***Alissa Blake***
Morgan wouldn’t stop talking.
I think it was just her way of filling any silence. Ever since we left for our walk that morning, she hadn’t taken a breath. Jumping from one topic to the next, like she was trying to keep me too busy to think about anything.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Because if I stopped to think, I’d remember that coming back didn’t make any sense.
"Did you ever have a fish??" Morgan asked, squeezing my hand and hopping over a crack in the sidewalk.
"A fish?"
"Yeah. I had one, but it died in two days."
"I think you were supposed to change the water."
"I did! But Dad said fish don’t like change. I guess it didn’t like me either."
I snorted.
"It was just a fish, Morgan."
She shook her head, like I didn’t get it.
"Still."
I made a little sound, half-distracted, as we walked. The cold wind messed up my hair, and Maplewood felt smaller than I remembered. Like the whole town had shrunk, or maybe I’d just grown too much to fit in it.
Morgan let go of my hand to kick a little rock on the sidewalk.
"Sometimes, Dad and Mom don’t let me have dinner."
I stopped walking.
"What?"
"Only when I do something bad," she said, like it was normal. Then she shrugged and changed the subject. "Do you remember that park with the red swings?"
I kept staring at her, trying to figure out if she was serious. But Morgan was already lost in another story, telling me about some dog that showed up at her school last week.
That stuck with me.
I didn’t ask her anything else, but something in my stomach felt weird.
We kept walking.
The streets were quiet in that small-town way. Some of the shops were just opening, and a woman was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the bakery. The smell of fresh bread mixed with the crisp morning air.
I tried not to look around too much. Every street, every corner, had something I didn’t want to remember. The little grocery store where I worked on Saturdays. The movie theater where Holden and I saw our first movie together. The parking lot where we sat on the hood of his car, looking at the stars and talking about the future.
I shook my head.
Nope. Not thinking about that.
"Can I pick where we go next?" Morgan asked, tugging my arm.
"Depends."
"I want a milkshake."
I rolled my eyes, but smiled.
"Fine."
She cheered like she just won something and practically ran toward the little café on the corner.
That’s when I heard it.
The music.
Soft, playing from the café speakers.
I felt it before I even registered what it was.
The first chords on the guitar. The soft synths in the background.
My breath caught.
No.
My chest got tight as his voice filled the air.
It was Holden.
Singing my song.
Morgan kept walking, but I stopped.
"What?" she asked.
My mouth was dry.
"Nothing."
But that was a lie.
It wasn’t nothing. It was everything.
Because that song shouldn’t be playing here.
That song shouldn’t be playing anywhere.
I wrote it with Holden, years ago. Sitting on my bedroom floor, with an old guitar and a bunch of stupid dreams. We never even finished it. We never showed it to anyone.
It was ours.
At least, that’s what I thought.
But here it was.
And here he was.
Holden’s voice, singing every word.
And suddenly, I was back there.
Late nights in my room, scribbling lyrics in my notebook while he played around with chords. The way his eyes lit up when we found the perfect melody. The way he looked at me when he said we were gonna be on stage someday, singing for thousands of people.
And I believed him.
Now, here he was. On the radio, in the speakers of some random café, sneaking into my morning like he still had any right to be in my life.
My heart pounded.
And not just from anger.
Something worse.
Longing.
Because no matter how much I wanted to hate him—no matter how many reasons I had—some part of me still felt something.
And I hated that.
Because that part of me still belonged to him.
I closed my eyes for a second, forcing that feeling down.
It didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter if my chest felt tight hearing this song.
It didn’t matter if my skin tingled at the memories.
What mattered was that he took something that was ours—
And made it his.
I let out a slow breath and looked at Morgan, who was already waiting by the café door.
I forced a smile and walked over to her.
"Chocolate or strawberry?"
She thought about it.
"Both mixed together."
I laughed.
"You’re weird."
"No, you are."
The song kept playing in the background.
I pretended not to hear it.
At least for now.