The city moved fast enough that sometimes you forgot there was a world outside of it.

That was one of the first things you'd learned after leaving home, that there was no room for stillness here.

No room for lingering over coffee while the sun climbed above the horizon. No room for long walks on the beach collecting shells simply because they were pretty. No room for sitting on the porch with your mother listening to the waves roll in and out while she read one of her mystery novels and occasionally pointed out a pelican diving offshore.

The city demanded motion and somewhere along the way, you'd become very good at giving it exactly what it wanted.

Your phone buzzed before the elevator doors had even fully opened onto the thirty-second floor.

You answered without breaking stride.

"Hello." A pause. "Check your email."

Another pause.

"Because you asked me to review it last night."

The call ended with a sheepish thank you and you smiled despite yourself. Typical.

By the time you crossed the open-concept office, three more people had stopped you. One needed approval on a furniture selection, one wanted reassurance before a client presentation, the last simply needed help finding a file she'd somehow misplaced. You handled all three before reaching your desk. Your unofficial title around the office was the final boss. Every design proposal eventually landed in your inbox. Every presentation passed through your hands before reaching a client. You caught mistakes no one else noticed, fixed problems before they became disasters.

Most importantly, you never said no.

Need someone to stay late? You. Need someone to cover a meeting? You. Need someone to fly across the country on two days' notice? You. You'd spent years becoming indispensable. Sometimes you wondered if anyone would notice if you stopped, but the thought never lingered around long enough to stir anything up.

Your assistant appeared beside your desk.

"Car's ready for you in ten."

You glanced at the clock, right, the Henderson project at the Hilton Conference. After there's a lunch meeting downtown for a proposal for a new client. Another presentation. Another polished smile.

"Got it."

You gathered your tablet and notebook before following a group of coworkers toward the elevators. The familiar rhythm settled around you immediately. Discussion of budgets, fabric samples, projected timelines, and somebody debating lighting fixtures. You contributed automatically, barely needing to think, everything had become muscle memory at this point.

The elevator carried everyone toward the lobby. Your reflection stared back from the mirrored walls. Tailored blazer with comfortable heels, phone already in hand. You looked like someone who was successful, someone who looked like she belonged here. And that was the goal after all, wasn't it?

The doors opened as the group spilled into the lobby and headed toward the company car waiting outside. You were halfway across the marble floor when your phone rang again. You glanced down, expecting another coworker, instead, an unfamiliar number flashed across the screen.

Your steps slowed.

The area code punched a small, unexpected hole straight through your chest.

Home. Not New York. Not work. Home.

That tiny beach town you'd left nearly a decade ago after growing up on that beach that washed everything away. That town where everyone knew everyone, where there wasn't a path you could walk without picking up a handful of sand with you. That town where your mother still lived.

For a moment, the noise of the lobby faded as the ringing continued. Beside you, your coworkers kept walking toward the revolving doors while you stared at the screen. Maybe it was spam. Maybe someone dialed the wrong number. Maybe—

Something uneasy curled low in your stomach.

The phone rang. And rang.

You swiped to answer.

"Hello?"

The word came out distracted, automatic and professional. There was a pause, a breath, then a voice you didn't recognize said something close to your name. And suddenly, for reasons you couldn't explain, the world didn't feel quite so steady beneath your feet anymore.

"Hello?"

The revolving doors swept open as you stepped outside. Warm city air rushed up to meet you, carrying the familiar sounds of honking cars, distant sirens, and hundreds of conversations blending into one endless hum.

"Am I speaking with—" The woman on the other end said your name clear as day.

"Yes, this is she."

"Hi. My name is Marlene Johnson. I'm the medical examiner at Sunset Shores Hospital in San Vyranda."

You frowned.

Sunset Shores. San Vyranda. Home. A strange knot formed in your stomach.

The woman hesitated, the pause lasted less than a second but it was long enough to change everything.

"I'm sorry that this is the first time we're speaking."

