“Are you dumb?” Cherry finally spoke up, sounding only slightly more like herself. “It’s Halloween.”
“Oh shit. I totally blanked.” Holden rubbed the back of his neck. “I work tonight, but I’m down for something after. We could hit up Smithy’s.”
“Yeah, we could,” I shrugged. “Do you have a costume?”
“I’m not twelve, Blair,” Holden said, shaking his head.
“Neither are we,” I reminded him.
“And the costumes we’re wearing are definitely not for twelve-year-olds,” Cherry added. Holden’s head snapped up at her words, like the idea alone had shaken him out of whatever mood he’d been in. He looked at Cherry, something unspoken passing between them. I didn’t understand it. I glanced at Cherry, who was looking right back at him like she understood it perfectly.
“Okay,” I sighed. “What the hell is going on between—”
“Blair?”
The sound of my name alone stopped me cold. I didn’t know who it was yet. I only knew that something inside me reacted. Like a door I’d sealed shut had been knocked on from the other side. I turned slowly, digging through my mind for the source of the familiarity. It felt like reaching into a dark closet where memories were packed away in unmarked boxes.
And then I saw her. Instant recognition hit me. She was never someone I could forget. Not even after all this time. Not even after knowing her for such a short, painful stretch. Looking at her now felt like staring into a cracked mirror, one that reflected a version of my past I hadn’t looked at in years.
“Seren?” I gasped, my eyes scanning over her.
She looked the same, and yet she looked completely different. Her long dark hair was cut shorter now, framing her face in a way that felt deliberate. The years since I’d last seen her had been kind. If I had thought she was beautiful then, it was nothing compared to what she looked like now. Immediately, I knew why. She was genuinely happy. Not performing it. Not convincing herself of it. She was glowing, like whatever parts of her had still been broken when we met had finally healed.
“Blair,” she said my name again, like she couldn’t quite believe I was real. “Oh my goodness. Blair. You look… wow. You look amazing.”
Her eyes were wide as she looked at me, and I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was thinking about her. The parts of me that had been broken were close to healed too. Not perfect. Not untouched. But close. And I only said close because Lucyhad once told me, more than once, that eating disorders never truly disappear. They just quiet down.
“What are you doing here?” Seren asked, still studying me. “Visiting?”
Our eyes stayed locked as we stared at each other, like neither of us had ever expected to see the other again in this lifetime. I hadn’t thought that way when it all happened. Back then, I had hope. I hoped I would see her again. I hoped I would see Austin again too. But weeks trickled by, turning into months, and then, eventually, years.
And the hope faded.
Not in a dramatic or painful way. Just quietly. Like that was the way it was supposed to be. It softened, thinned out, until one day I realized I didn’t think about it very often anymore. Now when I did think about Austin, I thought of him as a memory. One of those complicated ones. The kind you never really forget. The people who were once everything to you, and somehow… aren’t anymore.
“I go here,” I blinked as I spoke. “We all do.” I jerked my head back toward Holden and Cherry, who clearly had no idea what was happening.
“Do you really?” Seren said, sounding stunned. “So do I. Zane and I do.”
“Wow,” I sighed. “I had no idea.” And I really didn’t. How could I have? Seren and Zane belonged to the world Austin belonged to—the one that was only fifteen minutes away, but completely separate from my own.
“It’s kind of crazy we’ve never run into each other before,” she said thoughtfully. “I guess there are thousands of people who go here.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, momentarily unsure what else there was to say. Seeing Seren was like looking into the vortex. All the memories rushed back at once. And every single one of them was tied to Austin. The love. The heartbreak. The pain. The hope. All of it.
“Do you live on campus?” she asked, pulling me out of the flood.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “We moved out after freshman year. We live over on Birch.” I wasn’t sure whose idea it had been for Holden, Cherry, and me to be roommates. Maybe it was all of ours. Either way, it was never dull.
“Ah,” Seren nodded. “Zane and I just got an apartment on Shepherd.”
Nothing about the fact that Seren and Zane were still together surprised me. If anything, the only surprising part was that they weren’t married yet. Seren and I fell into an awkward silence. I nodded. She stared at me. There was no mystery as to why. I was debating whether to ask about Austin. She was debating whether to tell me.
“Blair,” Cherry whispered from behind me, “we have to go if we’re going to make it in time to drop Holden off at work.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.” But I still didn’t move. I was stuck in my own debate. Should I ask?
I’d never really wanted to know. That information, whatever it was, had the potential to break me. It could be bad. It could be very bad. He could have never climbed those mountains, like he said he would. He could have fallen back into his old habits. Hecould be in jail. Or he could have climbed them, just like I had. He could be happy. He could have a girlfriend. Hell, he could have a fiancée. A wife. So I said nothing.
