Stability. Continuity. The rare gift of a place that knew what it was and wasn't interested in becoming anything else.
We were approaching the edge of town when the Old Mill came into view, its weathered silhouette rising against the forest like a monument to abandoned dreams. I stopped walking, camera halfway to my eye, as memories crashed over me in waves.
Bonfires and teenage laughter. Evan sitting beside me on fallen logs, close enough to touch but always just out of reach. The sound of his voice saying my name in the darkness, rough and careful and more precious than any words that had come before or since.
My finger hovered over the shutter, but I couldn't make myself press it. Some ghosts were too powerful to trap in silver and light, too painful to frame and hang on walls where they could mock you with everything you'd lost.
“Still gives you the feels, huh?” Jonah's voice was softer now, understanding in the way that came from years of watching friends wrestle with demons they couldn't name.
“Something like that,” I said, lowering the camera and trying to shake off the melancholy that threatened to swallow me whole.
“We should go out there sometime,” Jonah continued, settling beside me on the low stone wall that bordered the park. “Relive our misspent youth. Drink cheap beer and pretend we're still young enough for bad decisions to feel like adventures.”
“I think I've had enough bad decisions for one lifetime,” I said, but there was no heat in it. Just the bone-deep weariness of someone who'd spent six years learning that dreams and reality rarely occupied the same zip code.
Jonah was quiet for a moment.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked finally. “Whatever brought you home with your tail between your legs?”
The question was gentle, offered without judgment or pressure, but it still made my chest tight with everything I wasn't ready to examine. Because talking about why I'd come home meant talking about failure, about the dreams that had curdled into nightmares, about the slowly dawning realization that talent wasn't enough and connections mattered more thanart and sometimes the thing you wanted most in the world was the thing that would destroy you if you actually got it.
“Not yet,” I said, and he nodded like he'd expected as much.
“Fair enough. But when you're ready, I'm here. Same as always.”
The simple offer of friendship, no strings attached, made my throat burn with emotions I'd been swallowing for months. Because this was what I'd been missing in Chicago—people who cared about me as more than just a potential networking opportunity, who offered support without expecting anything in return.
“So,” I said, desperate to change the subject before I did anything embarrassing like cry in public, “tell me about Evan. Is he still terrifying people into submission, or has he finally learned to hold a conversation?”
I meant it as a joke, but Jonah's smile faltered, his expression shifting into something more serious, and I felt my stomach drop like I'd just stepped off a cliff.
“Depends who's asking,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking toward the forest.
My laughter died in my throat. “What's that supposed to mean?”
Jonah sighed, shoulders slumping like he was carrying weight that belonged to someone else. “He retreated after you left, Nate. Pulled back into himself in ways that made his high school silence look chatty by comparison. I thought it was just the normal Callahan thing at first, you know?”
Each word was a gut punch, guilt settling into my bones with the weight of accumulated regret. Because I'd known, hadn't I? Had known that leaving would hurt him, that disappearing from his life like I'd never mattered would leave scars.
“Because of me?” The question slipped out before I could stop it, raw and desperate and carrying six years of wondering if I'd destroyed the best thing in my life through sheer cowardice.
“Maybe,” Jonah said, and the careful way he said it made me think he was being kinder than I deserved. “You were the one person he tried for. The only one who could get him to actually talk instead of just existing in that careful silence he wore like armor. You left, and it was like he decided that talking to people was too dangerous, that letting anyone in was just setting himself up for more pain.”
I gripped my camera tight enough to leave marks, using the physical discomfort to anchor myself against the tide of guilt that threatened to pull me under. Because I'd known Evan struggled with words, had understood that his silence wasn't indifference but protection. And I'd still walked away without giving him the chance to fight for us, without even admitting there was an 'us' to fight for.
“Is he...” I swallowed hard, forcing myself to ask the question that had been eating at me since I'd seen him at the Lodge. “Is he okay? I mean, really okay?”
Jonah was quiet for a long moment, considering his words.
“He's stronger than ever,” he said finally. “Don't get me wrong about that. People respect him, maybe even more than they respected his dad.”
The pride in Jonah's voice was unmistakable, but underneath it was something that sounded like worry.
“But strong doesn't mean happy,” I said, understanding the subtext even if I didn't want to.
“No,” Jonah agreed. “It doesn't.”
We sat in silence for a while, watching mist curl between the trees while I tried to process the weight of what he'd told me. Evan had grown into the leader everyone expected him to become, had fulfilled the destiny that had been carved out forhim since birth. But he'd done it alone, had learned to carry that burden without the support system that might have made it bearable.