Your steps slowed to a sluggish drawl, the echo of your heels dulling against the pavement. Your coworkers continued walking ahead toward the company vehicle, someone laughed about something, someone opened a car door and the world carried on.

"We received your contact information from your mother's emergency records,"

Your mother's name left the woman's mouth and for a moment, it didn't mean anything. Just a collection of syllables, a familiar sound, something your brain recognized but refused to process.

"She was involved in an accident yesterday morning."

You stopped walking entirely.

People streamed around you on the sidewalk. A businessman even bumped your shoulder, you didn't react.

"There was a truck—" The woman's voice crackled. Or maybe that was inside your head. "—intersection—" Static. "—driver failed to stop—" Thrumming. "—I'm so sorry for your loss."

Loss.

The word floated somewhere distant, meaningless and impossible. Your mother couldn't be dead, you'd just spoken to her three days ago. She'd been standing in her kitchen making blueberry muffins complaining about her neighbor's lawn, asking whether you were eating enough vegetables.

Dead people didn't do those things.

"Miss?" The woman was still talking.

You realized several seconds had passed without you responding.

"I understand this is overwhelming." Overwhelming. That seemed like a ridiculous understatement. "—need you to come down as soon as possible."

You stared at the traffic moving through the intersection. Red light. Green light. People crossing. Everything operating exactly as it always had.

"—confirm identification—" A horn blared somewhere. "—funeral arrangements—" Someone brushed past your arm. "—next of kin—"

You couldn't feel your fingers, couldn't feel your feet, couldn't feel much of anything. The city suddenly seemed very far away.

"Miss?"

"Okay." The word slipped out automatically, small and hollow. It felt nothing like your own. Nothing like the voice that had commanded the office floor no more than an hour ago. "Okay."

The lady ended the call shortly afterward, or maybe you ended it, you weren't entirely sure. The phone remained pressed against your ear long after the line went dead.

"Hey."

A hand touched your shoulder, you jumped more than necessary. The entire world around you snapping back into motion as if no time had passed at all.

One of your coworkers stood beside you with concern written across her face.

"You okay?"

The question seemed absurd. You looked at her, opened your mouth, closed it, and opened it again. Your tongue felt too large, your thoughts too slow, too scattered.

"I have to go home."

"What happened?"

"I don't… feel good." You weren't even sure the words made sense, only that they were easier than the truth.

Your mother is dead. Your mother is dead? Your mother is dead.

The sentence refused to settle anywhere inside your head, racketing and echoing off the walls with a shaking disbelief. Your coworker offered to call someone. You declined. Another suggested taking you to urgent care when they saw the shake of your hands. You declined that too. You just turned and started walking. At some point you reached your apartment, the space between those events simply vanished. Later, you'd remember flashes. The subway. An elevator. Your keys falling twice before fitting into the lock.

But mostly there was nothing, just blank space, missing time.

You sat on the couch still wearing your blazer, still holding your phone. Sunlight crawled slowly across the hardwood floor as hours passed. Then darkness with the glinting shine from the moon. Then morning. The city continued outside your windows, cars honking, people beginning their commute, the construction over on twelve that's been going on for three months.

Life. Buzzing and beating around you.

You sat perfectly still. Waiting for reality to catch up. Waiting for someone to call and explain there had been a mistake. Waiting for your phone to ring with your mother's name across the screen.

It never did.

Days blurred together afterward. Your coworkers checked on you constantly, their worry of any sickness overrun with condolences when you had told them the truth of your disappearance. Missed calls filled your phone screen, apologetic voicemails, and wilted flowers began to crowd every corner of your apartment next to takeout containers accumulating in the kitchen. You slept in fragments, and woke disoriented. Forgot what day it was, whether you'd eaten, forgot entire conversations. And then, little by little, the words started sticking. Your mother. The accident. The funeral arrangements. Gone. Gone. Gone. The true realization arrived in pieces, each one cutting deeper than the last.

