was that, after everything, they were both still there.

She nudged his foot with hers. “Let me win next time, okay?”

He laughed. “No chance.”

She grinned. “Good. Wouldn’t want you going soft on me.”

For a while, they just sat, side by side, the gap closed, the world outside the den so far away it barely existed.

The den was cozy, thick with afterglow from the TV and the dust haze that curled in the corners. When the third episode of whatever show Andy had queued up started auto-playing, he excused himself, said he needed water, maybe a snack, maybe a moment. Laura sprawled on the couch and let herself dissolve into the cushions, legs stretched out like she owned the place. The stairs creaked under Andy’s weight as he made his way up to the kitchen.

He stood in front of the fridge, pawed through the contents—water, leftover steak, half a tray of strawberries. He filled two glasses, took a breath, and leaned his head against the cool metal. He expected the world to feel changed, to have a different flavor, now that Laura was here again. Instead, it felt like he was the one who'd changed, while the rest of reality had been holding its breath for sixteen years, just waiting for him to catch up.

Andy shut the fridge and, as he did, something shivered up his spine. He paused, glass in hand. There was a sensation, a tug, not a voice but a knowing. Something he had not felt in sixteen years, as if the lights inside him had suddenly been plugged in again. If he closed his eyes, he could point, exactly, to where Laura was: forty feet south, one level down, curled up in the corner of the sectional with her head pressed into the armrest.

He almost dropped the glass.

He hadn't felt that in sixteen years. Not once. It was the sense that had made hide-and-seek pointless, the sense that let them find each other anywhere in a crowd, even blindfolded or after a fight. It was the reason they never got lost at the county fair, why even as toddlers they'd split up at the playground and, minutes later, zeroed in on each other like magnets.

He remembered the day it went away. The day after the river. He'd woken up in a hospital room with bandages on his head and wires on his chest, and in the background, a hollow that screamed. There was no more sense of her. It was just gone. He'd spent months afterwards hoping it would flicker back, years inventing rational explanations for why it might have vanished, then longer just pretending he never had it.

But now it was back, live and insistent, as bright and impossible as the first time he noticed it.

Andy set the glasses down on the counter and pressed his palms flat against the cool granite. His heart hammered so hard he could feel his pulse in his fingertips. This wasn't just recognition or memory—this was the thread that had connected them since before they could speak, the invisible cord that had made them inseparable. The one thing that no one else had ever understood or believed.

He closed his eyes, focusing on the pull. It felt like a compass needle, swinging unerringly toward magnetic north. Toward Laura. He could sense her shifting position, feel the exact moment she stretched her legs out along the couch. The sensation was so vivid it brought tears to his eyes. The connection hummed between them like a plucked string.

When they were kids, they'd made a game of it. "Marco," he would whisper from his bedroom window, and without calling back, she would appear at hers across the yard, as if summoned. Their mothers had called it twin telepathy, though they weren't twins, and they didn’t actually sense each other’s thoughts, or feelings. Not quite. Their teachers had called it codependency. The school counselor had tried to separate them, worried they'd never develop individual identities.

But it had never been any of those things. It was just them—Andy and Laura, Laura and Andy—two halves of something that made sense only when joined.

The day she died, that part of him had died too. The silence where she should have been had been so absolute, so final, that he'd known she was gone before anyone told him. He had screamed until his throat bled, not just from grief but from the sudden, violent amputation of something vital.

For sixteen years, he had lived as half a person. He had learned to function around the absence, to compensate for the missing sense, like someone who loses their sight and develops acute hearing. He had built a life in the negative space she'd left behind.

And now—now she was back, and so was the connection, flooding through him like light through a door suddenly flung open. It was almost too much to process. It wasn't just Laura in his living room—it was the part of himself he'd lost in that river. The part he'd never thought he'd get back, the essential Laura-ness of her intact and unchanged.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. This wasn't the Host's illusion or some twisted game. No one could fake this connection—not even Arabella. He knew this with a certainty that was bone-deep. This was Laura. His Laura. Returned to him in ways he couldn't explain but could feel down to his soul.

Whatever else happened in this bizarre reality show, whatever challenges or transformations lay ahead, this moment had already changed everything. He was whole again. And that meant more than any game, any prize, any wish the Host could grant.

Andy took a shuddering breath and opened his eyes. The kitchen was exactly as it had been a moment before, but the world felt fundamentally altered. He could feel her downstairs, waiting, probably wondering what was taking him so long. He picked up the glasses with trembling hands, steadying himself against the counter.

Andy steadied himself, then moved not to the den but to the bedroom. He went straight to the bottom drawer of the nightstand, the one with the little red notebook. He hadn’t planned to show her this, not yet, but the sense in his chest told him there was no other option.

He thumbed through it, cover soft from years of handling. Each page was a birthday—March 21st, every year since 2009. And under each date, a song title, and a small note to Laura: sometimes a joke, sometimes a wish, sometimes an apology. He’d started it the year after she died, as a way of keeping the memories from fraying. But it had grown beyond that—a catalog of everything he could never say to her, a ledger of hope and regret.

