The town felt too small and too wide all at once. Julia jogged down the narrow street, breath fogging in the cold morning air, heart pounding in a frantic rhythm that echoed his name. Brandon had vanished into the night without a phone, without a wallet—without a word—and the silence he left behind felt like a wound she couldn’t close.
She checked the first bus stop, eyes scanning the benches, the shadows, the flickering streetlamp overhead. Nothing. She hurried to the old workshops where he once repaired doors and patched roofs, calling his name between the clatter of loose sheet metal. Still nothing. The pier was last, but she wasn’t ready to find him gone there too.
Everywhere she looked, there was only absence.
And absence hurt more than anger ever had.
===
She ducked into a small