You found yourself functioning on instinct. Not like the autopilot you had been able to tap into for work. This one was lethargic and unsteady. Thoughts either sticking in your head on repeat or fading into the fog the second you'd heard them. You had written out the most important things on sticky notes on your fridge. Plane tickets. Funeral home. Death certificate. Insurance paperwork. Hotel reservations for family members. Endless forms. Endless signatures. An endless nightmare you'd never thought you'd have to live.

You tried to keep it all at arm's length, to complete them all without thinking. As if handling someone else's tragedy, as if you were merely assisting with a project. Another deadline. Another checklist. Another task that needed doing. Your brain yearned for the familiar. Soon the time came and your manager approved your leave immediately, told you to take however much time you needed. Coworkers sent more flowers, cards, and meals. You thanked all of them, but you couldn't remember a single thing you said past that.

The night before your flight, you stood alone in your apartment. Suitcase packed beside the door, silence filling every room. Your eyes drifted toward your phone sitting on the kitchen counter, for a long time, you simply stared at it. Then, with shaking hands, you opened your contacts, scrolled and found her name.

Mom.

Your thumb hovered over the call button. You already knew what would happen but you pressed it anyway. The line rang once, twice, the endless trilling echoing in your ear. Then her voicemail answered.

"Hiya, you've reached—"

The sound of her voice shattered something inside you. And for the first time since the phone call, you cried. You cried until your chest ached and eyes burned, then you cried some more.

The drive into town from the airport felt shorter than you remembered. Or maybe grief simply swallowed distance whole. One minute you were staring blankly out the airplane window as clouds drifted beneath the wing. The next, you were pulling onto familiar roads lined with sea oats and weathered beach fences.

Everything looked exactly the same and completely different. The faded welcome sign, the bait shop on the corner, the ice cream stand that somehow survived every hurricane season. You recognized all of it yet it felt like looking at someone else's memories. Like peering through fogged glass. The ocean appeared between buildings as you drove. Blue, endless and unchanged.

Your chest tightened.

The sight should have felt like coming home, instead it felt like arriving too late. The funeral passed in much of the same way, a blur or a faded dream. Like you'd stepped out of your body and was watching something happening to someone else.

You remembered standing beside the casket. Remembered staring at polished wood because looking anywhere else felt impossible. People approached in waves. Old neighbors and former teachers, friends of your mother you'd known your entire life. They all said variations of the same thing.

"She was wonderful."

"She talked about you constantly."

"I'm so sorry."

"If you need anything..."

You nodded and thanked them. Accepted hugs, condolences and casseroles wrapped in aluminum foil. You couldn't recall a single face afterward. Only fragments of perfume, the scent of lilies, a hand squeezing yours and someone crying. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a voice kept insisting this was temporary. That eventually your mother would appear from somewhere and laugh about the misunderstanding.

The service ended, the people left, the flowers remained. And your mother stayed where she was.

The reality of that never fully landed, not then, not yet. A week later, you were back in the city. Back in your apartment, back in the life you'd built. At least physically, mentally, it felt as though some essential piece of you had been left behind. The apartment greeted you with silence, not peaceful silence. Wrong silence, the kind that seemed to stretch into every corner.

You dropped your suitcase near the door and waited. For what, you weren't sure. Maybe for your phone to ring. Maybe for your mother to ask if you'd gotten home safely. She always did, even after ten years, even when you reminded her you were a grown woman. Especially then. You stood in the foyer for several minutes before remembering why she wouldn't call. The realization hit like a fresh bruise, tender, immediate and cruel.

Your mother was supposed to grow old.

The thought had entered your mind and wouldn't leave, compounding itself onto every fired neuron in your brain. She was supposed to complain about her knees, supposed to start forgetting where she left her glasses, supposed to become the eccentric old woman feeding seagulls from her porch despite repeated warnings not to.

There was supposed to be more time.

Years of it. Decades.

Not this. Not an intersection. Not a truck. Not a stranger's mistake. Not a phone call in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday.

