Some lessons, apparently, took more than one attempt to stick.
13
THE TOWN THAT STAYED THE SAME
NATE
My camera hung around my neck like a shield against whatever judgment waited on every corner of Hollow Pines, the familiar weight both anchor and millstone as I stepped into morning air that carried too many ghosts. Three days back, and I was still pretending I knew why the hell I'd thought coming home was a good idea.
The smart move would have been to hole up in my childhood bedroom until I figured out my next spectacular failure. Instead, here I was, wandering Main Street like some kind of masochist with a photography degree and a death wish for emotional stability.
I lifted my camera more out of habit than inspiration, muscle memory taking over while my brain tried to process the weird cognitive dissonance of being back. Everything looked smaller, which was probably code for “you're not seventeen anymore, dipshit.” The magic I'd remembered, that sense of infinite possibility hiding behind every storefront, had either evaporated or I'd lost the ability to see it.
Probably both.
The problem with coming home after you'd spectacularly crashed and burned was that every familiar sight felt like evidence of your own stupidity. That café where I'd spent hours editing photos on my laptop, convinced I was the next Ansel Adams? Still there, still mocking me with its cozy charm. The bench where I'd sat with Evan, watching him sketch while I babbled about all the places I was going to see, all the stories I was going to tell?
Yeah, that one hurt to look at.
I forced myself to keep walking, to act like a functional adult instead of a walking anxiety attack with trust issues and a credit score that made loan officers weep. The morning light was good, at least. Golden and soft, the kind that made even my current existential crisis look artistic.
Light filtered through the ever-present mist, transforming mundane small-town scenes into something that looked almost ethereal. The photographer in me recognized good composition when I saw it, but the part of me that had spent six years chasing those same ethereal moments in urban alleyways and coffee shops felt hollow looking at it now.
Because this was home. This was what I'd left behind in pursuit of art and recognition and all the things that were supposed to matter more than belonging.
How fucking stupid had I been?
“Capture anything interesting yet, or are you still documenting paint drying?”
The voice was familiar and teasing and exactly the same as it had been six years ago. I spun around to find Jonah Ryder leaning against a lamppost with that same crooked grin that had gotten us both into trouble more times than I could count, all lanky limbs and mischievous energy that apparently hadn't dimmed with age.
“Fucking hell, Jonah,” I said, lowering my camera and feeling a genuine smile spread across my face for the first time since the bus had pulled into town. “Still sneaking up on people like a creepy stalker?”
“Still easy prey,” he shot back, pushing off the lamppost and ambling over. “Some things never change.”
He looked good. Older, obviously, with lines around his eyes that spoke of laughter and maybe a little too much sun, but fundamentally the same Jonah who'd spent high school making smart-ass comments and keeping Evan grounded when the weight of expectations threatened to crush him.
“Look what the forest dragged back,” he continued, reaching out to clap me on the shoulder with enough force to rattle my teeth. “Hollow Pines' very own prodigal son, home from his grand adventures in the big city.”
The words could have been cruel, could have carried the kind of small-town meanness that turned homecomings into public humiliations. But this was Jonah, and under the teasing was genuine warmth.
“Still ugly as ever, Ryder,” I said, falling into the familiar rhythm of our friendship like no time had passed at all.
“And you're still a smartass with a camera fetish. Some things really don't change.”
We started walking down Main Street together, and I let myself relax into the easy banter that had always been Jonah's specialty. He filled the air with running commentary about everything and nothing—who'd gotten married, who'd gotten divorced, whose kid had crashed a truck into old Henderson's fence and lived to tell about it.
Normal small-town gossip, the kind that would have bored me to tears when I was eighteen and convinced that anything that happened in Hollow Pines was automatically less important than whatever was happening in the wider world. Now it felt likecoming home to a language I'd forgotten I spoke, community connections that Chicago had never offered despite its millions of residents.
“So Martha finally retired from the post office,” Jonah was saying as we paused outside the café, the scent of coffee and cinnamon rolls making my mouth water. “Handed it over to her niece, who immediately instituted a computerized system that crashes approximately twice a week. Progress, right?”
“Sounds about right for Hollow Pines,” I said, snapping a quick shot of the café's front window where Martha was arranging pastries. “Fighting technology one malfunction at a time.”
“Hey, we got high-speed internet in the library last year. We're practically cutting edge now.”
I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in months. This was what I'd missed without realizing it—the easy camaraderie, the sense of being known by people who'd seen you at your worst and still chose to stick around. Chicago had offered opportunities and experiences, but it had never offered this.
We continued our leisurely tour of downtown, Jonah pointing out small changes I might have missed—a new paint job here, a different shop owner there—while I documented everything through my lens. The town looked almost exactly the same as it had when I'd left, but somehow that felt like a feature rather than a bug now.
