Breakfast is a sad, wilted sandwich and a bag of chips. I don't want to stay long at our place before heading to Cindy's parents, and potentially face mom's worried glances over what happened last night.

The Sunday morning's light rain disturbs the mulberry trees lining our street, and the pavement is littered with overripe berries. I go out of my way to step on a couple, imagining that disgusting reporter's head with each satisfying squish.

I gave a statement to a kind, stuttering policeman and the case is basically closed. The man has been arrested and he won't be bothering me anymore.

I have no idea what kind of punishment his behaviour entails but, luckily, our old neighbour, Ms. Robinson, a walking megaphone for gossip big and small, halts me mid-walk and informs me of it all.

What that man did was a third degree breaking and entering, and if he's lucky he'll get only a couple of months behind bars. If not, he's looking at three to five years.

What some people wouldn't do for a story.

When I get out of the Uber, even in the dull glow of the cloud-shielded sun coming through the window, the house looks almost the same as the last time I was here. 

A decade ago.

It's only when I stop to take everything in that I notice the missing pieces. No more dog bed on the porch, no shoes stacked neatly on the rack beside it.

I head down the grass path, trying to make myself as weightless, as inconspicuous as possible.

The sunflower bike Cindy rode when we were kids is tossed carelessly on the lawn. An adult-sized bike—baby blue and retro-looking—with a white basket is in the back corner, is propped against the mailbox. A daddy longlegs skitters out of the basket when I touch the handlebars.

A wooden heart hanging in the front door reads BLESS OUR HOME. To the left of the house is a small yard boxed off by a white fence. To the right there's a Dead End sign and a patch of woods.

And the barn. The barn has a face. They took the door off its hinges years ago, leaving a gaping hole for a mouth. Two windows, high up, form the eyes.

Cindy's dad steps out onto the porch. My memory of him is filled with booming laughter and kind eyes, a man who always had a Werther's Original in his pocket. But the man standing there now is different. His shoulders are rigid, his face a roadmap of worry lines I don't recall. And in his hands, he's holding a rifle.

My breath catches. It's not aimed at me, but the message is clear: this is his territory, and he's protecting it.

I want to run, but that would be useless, because I run like a drunken ostrich, according to my brother.

I'm contemplating turning around and fleeing the property, possibly the state, when Mr. Heathcliff calls, "Rhiannon Carmichael, is that you out there? Heard you were back in town for the funeral of your no - good father."

To be honest, Victor kinda deserves it. He always made disparaging remarks about people living in this neighborhood. To me, that screamed classism and lack of empathy.

The words tumble out of my mouth: "It's me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't shoot."

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Heathcliff tilts the rifle twenty degrees downward. Still close enough to send the bullet flying into a less vital part of me.

"I just..."

"Let me ask again. What're you doing on my property?" 

Suddenly, I am eight again and I can smell Mr. Heathcliff's turkey-and-mustard sandwich breath in my face. I can't stop my knees from shaking. "It's nothing—just wanted to say hi to Roxy. But I'll leave now."

His wife, Darlene, emerges from the house. She's a few shades blonder and several pounds heavier than she was the last time I saw her.

"Don't be silly, Heathcliff," she says, and her husband shrivels under her gaze. "Let her in. Come on inside, Rhiannon. Roxy'll be right down."

"Want some breakfast, lamb?" She offers as I slide into the kitchen chair.

"I'm okay." I nod weakly.

Darlene gives me a disarming smile. "I'm guessing you want to wait for Roxy, and not talk about Heathcliff's mad behaviour, or watch the five best videos of cats knocking things off tables." She gestures at her tablet. "Coco loves them. He's at his vet check-up right now with Greg."

I nod, wondering who Greg is, hoping that she doesn't sense how the mention of her husband inspires a sick feeling in my stomach.

Darlene's eyebrows lift. "Are you okay? Heathcliff has been a handful lately."