The following weeks slipped apart around the edges. Texts arrived, you ignored them. Coworkers checked in, you answered with vague responses. Friends invited you out, you declined every time. Work became something you endured, you still showed up, still attended meetings and reviewed presentations but the spark that once drove you had vanished.

People eventually noticed, you knew they did but nobody said much. Everyone seemed afraid of saying the wrong thing. You appreciated that and hated it all at once. Some afternoons you found yourself staring at a design board for twenty minutes without absorbing a single detail. Colors blurred together, furniture layouts became meaningless.

The things that once mattered suddenly felt very small.

You stopped cooking, stopped grocery shopping regularly. Most nights consisted of takeout eaten standing at the kitchen sink, the containers piled up faster than they should have. You'd kept promising yourself you'd throw them away tomorrow. Tomorrow kept moving.

Sleep became impossible in your bedroom. The bed felt too large, too empty. It was strange. You had never noticed it before but now it felt that there was an internal tie cut within you, and everything felt so one sided. So lonely. Things you had often, if not always, done on your own, felt empty. Even the apartment felt too hollow, the walls in your bedroom echoed differently now. So you migrated to the couch with one blanket wrapped around your shoulders, the television on low volume as lights from the city filtered through the windows.

It wasn't comfortable, but it was easier. Everything became easier when you stopped caring, like the voicemails.

The voicemails remained unheard in your phone, seven messages to be exact.

The number had burned itself in the back of your mind, a tiny red number you couldn't bring yourself to clear. They were the last parts of your mother that were left unscathed by all this. You knew most were likely ordinary, your mother reminding you to call her, telling you about a recipe she'd tried, asking if you'd seen some news story she'd forgotten to send.

The final voicemail sat at the bottom of the list, untouched. Untouched because once you listened to it, there would never be another one and as long as it remained unheard, some irrational part of you could pretend her voice was still waiting. Still alive. Still there.

Some mornings your hand reached for your phone before you were fully awake. You'd see something funny online, find a new coffee shop, see a bookstore she'd love have a sale and instinctively think: I should call Mom. The thought happened dozens of times, every day, a reflex that built over years. Each time reality followed seconds later. A delayed collision. A fresh impact. She isn't here. You'd lower the phone, swallow hard and continue with your day. Until the next time. And the next. And the next.

One rainy Thursday evening, you found yourself standing in the cereal aisle of a grocery store, frozen, staring at a box your mother always bought. Without thinking, you pulled out your phone, your thumb moved automatically, scrolling through your contacts until you found it.

Mom.

You pressed it before your brain could catch up. The line began ringing. Once. Twice. Three times. Then her voicemail answered. You hung up immediately, heart hammering, breath caught somewhere in your throat. Around you, people continued shopping comparing prices, pushing carts, living their lives. You stood motionless beneath fluorescent lights and finally understood something terrifying.

The world had not stopped when your mother died, only yours had.

You turned and left the grocery store that second, your cereal and basket of food abandoned as you darted for the the nearest exit and went back home.

Back to being alone.

The typical silence of your apartment greeted you with a bitter chill. You found yourself suddenly restless, arms unable to stay at your side, legs buzzing to break free from where they stood still. You had to do something, anything. It didn't take long for your eyes to catch onto a target and lock in on it. Soon you were kneeling beside an overstuffed bookshelf you'd been meaning to organize for months before… now it had become a monstrous pile that claimed ownership of the better half of your hallway.

The apartment had become a reflection of you. Untended, and half-finished. Stuck.

A thin layer of dust coated the shelves as you sifted through, tossing donations into a pile near the laundry-occupied armchair in the corner. The television murmured softly in the background, providing noise you weren't actually listening to.

You pulled a book free and a postcard fluttered to the floor, you almost ignored it, but then you recognized the image. The beach. Home.

You stared at it for a long moment before picking it up. The edges were worn, sun-faded and old. On the front, the ocean stretched endlessly beneath a summer sky. The very same stretch of shoreline you'd spent your childhood exploring. The same beach where your mother used to wake you before sunrise with a thermos of hot chocolate and a promise that the dolphins were out this morning.

