The shower started; water hit the tile in a steady rush.
Bree opened her mom’s text and hit the call icon.
Her parents picked up on the second ring. That alone told her they had been waiting.
“Hi, honey,” her mom said. “How are you feeling? We watched the race on TV. Your dad kept yelling at the announcer.”
Her dad’s voice came faintly in the background. “He kept calling the corners by the wrong names.”
Bree smiled despite the nerves. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. I’m okay. Hank’s okay. It was a big day.”
“So we saw,” her dad said, taking the phone from her mom by the sound of it. “That pass on the last lap. Damn, Bree. That was something.”
“I didn’t do anything except clutch my sketchbook and forget how to breathe,” she said. “Hank did the hard part.”
“You were there,” he said. “Counts for something.”
Her mom reclaimed the phone. “We heard there was some kind of cheating scandal,” she whispered. “Are you safe? Are you staying away from those people?”
“Yes,” Bree said quickly. “I’m safe. Copper Moon PD is on top of it. Sergeant Diaz could probably take down an entire biker gang with a look.”
Her mom made a doubtful sound. “I don’t like that you needed to find out.”
“None of us liked it,” Bree said. “But Hank did the right thing. He spoke up. They found the illegal equipment. Nobody got hurt.”
Not physically, anyway. She could still see the panic in Einstein’s face.
Her mom sighed. “All right. So long as you’re being careful.”
“I am.”
A beat of silence settled. Bree could hear the hum of the fridge at her parents’ house, the distant tick of the hallway clock that had been there since she was six.
“So,” her mom said. “When are you heading back?”
There it was.
Bree swallowed. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about.”
“Okay,” her dad said. His tone shifted; sturdy, prepared. “What’s up?”
She walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside. The boardwalk stretched below; the Cup banner still fluttered. Down near the fountain, a kid chased a bubble that had drifted free from a street vendor’s wand.
“I think I want to stay,” she said. “In Copper Moon. For a while. Longer than we talked about.”
Silence.
Her mom recovered first. “Stay how long?”
“I don’t have an exact date,” Bree said. “But Hank’s looking at opening a performance shop here. And there’s space above it that would make a perfect studio. I stood in it yesterday, and for the first time since Bryn died, I could actually picture myself working somewhere that wasn’t temporary.”
Her dad cleared his throat. “This is about the racer?”
“It’s about the town,” she said quietly. “And the racer. And me. I came here to hide and figure out if I could still paint. Instead, I found a place that feels like I can grow something. With him, yes. But also for myself. We're together. Seeing if it works.”
Her mom’s voice was soft and worried. “You’re not coming home.”
“I’m not saying never,” Bree said. “You two are still my home. But I think… I think I need a home that doesn’t feel like a memorial service all the time. Every corner of the house has a ghost. Every street reminds me of driving behind the hearse. I’ve been living there like I’m waiting for someone to hand me a script for how to move on, and it turns out the pages might be in a different town.”