He closed the notebook, palmed it, and walked down to the den, grabbing the guitar case on the way.

Laura was still on the couch, but she’d shifted: now lying flat, her hair a messy halo, eyes glued to the screen but glazed. She barely looked up when Andy sat beside her, tucking the notebook into her lap.

“What’s this?” she asked, lifting her head.

Andy handed her the glass of water, then gestured at the notebook. “Open it.”

She did, flipping through the first few pages. Her eyebrows rose. “What…?”

He nodded. “It’s your playlist. Eighteen years of birthday presents.”

She was quiet, scanning the page. “You learned all these songs?” Her voice was high, but not in disbelief. Just wonder.

He shrugged. “It was tradition. Every year. I thought, wherever you were, maybe you'd hear them, and know you were not forgotten.”

She smirked. “You know, some people just send a card.” Then she looked closer. Inside, each page held a song title, the artist, and a handwritten note from Andy about why he picked it. There were dates in the corner of every page—years she had never lived to see, birthdays she never celebrated. The first made her smile, and made her heart clench at the mixture of emotions Andy must have felt when he wrote it.

March 21, 2009
The Scientist (Coldplay)
You and Me (Lifehouse)
For the smartest person I ever knew. You never heard me play these songs, but I learned them for you, and the next day you were gone. I’ll never stop wishing you’d had the chance. PS: Sorry for always stealing your answers on the math homework. I’m still trying to catch up. Now I never will.

Her heart clenched. The next page had a different date, and a different song, but all the dates she recognized: each of her birthdays, after she died.

March 21, 2010
Fix You (Coldplay)
I couldn’t fix you. But maybe this is how I remind myself that I would have tried forever.

Each page after had a new song, many of them unknown to her, with a note, always on the day of her birthday:

March 21, 2011
Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol)
If I lay here, if I just lay here… I’d give anything to have one more summer evening with you.

March 21, 2012
I Will Follow You Into The Dark (**** Cab for Cutie)
If only I could have gone with you. If only.

March 21, 2013
Here Without You (3 Doors Down)
Nights are the hardest. I think of you most when it’s quiet.

March 21, 2014
How Long Will I Love You (Ellie Goulding)
The answer never changes: as long as I live. Longer, if I can.

March 21, 2015
With or Without You (U2)
I carry you everywhere. You’re with me, even when you’re not.

March 21, 2016
My Immortal (Evanescence)
Seven years, and still I can’t let you go. Maybe I never should.

March 21, 2017
One More Light (Linkin Park)
Who cares if one more light went out? Me. I do. Always.

March 21, 2018
Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)
Our bridge. Our place. I went back there today, and it still feels like you’re just around the bend.

March 21, 2019
Run (Snow Patrol)
Light up, light up — even if you cannot hear my voice. I’ll be right beside you.

March 21, 2020
The Night We Met (Lord Huron)
I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you. God, if only I could go back.

March 21, 2021
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
The simplest truth. I just wish you were here.

March 21, 2022
Say Something (A Great Big World)
You never got to say goodbye. I never stopped waiting for you to say something.

March 21, 2023
If I Die Young (The Band Perry)
You never got to grow old. I’ll grow old for both of us.

March 21, 2024
The Reason (Hoobastank)
I’m not a perfect person. You knew that better than anyone. I wish I could have shown you I was trying to be better.

March 21, 2025
How to Save a Life (The Fray)
Every step I retrace brings me back to you in the water. I’ll never stop wondering what I could have done differently.

She stared at the pages, flipping through the years. "You really did this?"

Andy nodded, embarrassed. "I started just before… you know. The first song was 'The Scientist,' because you always said it made you cry. I learned 'You and Me,' because you told me once it was the only song you could picture yourself dancing to at a wedding. But you never got to hear them."

He laughed, then sobered. “I wanted to remember. Each year, I’d pick a song I thought you’d like, or one that reminded me of you. Then I’d write down why. Sometimes I played it at your grave. Sometimes just to myself. And sometimes at night I'd promise that, if you ever came back, I’d play you the whole set.”

She started reading the notes, lips moving as she worked through each year. She snickered at some (“You put ‘Chasing Cars’ and you hate Snow Patrol”), rolled her eyes at others (“‘I Will Follow You Into the Dark’? You were so emo in your teens”), and fell silent at the ones that stung (“Wish You Were Here,” “Say Something,” “If I Die Young”).

After a while, she said, “Did you really play these at my grave?”

“Sometimes,” he said, quietly. “Sometimes just in my room. Sometimes to the water.” Andy picked up the guitar, resting it on his knee. "I was going to play for you. The day before the river, I learned your favorites so I could surprise you on your birthday. But you died in November. You never heard them."

He strummed once, the sound bright and sad at the same time. He cleared his throat, then met her gaze. "Yesterday was your birthday. Happy birthday, Laura."