Old memories flooded your mind as you held the cardstock in your fingers. You remembered sand sticking to your ankles, the smell of sunscreen, the weight of seashells collected in your pockets, your mother's laughter carried away by the wind. You remembered sitting beside her on the porch after long days at the beach, both of you wrapped in oversized sweatshirts watching the waves disappear into darkness talking about everything and nothing.

Back then, you'd thought those summers would last forever. Back then, your mother had seemed immortal.

The postcard trembled slightly in your hands. Without warning, something inside you cracked. In one fell swoop, enough to let everything spill through as you sank against the wall, the postcard clenched in your fist. The apartment suddenly felt suffocating, the walls too close, the city too loud. The life you'd spent years building suddenly looked unfamiliar, as though it belonged to someone else. You glanced around the room at the expensive furniture, the carefully chosen decor, framed certificates. The polished version of yourself you'd spent years creating. None of it mattered. Not anymore.

The thought arrived quietly, then rooted itself deep. What am I still doing here?

The answer never came, instead another thought followed, simple but dangerous. If I leave everything behind, maybe none of this has to be real.

You didn't examine it too closely, didn't question the logic, didn't even give yourself time to. Because if you did, you might realize it wasn't healing you were after, it was escape. The decision happened quickly after that. Three days later your manager stared at you across the conference table with your letter of resignation laying between you.

"You don't have to make any permanent decisions right now."

You understood what he meant, that grief wasn't the time for life-altering choices, right next to tattoos or drastic haircuts. People always said that. You smiled politely, then quit anyway.

Furniture disappeared next. A couch purchased after your first promotion, the dining table you'd spent months saving for, bookshelves, artwork, decorative pieces. One by one, strangers carried them out the door. Each departure left the apartment looking less like a home and somehow that felt like relief. You donated bags of clothing, kitchenware, boxes of things you'd once convinced yourself were important.

The pile that remained grew smaller until eventually your entire life fit into three boxes. Ten years condensed into cardboard in the back of your trunk. You stood outside your apartment for a long while, looking up at the windows that shed so much light into your life over the years. It should've felt more ceremonious. Instead you just shrugged into the car and drove away.

The drive home took nearly twelve hours. You spent most of it staring at the road, not even the radio turned on. The silence felt appropriate. By the time you crossed the town line, evening had begun settling over the coast, the sky glowed orange and gold as the ocean flashed between buildings.

It felt familiar, almost patient as if something in the blue crashing waves could sense you were back, could sense the ghost haunting you. You refused to look at it for long, instead, you focused on the road or on the steering wheel, or on anything else.

Soon the beach cottage appeared at the end of a narrow lane, exactly as you remembered. Weathered cedar siding, white trim, a wraparound porch softened by years of salt air, the porch swing your mother refused to replace despite its constant squeaking. Your chest tightened and for a moment, you considered turning around, driving away and finding a new city to start back over, pretending none of this had happened. You swallowed thickly and put the car in park, hands twitching as you unbuckled your seatbelt. Silence greeted you as you stepped from the car, no porch light humming, no music drifting through open windows, no mother waiting inside.

Just stillness.

The key turned easily in the lock, the door opening with a familiar creak and suddenly you were standing inside your childhood home. Everything remained exactly where she'd left it. A mug beside the sink, a cardigan draped over the back of a chair, reading glasses resting atop a stack of books. The house looked less like someone had died and more like someone had stepped out for groceries and simply hadn't returned yet. Frozen and waiting.

You carried your boxes inside and set them in the living room, then stopped. You couldn't bring yourself to unpack, not really, not yet. A toothbrush in the bathroom, a few clothes in a dresser. Essentials, nothing permanent because permanence meant acceptance. And acceptance remained impossible. This wasn't forever. You told yourself that repeatedly. Just a few weeks, a month, maybe. Long enough to figure things out, to catch your breath, to decide what comes next. Not forever. The lie settled comfortably inside your chest. You avoided the hallway as you walked further into the house, specifically one door, your mother's bedroom. You passed it without looking, passed it the next day too, and the day after that. The door remained closed and you remained unwilling.

