PS: You’re still my North Star.
– Nathan
Each word pulls at something I buried years ago. I can hear her laugh, see her handwriting on notebook paper, smell her perfume in my car.
My pulse quickens. I scroll further… to the one that changed everything.
Dad’s flying to Dallas for a deposition. Gone 36 hours. It’s our only shot before I leave. Saturday night. 11 p.m. I’ll slip out.
I stop breathing.
The cursor blinks at the bottom of the screen like it’s waiting for me to respond, as if time is frozen and dares me to write back.
My hand trembles when I reach for the whiskey bottle on the counter. I pour a double. Then another.
The first burns going down. The second numbs everything else.
I close the laptop halfway and sink into the couch, the glass heavy in my hand. The city lights blur through the window, the same way memories do when I try to keep them out.
I stare at the ceiling.
And then, slowly, the world starts to tilt.
The room fades, the light dims, and somewhere between guilt and exhaustion, I drift…right back to that moment.
The rain beaded off the hood of my car as I idled at the curb outside her house. The porch light glowed, but every interior window was dark. Maddison’s house never looked so foreign.
The front door cracked open. She stepped onto the porch in gray sweats and crossed the lawn barefoot, quiet as moonlight, opened the passenger door, and climbed in.
She smelled like something I could only describe as my dreams. Instantly, our lips crashed together, and we kissed until I was lightheaded, only pulling away to breathe each other in.
Maddison’s chin started to tremble. She folded forward, hands fisting my hoodie, and sobbed into my chest. I wrapped her up, aggressively trying to fight the lump in my throat.
“God, I miss you,” I whispered into her hair.
She lifted tear-glossed eyes.
She kissed me again, soft, urgent, then traced my jaw, threading her fingers through my hair. “I miss your lips… your hair… everything.”
Tears blurred the dashboard lights. “What are we gonna do?” My voice splintered. “This isn’t over. I love you, Maddison.”
She drew back just enough to see me, determination sparking through the red in her eyes. “Next year I’ll be eighteen. He can’t control me, can’t control us.”
She raised her right hand, pinky extended, shaking but certain. “Pinky-swear you’ll come find me.”
I curled my finger around hers, sealing us like a knot that wouldn’t come loose. “I promise, Maddi. I’ll find you.”
We held the promise until her porch light flicked twice, her mom’s silent alarm. Maddison exhaled and pressed one last kiss to my knuckles. I lifted her chin and gave her one last kiss before she slipped back into the night. Every step she took away, I felt emptier inside, hollow. Suddenly, she stopped, turned back, and said, “Promise me you’ll find her, Nathan.”
A sharp chime slices through the dark.
I jolt awake on the couch, heart hammering, the dream still clinging to me like smoke.
The city comes back into focus beyond the window. The half-closed laptop on the coffee table. The empty glass in my hand.
Another chime.
I blink, my eyes burning, and look at the screen.