Laura's breath caught. Her fingers froze on the notebook's edge. March 21st. Yesterday. The date she'd just read seventeen times, the day he'd mourned her year after year—and the exact night she'd been pulled back into existence. Her chest tightened as if the universe had tied a bow around her return, a cosmic symmetry she couldn't possibly deserve. “Can I hear it? This year’s song?”

He nodded, and took a breath. The first chords were shaky, but then something ancient took over—muscle memory, or maybe something deeper, like the way you remember to breathe after nearly drowning. As his fingers pressed into the fretboard, the familiar ache of the strings against his calluses was a homecoming.

He didn't perform for her, not in the sense of a stage or a spotlight. There was nothing showy about it. He sat on the edge of the couch like a kid at his first recital, back hunched, eyes on the neck of the guitar, and let the notes come out as clean as he could manage. He remembered that she hated when people did fussy flourishes on pop songs—she thought it was pretentious—so he played it straight, exactly as it would have sounded on the radio.

The opening lines came out thin, his voice a dry scrape, but he kept going, letting the melody build. He fumbled once, apologized under his breath, but picked up where he left off. Halfway through, Andy realized he was playing for someone who had been dead for sixteen years. He was performing for a memory that had once been the sharpest pain in his life, now resurrected and sitting three feet from him, wrapped in a blanket and holding a glass of water like it was the only thing keeping her from floating away.

When he reached the chorus, his voice finally cracked, raw and unguarded on the first “How to save a life.” He couldn’t look at her—he didn't dare—but through the corner of his eye, he saw Laura’s hand go to her face, fingers pressing at her eyes. She was crying again, and the sight of it nearly derailed him, but he pressed on, each repetition making the song a little less about the past and more about the inexplicable present. By the time he reached the bridge, he was almost shouting the words, as if the **** of them could carve out a space in the universe where what was happening would make sense.

He finished, hand shaking, the last chord ringing out into the hush of the den. The clock on the wall ticked twice, the only sound for a moment, then Laura let out a shaky breath. She kept her face turned away, chin on her knees, but he could see her shoulders trembling. The red notebook was clutched so tightly in her lap that the pages bent and warped under her fingers.

Andy set the guitar carefully on the carpet, then sat there, hands in his lap, waiting. It felt like he was waiting for a verdict, for the universe to decide if this was a nightmare or a miracle or just some elaborate trick. He wanted to say something, anything, but the words felt too small for the moment.

After a minute, Laura looked up, her eyes red and puffy but her mouth twisted into a smile that was all mischief and memory. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt, then sniffled and said, “You know what the best part is?”

He searched her face, not trusting himself to speak. He just shook his head.

She flipped through the notebook, found the first song, and read the note aloud. “March 21st, 2009. ‘The Scientist’ by Coldplay. ‘PS: Sorry for always stealing your answers on the math homework.’” She looked up, eyes shining. “You never did. I always just left the answers in the margin for you to find.”

He laughed, surprised. “You little cheat.”

She grinned. “You big dork.”

They sat together, the notebook between them, laughter fading into a comfortable silence. Time seemed to slow, the world outside the den falling away until it was just the two of them, the faint smell of old books, and the ghost of a song lingering in the air.

Andy found himself watching her, memorizing the new shape of her face, the way her hands moved when she talked, the impossible shade of her eyes. He had spent so long building a monument to her in his memory—every detail frozen in amber—that seeing her alive, in motion, was almost disorienting. He wondered if she felt the same, looking at him now. Did he look like a stranger to her, or did she see the boy who had walked beside her on every sidewalk in Warrenville, through every corridor of middle school?

“You really remembered all of it,” Laura said, soft.

Andy nodded. “Every year.”

She wiped her nose, took a shaky breath. “Then I guess… I guess it’s not so bad, coming back.”

He smiled. “I hoped you’d think that.”

She nudged him with her foot, then curled up, her arms around the notebook like it was a teddy bear. “You know, you never sang for me. Not once. Not even when I asked.”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I was shy.”

She side-eyed him, then said, “You’re not now.”

He looked at her, the sense in his chest alive, certain, warm.

“No,” he said. “Not anymore.”

She picked up the glass of water, took a measured sip, then said, “That song you played—this year’s song. You picked it because you thought it was your fault, didn’t you?”

He hesitated, but there was no point in lying. “Yeah. It was. At least, it felt like it.”

Laura met his eyes, gaze clear and steady. “You know it wasn’t, right?”

He nodded, but it was the kind of nod that meant nothing. “Sure.”

She made a noise, something between a laugh and a grunt. “You’re still bad at pretending.”

“Some things never change,” he said. They both smiled, and the tension loosened a degree.

The den was quiet, the clock ticking down the last seconds to midnight. Laura sat, holding the notebook, and for the first time in two decades, Andy felt the world settle into its proper shape.

He got up, returned the guitar to its stand, then sat beside her on the couch, close enough that their knees touched. The playlist was open between them, the handwriting small and wobbly, but persistent.

Laura reached for his hand, squeezed it, and didn’t let go.

She didn’t say thank you. She didn’t have to.