Outside, waves rolled endlessly against the shoreline.

You could hear them through the walls as you laid on the couch, the sound should have been comforting, instead, you shut every window and closed every curtain. Blocked out every glimpse of blue water, every reminder of childhood, every reminder of her. The cottage grew dim and shadowed as days passed, then more. You rarely ventured into town, rarely spoke to anyone. The grocery store clerk received brief answers, neighbors received polite waves, nothing more. Connection required energy and you had none left to give so your world became very small. Just you, the house, and the beach beyond it.

A life narrowed down to its simplest form.

You stood on the porch one evening as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. The ocean stretched endlessly before you, beautiful, the type of scene you see movie proposals filmed in or a romantic fervent confession of long withheld feelings. You stared at it for only a second before stepping back inside, closing the door and locking it.

As though keeping the world out might somehow keep your grief out too. As though both weren't already living inside the house with you.

By the seventh day, you were running out of excuses. The refrigerator contained half a carton of milk, questionable leftovers, and a bottle of ketchup that had probably survived three presidential administrations. The pantry wasn't much better, bearing a sleeve of crackers, instant coffee and a can of soup. You'd spent the whole week moving between the couch, the porch, and every room in the cottage except one.

The walls had started feeling closer, the silence heavier so when you finally grabbed your keys that morning, it felt less like an errand and more like surrender.

The town looked exactly as it always had. Sun-bleached storefronts with flower boxes beneath windows. Locals sitting outside the diner with coffee mugs in hand. Everything familiar and unchanged. You hated it a little for that. How dare the world stay the same?

The grocery store came first. You moved through the aisles quickly avoiding conversation, and eye contact, and Mrs. Patterson from three streets over who've you known you since kindergarten. You escaped with two bags and a brief wave. The hardware store came second. The front porch light had burned out two days ago and one of the kitchen cabinet hinges had started pulling loose, plus the screen door stuck every time you opened it. Your mother would've fixed all three before breakfast.

You bought supplies you weren't entirely sure you knew how to use as the teenage cashier wished you a nice day. You nodded and walked out, the warm ocean air greeting you and for the first time all morning, you felt almost accomplished. You'd left the house, you'd bought groceries and nothing terrible had happened. Maybe tomorrow wouldn't feel quite so impossible.

Balancing two bags and a cardboard box against your hip, you climbed into your car, started up the engine, adjusted the mirror and took three deep breaths. Sometimes being in the car made you sick, not the kind where you'd lose your lunch, the kind where you'd lose your mind if you thought about all the possibilities for a second too long.

You let out your last breath and shifted into reverse.

Crunch.

The sound froze your blood and you slammed on the brakes. For a moment, everything went completely still.

No.

No, no, no.

Slowly, dread pooling in your stomach, you looked into the rearview mirror and saw a motorcycle crookedly the ground behind your bumper. It looked big, and big most likely meant expensive.

Your eyes squeezed shut, head hitting the headrest behind you.

"Shit." The word escaped in a whisper.

You threw the car into park and climbed out to inspect the damage. It wasn't catastrophic, the motorcycle had fallen on its side, a scrape on the fender, a fresh dent where one definitely hadn't existed five minutes ago. You'd managed to survive the worst months of your life only to immediately become the kind of person who backed into parked vehicles.

Fantastic.

You crouched beside it as if staring hard enough might somehow reverse time when a voice murmurs behind you.

"Please tell me that's not mine."

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. Right. The owner. Straightening, you turned to the voice. The man stood several feet away carrying paint supplies beneath one arm. He was tall, bearing a faded henley rolled up on one side. Broad shoulders with dark hair that was once cropped short and now it looks like it can't tell if it wants to be longer or not.

The expression on his face suggested he'd already decided this interaction was going to be annoying, and you couldn't entirely blame him.

"You're the owner?"

He glanced between you and the motorcycle. "Depends."

