It was easy, the way I slotted into place here. Bo did the talking, the small-town banter, while I hung at his shoulder and took in the details. A pie safe filled with half-melted lemon meringue. An old-school jukebox with only three working selections—one of which was, inexplicably, early 2000s emo. The grill cook, a bearded guy with a dragon tattoo on his neck, flipping hashbrowns with a kind of lethal confidence.
A year ago, I’d have felt like a stray dog in this scene—desperate not to draw attention, praying nobody asked about my parents or what I planned to do after graduation. Now, I just watched. Like I belonged here.
Bo leaned in and nudged me with his elbow. “Dude, you want pie? Or just a bucket of those little butter packets again?”
I laughed. “Pie’s fine. Lemon, if they’ve got it.”
He turned to Barb, who rolled her eyes but boxed up two slices, “for the little guy,” as she put it.
While Bo paid and made a scene about the tip jar— “No, really, Barb, take my money before corporate finds out I’m overpaying you!”—I drifted toward the window, looking out at the street. A couple of kids zipped past on battered bikes, the librarian swept the steps across the way, and a pair of moms in workout gear compared strollers with the solemnity of diplomats negotiating a peace treaty. I watched them, zoning out, until Bo came up beside me with both arms loaded down in plastic bags.
“Ready to roll?” he said. “Gotta get this stuff to the crew before they mutiny.”
I was about to say yes, but a flash of color caught my eye—a woman crossing the street toward the gas station. She wore a denim jacket, yellow sundress, sunglasses, her blonde hair twisted up in a way that reminded me of the plastic doll heads I’d seen in the thrift shop. She was too far away for me to see her face, but something about the set of her shoulders, the way she walked, made my stomach drop straight through the tile floor.
I stared at her, then looked away, then back again. The space between my shoulder blades prickled, like somebody had jammed an ice pack down my spine.
Bo noticed instantly. “What?” he said, head cocked. “You see a ghost?”
I shook my head, fast, but my throat had sealed up.
“Levi?” he said, quieter this time.
“Uh. Nothing,” I croaked. “Just thought I saw someone I used to know.”
The woman stood at the crosswalk, talking to the guy behind the gas station counter. She gestured with her hands, laughing too loud, her whole posture stretched tight as a slingshot. I recognized it. That was her default: just a little too much, a performance for whoever might be watching.
She turned slightly, and for a second I caught her profile. She’d lost weight since the last time I’d seen her, but her jaw was still sharp and her mouth too wide, her smile like a rip in wet paper.
My brain pinwheeled. No, it couldn’t be. She’d never even heard of McKenzie River. She wouldn’t even know how to find it on a map. But the longer I watched, the more I was sure.
My hands shook. I jammed them deeper in my pockets, pressing the heel of my hand into the inside of my wrist, right where the leather bracelet pressed against my skin and the tattoo hid under the band. I tried to breathe, but the diner air felt suddenly thin.
Bo moved into my space, blocking my view of the window. “You want to head out?” he asked, careful, like he’d already clocked that I was two seconds from losing it.
I nodded. “Yeah. I just—yeah.”
We gathered the bags and hustled out, the bells over the door jangling in the hush. I kept my head down, staring at the seam in the concrete. But as we reached the truck, I couldn’t help it—I looked back over my shoulder.
The woman was still there, standing on the curb now, sunglasses off, eyes scanning the street.
She was looking for someone.
She was looking for me.
I almost puked, right there on the sidewalk. Instead, I ducked into the cab and slammed the door, squeezing my hands so tight the nails dug into my palm.
Bo started the truck, let it idle while he loaded the food on the bench seat. He didn’t say anything, just waited for me to speak first. That was a McKenzie trait—the ability to sit with silence until it broke on its own.
I stared out the windshield, at the way the sun caught in the rearview, at the hand-lettered “Have a Nice Day!” sign in the diner window, at the shape of her face behind me.
After a long, long minute, Bo said, “You sure you’re good, Levi?”
“Yeah,” I said, but my voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Just… let’s go.”
As we pulled away, I watched the woman recede in the side mirror, small and mean and still looking. My chest felt like it was full of bees. The houses blurred by in a haze of green and white, but I couldn’t see any of it. All I could think about was how her eyes looked exactly like mine, the same blue I woke up to every morning, only colder.
She hadn’t wanted me in fifteen years. So why was she here now?
