CHAPTER ONE: Returning Home
The bus gave a tired sigh as it rolled into Navesh’s station, its brakes whining like the town itself—quiet, worn, and holding its breath. Avelon stepped off with a carry-on bag, the kind that held more guilt than clothes. The air was different here. Not cleaner or fresher, just older—like time sat still while the rest of the world moved on.
She hadn’t been back in over eight years.
Her boots hit the gravel, and for a second she just stood there, absorbing the place. The rusted bench. The same bakery sign swaying in the wind. The silence that lived between buildings like it had claimed them. It was all too familiar and yet impossibly far from who she’d become.
Avelon tightened her coat around her. It was early spring, but Navesh never warmed up the way other places did. Everything here took longer—people, seasons, healing.
Her phone buzzed. A message from the nurse: She’s resting. Stable for now.
Avelon exhaled, not sure if it was relief or delay. She didn’t know what she’d say when she saw her mother again. She only knew she couldn’t run from this anymore.
The walk from the station to the house was short, but it stretched like a memory. Every corner held echoes—laughter from a younger version of herself, whispers of late nights and early dreams. And somewhere tangled in it all, was him.
Damian.
She hadn't thought about him in months. No—she hadn’t let herself. There was a difference. The kind of difference that comes when you’ve loved someone so deeply it hurt to say their name out loud.
The house looked smaller now. Or maybe it was just that she had grown. She paused at the gate, her fingers brushing the wood her mother once painted pale blue. The color had chipped away, but the shape was still there—weathered but holding on. Much like her mother.
She pushed the gate open and walked up the porch steps that creaked like they remembered her. The door opened before she could knock.
“Avelon.” Emma, the nurse, looked surprised but kind. “She’s asleep. Hasn't asked for anything but her tea and a bit of music.”
“Same old Mom,” Avelon murmured, forcing a smile.
Emma stepped aside. “She's waiting for you, even if she won’t admit it.”
The house smelled of lavender and old wood. Every photo frame on the wall stared at her like a question. She paused at one—her eighth birthday. Her mom’s arms wrapped tight around her. A shadow in the corner of the frame—Damian, barely in the picture, but always in the moment.
She went to her mother’s room and stood quietly at the door. Her mom looked smaller, the sharp angles of time softening into sleep. Her breath was light, but steady. Avelon didn’t step inside. Not yet.
Later, after unpacking, she stood on the porch with a mug of coffee gone cold. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring at the street when she saw him.
Damian.
Walking like nothing had changed. Hands in his pockets, that same uneven stride. As if the past wasn’t waiting behind every corner.
She panicked. Not visibly—but inside, something tightened. He hadn’t seen her yet. She could turn, go inside, pretend she hadn’t noticed. But Navesh was never that kind of town.
He looked up.
Stopped.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, neither moved. The years between them didn’t fall away. They stacked—one by one—forming a quiet wall of everything unsaid.
He gave a small nod. Polite. Distant.
She nodded back. Equally polite. Equally distant.
Then he walked on, past the house, down the street. Like they were nothing but ghosts in each other's rearview.
Avelon let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Her fingers trembled around the mug. She set it down.
So much for time healing all things.