You stared. He stared back.

"Depends on what?"

"Whether you're the person who hit it."

The irritation in his voice immediately sparked your own, because somehow you were already exhausted by this conversation.

"Well, I wasn't aiming for it."

His eyebrow lifted. "Oh, good."

You blinked. "What?"

"Just checking."

You exhaled sharply, the sound could've almost been a laugh, almost. Instead it emerged somewhere closer to annoyance.

"Look, I'm sorry." You offered vexed, trying to extend the first branch of peace. "I genuinely didn't see it."

"That makes me feel much better."

"Would you stop doing that?"

His brow furrowed. "Doing what?"

"Being sarcastic. I said sorry."

His gaze dropped to the motorcycle, the dent and scraped fender, then back to you.

"Somebody backed into my bike."

You scowled. "By accident."

"Still happened."

Your jaw tightened and that familiar irritation that had followed you since the funeral immediately surfaced. Too close to the skin, too easy to access. You knew he wasn't actually the problem, but grief had a way of turning every inconvenience into a personal attack.

"Fine." You grumbled as you pulled out your phone and opened up a payment app. "I'll send you my insurance and pay for whatever repairs it needs."

The man looked surprised by how quickly you offered, only briefly, then the expression vanished.

"Don't worry about it."

"What?"

"It's cosmetic."

You stared and he just shrugged.

"Not worth the paperwork."

Several seconds passed and neither of you spoke. The parking lot buzzed quietly around you. A truck pulling into a nearby space, someone loading lumber, wind carrying the distant scent of saltwater. You suddenly realized this was the longest conversation you'd had with anyone all week.

A depressing thought.

"Well then," you shoved your phone back into your pocket. "Sorry."

The man nodded once. "Try not to hit any more vehicles on your way home."

There it was again, that dry sarcasm. Couldn't go two seconds without it, it seemed.

You narrowed your eyes. "Try to park them where people can actually see them."

One corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile but it was close enough to annoy you. You turned immediately toward your car. Conversation over, interaction complete. Exactly how you preferred it. As you adjusted your supplies next to you, you could feel his eyes on you, or maybe you imagined it, either way you refused to look back. You climbed into the driver's seat, started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. Only once you'd turned onto the main road did you realize something.

You hadn't gotten his name.

Not that it mattered, you weren't staying long, you weren't here to make friends or meet people. You were here to be alone.

By the time you got home, the sun had begun its slow descent toward the horizon, golden light spilled across the water turning the ocean into something molten, something alive.

You carried your groceries inside, put away what needed refrigeration, and left the hardware supplies in a neat pile beside the kitchen table. It should have felt normal, domestic. Instead, every movement felt rehearsed, like you were following instructions someone else had written.

The cottage settled around you with familiar creaks, wood expanding and contracting with the changing temperature. The distant hum of the refrigerator. The rhythmic crash of waves beyond the shore.

Life continuing. Always continuing.

After a while, you found yourself stepping onto the porch. A mug of coffee cooling between your palms, the evening breeze carried the scent of seaweed and sunscreen from somewhere down the coastline. The town looked different at this hour. Softer, almost, the sharp edges worn smooth by the sunset. Below, the diner glowed warmly against the darkening street, its neon sign flickered to life casting pink and blue reflections across parked cars.

And there, just near the curb you spotted it immediately. The motorcycle. Sleek, black, and large, impossible to miss.

You frowned, not because you cared. Because apparently now you recognized random strangers by their vehicles, a deeply concerning development. The memory irritatingly resurfaced, the dent, the sarcasm, the aggravating twitch of amusement he'd worn the entire conversation. Your mouth pulled into something dangerously close to a smile, brief and unintentional and gone the second it formed.

Still, the interaction lingered. Not because it had been pleasant, but because it had been different. For ten minutes today you'd thought about something other than your dead mother. And somehow that felt wrong. You stared out at the water as the waves rolled endlessly toward shore, one after another, steady and predictable.

