Page 11 of The Lilac River

And it hit me. I didn’t belong here anymore. Not really. I was a ghost retracing old steps. A girl trying to wear a woman’s skin and pretend everything was fine.

I hated how the sight of Town Hall made me shiver. I hated that I looked for his window.

Mayor Miller.

My stomach twisted.

“He’s nothing,” I whispered to myself. “Nothing.”

I exhaled, turned toward the store, and froze.

A voice I once loved. Deep. Rough. Gravel and moonlight.

“Heard you were back, Lily. I just hoped it wasn’t true.”

Every nerve in my body caught fire. I turned slowly.

And there he was.

Nash.

Older. Broader. Weathered. His jaw was tighter, hair darker, the kind of rough edge time carves into a man who’s had to survive more than he shares.

And his eyes, god, those eyes, they hadn’t changed.

Same storm. Same hurt.

Only now I couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter.

Chapter 5

Black – Pearl Jam

Nash

Lily Alice Jones. The woman I had loved. The one I hated. The one who ruined me.

She was standing outside the grocery store like she’d never left. Like she hadn’t torn my life apart and scattered it to the wind. Like I hadn’t spent years trying to forget the sound of her laugh, the feel of her lips, the way her whole world lit up when she was happy.

I’d told myself I was over her. Told myself a hundred times.

But seeing her now?

It felt like ten years had been a single breath held underwater. And now someone had let me surface. My lungs seized. My chest ached with it.

Ten Years Ago

We lay tangled on the blanket behind the barn, fireflies blinking above us like fairy lights. The lavender fields hummedwith the last of summer, the scent curling around us like something sacred.

Lily’s head rested on my chest, her fingers tracing lazy circles over my ribs. “You think Ohio will be this quiet?”

“Nope,” I said, my voice rumbling through her. “But it'll be ours.”

She smiled against my skin. “Promise me we’ll always have this.”

“We will,” I whispered, brushing her hair off her face. “We’ll get out of here, Lila. Away from him. From all of it. You and me.”

She leaned up on her elbow, eyes gleaming in the starlight. “And what happens if we can’t get out?”

---