AFTERGLOW

MAPLE

*CHAPTER 9 — MAPLE*

The house on Maple smelled the same.

Lena hadn't been back in 5 years. Same yellow paint — faded, but he really hadn't touched it. Same porch swing that creaked.

Same height marks in the kitchen doorframe. _LENA 8, LENA 9, LENA 10_ in her mom's messy marker.

Jax stood in the doorway of HER kitchen in a black t-shirt and jeans, looking too big, too rich for this tiny house, holding two grocery bags.

"You actually kept the marks?" she whispered, fingers tracing them.

"Of course I kept the marks."

She was supposed to cook. The terrible pasta from high school that she used to bring to lunch and brag about. She burned the garlic in 2 minutes.

"Still terrible," Jax said, eating it anyway, straight from the pot, standing next to her at the stove.

"Hey!"

"Still perfect."

They ate on the floor. No table. Just the pot, two forks, and the photo of his mom she made him bring from 42B. She set Elena on the windowsill so she could "watch."

"So," Lena said after. "Why did you always call me Lena? In school everyone called me Reyes. Even teachers."

Jax went quiet. Fork stilling.

"Because Reyes was queen bee," he said. "Loud. Mean. The girl who wrote LOSER on my yearbook. I hated Reyes."

He looked at her.

"Lena was the girl I saw once, sophomore year, when you thought no one was watching. You were in the library after you failed that math test. You weren't queen bee. You were crying over your notebook, whispering to yourself, trying again. No makeup. Hair up. And you helped that freshman find his classroom after."

Lena stared. "You saw that?"

"I was Ghost, remember? I saw everything. But I only fell for Lena. Not Reyes. Lena was the one I kept. That's why I bought this house. That's why I kept your notes. I wasn't obsessed with the girl who bullied me. I was obsessed with the girl underneath who I knew was better."

Tears. Again.

"Jax Moreau, you are going to make me cry into my terrible pasta."

"Good. Then I get to be the one who makes you stop."

He leaned in, in her childhood kitchen, where she'd measured her height, where her mom had taught her to cook, where she thought she'd never come back.

And this time, she kissed him first.

Soft. Sure. No elevator panic. No punishment.

Just Lena kissing Ghost in a yellow house he saved for her.

Elena's photo watched from the windowsill.

And for the first time since she walked into Moreau Industries for that interview, Lena felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be- home.