My face is pushed into a frilly emerald scarf, as Cindy's mom folds me into a tight hug, a cloying smell of cheap perfume filling the back of my throat.

Someone who is okay wouldn't come unannounced into their former best friend's house. My fingers tighten around the edge of the table.

No, I am not okay. I needed there to be a reason for what happened to us, and now that I've potentially found one, now that I am here, I can't handle it.

Roxy comes down the stairs — a young boy is curled around her neck like a spider monkey, shrieking into her ear. 

That explains Cindy's bike. And "Greg." 

"Mom, can you take Isaiah away for a while?" She gives Darlene a tired smile and her mother nods.

Darlene used to tell me sometimes it was easier to let her daughters speak for her. They loved to speak, and Darlene didn't always. They worked well together like that, how a mother and daughters should.

My mouth goes dry as I ponder that Roxy is a mom now —where did all the time go? She looks so much like Cindy it's spooky. Freckles dotting her nose, big marsh - green eyes. She's wearing a Gaffney High sweatshirt, smudged with day-old eyeliner. She's beautiful, just like my bestie was, in a way that always made me feel like something that crawled out from a sewer.

I expected more of the people at highschool to take notion of me, because I guess I'm sometimes a narcissistic little sociopath like Victor. But instead, I was always a ghost hanging in the corner, pretending I didn't notice the occasional confused glance thrown my way.

"We haven't heard from Cindy in years," Roxy starts without me even having to ask anything.

"And you don't know where...?"

"No. As soon as she finished high school she just left. Gone. Vanished into a thin air. Sometimes I wonder if I ever really knew her. I mean, I hate to say it, but she was kinda conceited."

She doesn't sound like she hates to say it at all. In fact, it sounds as if she's been dying to say it to someone.

The sound of the front door slamming freezes me in place.

"Darlene?" Heathcliff's voice calls out from the hallway.

I catch pieces of their conversation. Darlene's voice. "...know it's hard for you. She probably didn't know who else to turn to. To ask about..."

"We're not a halfway house, Darlene." Heathcliff's voice. It's angry. "I want her gone."

I turn to Roxy once again.

"Why don't we go upstairs, huh?" She asks. "We'll be okay in Cindy's room."

The floor complains underneath me as I stand up. There's a loaded silence in the hallway as we climb the staircase.

The door creaks open, revealing a bedroom frozen in time. It's unmistakably Cindy's, but it's like stepping into a memory box, a snapshot of her life before... before everything. The air smells faintly of vanilla and something else, something sweet and youthful.

My gaze is drawn to the largest photo in the biggest trophy case. It's Cindy, beaming, surrounded by four of her friends. They're all posing for the camera, their mouths painted a vibrant cherry red, their cheerleading pleats a blur of blue and yellow. The photo is from the first home game of the season, back when Gaffney High still had a cheerleading squad, back when life felt simpler, brighter.

The trophy case itself is a mix of academic awards, sports trophies, and small, personal mementos. There's this faded blue ribbon for "Most Spirited," a collection of hand-painted rocks with inspirational quotes, and a framed photo of her and Roxy, younger and carefree, laughing on a beach.

A pang of grief hits me. It's like Cindy is still here, her presence lingering in the carefully arranged displays, but also undeniably gone. The room, not unlike mine, has been preserved exactly the way it was.

It's a shrine. A place of both comfort and pain, a place where memories collide and the past feels both close and impossibly far away.

I turn to Roxy. "You told me you might have something for me."

"I do. I think I have an idea what happened to Cindy."

"Oh?"

"She was hanging around this boy Joshua a lot..."

"I remember him. Wasn't he more like the one who had a crush on her? It was a bit one-sided."

"Well. I don't know if it was one-sided." Roxy's razor-thin eyebrows arch up. "With Joshua, I mean."

My heartbeat quickens. "What are you talking about?"

Roxy's eyes sparkle. I know something you don't know.

