Rain fell all night, the kind that soaked through roof tiles and time itself. Arden couldn't sleep. She lay still in the old twin bed, staring at the crooked heart stain on the ceiling, listening to the wind move through the trees like whispered names.
She hadn't seen Cole leave. Maybe he hadn't.
At some point, she drifted into a restless dream—Jamie's laughter, a splash of red on gravel, a voice calling her name and then silence. When she woke, the room was dim and the air tasted like iron.
Downstairs, her mother was asleep on the couch, breathing shallow and uneven.
The kettle was still warm.
Outside, Hollow Creek was slow to rise. Mist clung to the hills. Arden pulled on a sweater and walked into town, boots sinking slightly in the wet earth. Every turn held a memory she wasn't ready for. The bookstore where she and Jamie spent Saturdays. The field where Cole kissed her the first time. The bridge.
Especially the bridge.
It looked smaller now. Worn. But the drop was still steep enough to swallow a body whole.
She stood at the edge, fingers gripping the railing.
It was here, five years ago, that Jamie's bike was found. And his jacket. But never him.
A soft voice broke her trance. "You shouldn't come here alone."
She turned. Cole.
"You following me now?"
"I followed the storm. Figured you might walk toward the worst of it."
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not. And neither am I. So maybe let's stop pretending."
Arden looked away. The water below moved like ink.
"I used to think," she said, voice low, "that if I came back here, he'd show up. That maybe he was just lost. Hiding. Waiting."
Cole stepped closer. "I know."
"But he's not. He's gone. And I keep coming back to the place he left me."
"You weren't the only one he left."
The silence between them stretched, but it was no longer cruel. It had weight. Shape.
"I dream about him," she admitted. "Still."
"Me too."
She finally looked at him. His face was softer in the grey light. Less sure. More real.
"Why did you come back today?" she asked.
He hesitated. "Because I can't keep walking away from the things that broke me. And I think… maybe you can't either."
Her heart beat once, sharp and loud.
"I don't forgive you," she said.
"I don't expect you to."
"But I can't pretend it didn't mean something."
Cole reached out slowly—his fingers brushed hers on the railing. It wasn't a kiss. It wasn't a promise.
But it was something.
A beginning, maybe.
Or just the first time the ghosts stepped aside long enough for them to breathe.
The mist thickened around them, soft and cold against Arden's cheeks. She didn't move her hand, even as Cole's fingers lightly rested against hers. It wasn't forgiveness, not even close—but it was a moment, and moments mattered in a place where time felt broken.
"You know what no one talks about?" she said, her voice barely above the sound of the wind. "That grief doesn't just hurt. It makes you angry. At everyone. At yourself. At the way the world keeps going like it doesn't know someone is missing."
Cole nodded slowly. "I know."
She looked at him. Really looked this time. The boy she'd loved was still in there—behind the jaw that set when he was nervous, behind the tired eyes, behind the quiet. But he'd grown into something heavier. A man with regrets etched into his bones.
"Do you regret it?" she asked suddenly. "Testifying against him?"
Cole's mouth tightened. "Every day."
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because I thought it would save you." He let out a breath. "I thought if I gave the truth—my truth—it would close the wound. But it just tore it wider."
She swallowed. The bridge creaked beneath them, a low groan of wood and wind.
"I blamed you for everything," she whispered.
"I blamed me too."
A beat passed.
"Sometimes," she admitted, "I think I loved Jamie more than I loved myself. Maybe more than I loved you."
Cole didn't flinch. "I think he needed that."
Arden closed her eyes.
The rain eased, and the clouds began to lift in slow motion, like curtains drawing back on a ruined stage.
"You're not him," she said finally.
"I know."
"And you didn't save me."
"I know that too."
She opened her eyes. "But you were the only one who tried."
He stepped closer, slowly, careful as if she might vanish with the breeze. "I never stopped trying, Arden."
A long pause.
Then: "Do you think grief ever ends?" she asked.
"No," he said. "But I think love can live beside it."
Arden's breath caught.
She didn't answer. Not with words.
But when she turned and walked away from the bridge, Cole followed her. Step for step.
Not behind her.
Not ahead.
Beside her.
And for the first time in five years, Arden didn't walk alone.
They walked in silence, gravel crunching beneath their boots as the town stirred faintly to life—storefronts flickering with light, a dog barking in the distance, crows rising from the trees in an untidy scatter.
The storm had passed, but its scent lingered. Earthy. Raw. Familiar.
At the edge of Hollow Creek's main street, Arden slowed. The old post office still stood with its sloped roof and faded paint, and just beyond it, the path that led to the Merrick house.
"I haven't been back since the trial," she murmured, eyes fixed on the narrow lane.
"I know."
"It used to be... home."
He turned toward her. "It still is."
Arden didn't move. "I'm not ready."
"You don't have to be. Just... don't keep running from it."
She looked up at him. "Is that what you think I've been doing? Running?"
Cole's jaw tensed, then relaxed. "No. I think you've been surviving."
They stood there a long time, the air between them stretched thin but warm now, not brittle. There was pain. But not only pain. There was something else growing too—like green breaking through frost.
Finally, Arden took a shaky breath. "Walk me back."
"To the cottage?"
"No," she said. "Just... with me. For now."
Cole offered his arm not like a man claiming something, but like a man learning how to offer again.
She hesitated, then slipped her fingers through the crook of his elbow. The gesture felt small, old-fashioned, and achingly human.
They walked the long way back, past the bookstore, past the hollow where Jamie used to set off bottle rockets on summer nights. Arden told him a story about the time Jamie tried to dye her hair and turned it copper-green. Cole told her about how he'd found Jamie's journal—hidden in the crawlspace and couldn't bring himself to open it.
"I kept it," he said quietly. "All this time."
She didn't ask to see it. Not yet.
But when they reached the front porch of the cottage, and he moved to step away, she didn't let go.
"Come in," she said.
"Are you sure?"
"No," she admitted. "But I want to stop being afraid."
And in the soft hush of morning, with sorrow still curled in the corners of their hearts, they stepped inside. Together.