Your mother used to say the ocean was proof that life kept going. You'd hated that phrase growing up. Whenever something upset you, she'd say it. Whenever a friendship ended, a bad grade ruined your week, or your first boyfriend broke your heart.

"The tide keeps coming in, sweetheart."

As though that explained everything. As though the ocean somehow agreed with what she was talking about.

Your throat tightened and without thinking, you reached for your phone, the movement happened automatically. You unlocked the screen, opened your contacts and pressed call. The phone rose to your ear as your gaze remained fixed on the horizon. You didn't even bother to wait for the voicemail.

The words came easily. "You'll never believe what happened today, Mom. I backed into someone's motorcycle."

A wet laugh escaped, soft and shaky.

"The guy was such an asshole about it too." The ringing on the other end stretched, you kept talking anyway.

"He acted like I committed a federal crime."

A wave crashed against the shoreline, the breeze shifted and then—

"Hiya, you've reached—"

Reality caught up, brutally. The words died in your throat as you let phone fall from your ear, the screen illuminated in your hand.

Mom.

The contact photo stared back at you and your stomach dropped, feet frozen in place. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to hang up. Because somewhere deep inside, some stubborn, broken piece of you still expected her to answer.

Still expected her voice.

Still expected—

The voicemail went on, and you couldn't take it anymore, you ended the call so fast your phone nearly slipped. The porch disappeared behind a sudden blur.

No. No. No.

The phone trembled violently in your hands as a sound escaped you, small and broken. You didn't recognize it as your own. The ocean continued moving, the breeze still blowing, the world hadn't changed.

Only yours. Again.

You stumbled inside before you realized you were crying, the front door slammed shut behind you. The cottage felt too quiet, too empty, too full of things she should have been filling. Your mother's mug still sat in the cabinet, her favorite blanket remained folded over the armchair, her books lined the shelves. Evidence everywhere, proof of a life that had existed, proof of a life that no longer did.

You sank onto the couch. The same couch you'd occupied nearly every evening since arriving, phone still clutched tightly in your hand. Tears came harder this time. Not the neat, silent tears you'd cried at the funeral, not the restrained grief you'd carried for weeks. This hurt was messy and raw. The kind that left your chest aching, the kind that made breathing feel impossible. Because for one brief, careless moment you'd forgotten. You'd forgotten she was gone. You'd forgotten there wasn't anyone waiting on the other end anymore.

And somehow realizing it all over again hurt just as much as the first time.

You cried until darkness swallowed the room whole. The phone remained in your hand the entire time, her number still sitting at the top of your call history.

As though she might call back.

As though she still could.

ᴛᴀɢ ʟɪꜱᴛ › comment/inbox to be added!

welcome to the junieverse ── .✦ ⤷ bucky x reader / steve rogers x reader loved in thirds ⊹ the wrong answers ⊹ spring showers ⊹ ps i still love you

june jukebox scribbles ── .✦ ⤷ bucky x reader / steve rogers x reader completely gone ⊹ one more chance ⊹ golden hour ⊹ extras ⊹ consequences ⊹ love beside hurt

writing stats - as of june 30th, 2026:

› total word count ⤷ 13,043 okay considering this month was all drabbles/scribbles i dont think this is that bad. once again trying not to think of how ive written oneshots longer than this... the double edged sword of this hobby 🫠 › total drafts ⤷ 51 remember when i said i had a lot planned for summer 😳 atp im just praying i can get it all done in time › longest fic ⤷ loved in thirds - 3,684 this story was the one that really sparked the whole idea of 'the junieverse' and im glad it did, hopefully its something that i can keep up every now and then too › most popular ⤷ ps i still love you - 580 total notes i also loved this story too, i remember when i first saw elixirs event and got my prompts i was so excited!! this was such a loverboy bucky and i missed writing him › next on the docket a little of this, a little of that maybe some clark kent who knows! i have a lot of ideas im working on in a constant rotation especially with the lovely writing event going on so i dont really have any set dates this month but come august things should be more structured!