"They were awfully cozy many times is all I'm sayin."

"He lived over there." She walks to the window, and points past the house where some kids are playing soccer, at the ranch-style at the dead end. "His mother was such a doll. It's terrible how quickly the disease took her."

"That's awful," I say. "I heard he didn't have a father either."

"Oh, he had one." There's scorn on Roxy's face. "Left Kathleen when she was pregnant with Joshua. They were never married."

"So you think the two... what? Ran away?"

"Well dad would never approve of her relationship with him, of that I'm sure. He'd say something foul like: 'Mind you don't get yourself knocked up,' or somesuch."

But Cindy never told me she had anything with Joshua. Yeah, he had a crush on her but... Surely she would have mentioned something? We were besties. She was more into Ethan, romantically.

Roxy rolls her eyes. I can see she notices I don't fully buy this story.

"Whatever. None of us knows where Cindy is now. I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Whatever. The word hangs between us. It feels like it has just become a weapon for Roxy to use on me. It lands like a blow, a boundary drawn in the sand.

Roxy's message is clear: if I try to dig up things that have been buried since ten years ago, I'll only bring the family more pain.

I'd be causing Darlene pain. Darlene, who picked me up that night at the gas station when I ran away from home. Darlene, whose quiet kindness always shone through, who always slipped an extra sandwich into Cindy's lunch box even if she never had to do that — I had more than plenty.

I came here looking for answers, for a connection to Cindy, for some clarity in the swirling confusion of Dad's death and this strange homecoming.

But all I've found are more questions. A knot of frustration tightens in my chest.

I need to understand. I need to know more about Aubrey, this "witch" stepmother Eli mentioned, the one who's been a constant undercurrent in his life. Maybe she holds a key, an unexpected piece of this puzzle. The thing she did at the funeral intrigued me ever since.

I pull out my phone, my thumb hovering over Eli's contact. He did offer his help. Maybe his chaotic life, his connection to Gaffney's undercurrents, can shed some light on the shadows that seem to be closing in. I press call.

"Eli?" I say, my voice a little strained. "Are you busy? I'm at Cindy's old home. Could you... could you maybe take me to your place? To see Aubrey."

***

I buy two bags of Twizzlers and a bottle of iced tea from the convenience store next door. When he pulls into the space out front, I wave to him and he rolls down his window. I hold up the candy for him to see, and Eli lights up.

He looks enraptured, and not at all disturbed that we're about to take a one-hour journey, all because of a funeral moment and a hunch. "So we're kind of being cops, or something? You're gonna interrogate my stepmother?"

"Yeah." I smile. It feels good being around him, just joking. "Exactly."

"Sweet," Eli says. "This is so freaking sweet."

"You really don't mind?" I ask. "I'm sure you have a hundred better things to do."

"Nah, I am not working today," Eli says. "It's Sunday, Carmichael."

He puts air quotes around that last part, the word "Carmichael", because that's what Eli used to call me. I laugh in spite of the growing knot in my intestines at the sight of Heathcliff peering suspiciously at us both from the porch.

I'm glad Eli has forgiven me for what happened on Friday night.

Eli can tell I'm not in much of a mood to talk on the ride back. He offers me one of the Twizzlers bags. I shake my head and look out the window.

"So, how was Cindy's? Did you find out anything about where she might have gone, or..." He asks between chews.

"Well... Yeah and no. Her sister, Roxy, has a theory she ran off with Josh."

"Joshua Wilkins?"

"Their neighbour."

"Wasn't she kind of always into Ethan, though?" Eli puckers his lips and it's so appealing.

"That's what I said!"

We both giggle at the same time and then his expression turns into a serious one. "Listen, I heard what happened last night. With that reporter."

"He must have been really desperate for the news."

"But you're okay?"

I turn to meet his eyes; Eli gives me a worried smile.

I smile back. "Yeah. All good."

"Good. I'd hate it if something happened to you." He returns his attention to the road.