Chapter Eight
1156 Words
Jack
The front steps creaked under his boots the way they always had—groaning, familiar, and annoyingly loud in the quiet of dusk. Jack hesitated at the door, hand raised to knock, but after a long pause, he pushed it open instead. Emma hadn’t locked it. She probably hadn’t expected anyone to come looking.
The house smelled the same. Lemon polish and cedarwood. A scent so tied to Gram Whitaker it felt like walking into a memory. The air was heavy, still, and filled with that silence only old houses knew how to keep.
“Emma?” he called softly.
No answer.
He stepped farther in, past the living room with its half-packed boxes and unopened mail stacked like miniature towers on the coffee table. Something upstairs creaked. Not loudly. Just enough.
Jack followed the sound.
The attic door was open, the ladder pulled down. He hadn’t been up there in years. Not since they were teenagers hiding from summer storms, passing books and secrets between them in the soft glow of string lights.
“Emma?” he tried again, voice lower this time. Like he wasn’t sure if he wanted her to hear it.
He climbed.
The attic was dust-thick and golden with light slanting in through the small round window at the far end. Cardboard boxes lined the walls. A dress form leaned in one corner, draped in faded lace. And in the middle of it all—Emma.
She sat cross-legged on an old quilt, her back turned to him, surrounded by loose photographs and crumpled tissue paper. Her shoulders shook.
Jack’s breath caught.
On her lap was her prom dress. Pale blue. A little wrinkled from years of storage, but unmistakably hers. The one she wore the night they kissed behind the bookstore after everyone else had gone home. The one she’d worn when he first told her he loved her.
Beside her, scattered across the floor, was a stack of old prom photos. The two of them frozen in smiles—her in that dress, him in a suit too big for his shoulders, grinning like he had the whole world in his hands.
Jack didn’t know what to say.
He took a quiet step forward, and the floorboard gave him away. Emma startled, turning toward him with wide, wet eyes. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, her hair pulled up in a loose bun that had started to fall.
She didn’t speak right away.
Neither did he.
“I forgot these were up here,” she finally said, her voice low and raw.
Jack looked down at the photo she held. Them, standing under the oak tree at her grandma’s, his arm around her waist. Her eyes were bright, full of whatever they used to be.
“I almost didn’t come up,” she added. “But something told me… I don’t know. That there was more I hadn’t seen.”
He crouched beside her, careful not to crowd.
“You okay?” he asked.
She gave a brittle laugh and wiped at her face with the back of her hand. “Do I look okay?”
“No,” he admitted softly. “But I’m still glad I found you.”
Emma looked at him then, really looked—eyes tired, guarded, but something flickered under the surface.
“I didn’t come back to relive this,” she whispered. “I came to finish things. Clean up. Close doors. Leave.”
Jack nodded slowly. “And yet you’re here. In the attic. Holding onto something you didn’t even know you were looking for.”
Her chin trembled. “You think that means something?”
“I think it means you’re not as done with this place as you thought.”
Emma didn’t answer. Just looked down at the photo again, then over at the dress, her fingers curling around the fabric like it might tether her to something solid.
“I hate how much I miss her,” she said quietly. “And how much of myself I left behind here.”
Jack swallowed. “You didn’t leave it. It’s still here. You just forgot how to look.”
The attic went still again.
Outside, cicadas hummed and the sun dipped lower behind the trees. Jack stayed quiet beside her, not needing to fill the silence. Just being there was enough—for now.
Eventually, Emma leaned her head lightly against his shoulder, just for a moment. And Jack let her.
Neither of them spoke again. But the attic—like the memories it held—stopped feeling quite so heavy.
Then Emma’s phone, buried somewhere in the folds of her overnight bag, began to ring.
She flinched, startled by the sound. Jack stiffened slightly beside her.
The ringtone was soft and familiar—something classical, maybe a piano piece. It kept ringing until Emma reached over and tugged the phone free from beneath a pile of tissue paper and envelopes.
Jack didn’t mean to glance at the screen, but he did.
Matt ❤️
The name was bold across the display, the red heart making Jack’s stomach tighten unexpectedly. He looked away quickly, jaw ticking.
Emma’s thumb hovered over the screen for a beat too long. Then she declined the call.
Jack cleared his throat. “So… Matt?”
Emma’s eyes flicked up, caught.
“He’s just—he’s someone I know. From Pasco.”
“Someone you know,” Jack repeated, flat.
She flushed. “He’s… We were—it's not what it looks like.”
“I didn’t say it looked like anything.”
“But you thought it,” she said, eyes narrowing a touch as she tucked the phone under the prom dress like that might somehow erase what had just happened.
Jack leaned back, keeping his voice even. “I just didn’t know you had someone.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly plan on seeing you again either.”
That landed between them with more weight than either of them meant to give it. Emma looked away first, eyes darting to the attic window.
“He’s not important,” she mumbled. “Not really. He’s—he’s just comfortable. That’s all.”
Jack nodded slowly, something unreadable crossing his face. “Good to know.”
Emma opened her mouth, then closed it again. There was too much to explain and no way to do it without sounding like a liar.
And Jack? He didn’t press. He just rose to his feet and dusted his palms off on his jeans.
“I should go check on Lilly,” he said. “Let you get back to finishing things.”
Emma stood too, hugging the prom dress to her chest. She didn’t say goodbye, and neither did he.
But the quiet between them now felt different—like something fragile had cracked.
And neither of them knew if it could be put back together.
- Writer
