Chapter Text
I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?
Frank’s sophomore year at Penn State looked different from the outside, fuller and louder and more defined than anything he had known before. He had moved into a house with a few guys from the football team, a cramped, always-noisy place where cleats lined the doorway and the air constantly smelled faintly of sweat, old beer, and whatever monstrosity someone had cooked last.
There was always something happening—music bleeding through walls, late-night arguments over nothing, laughter that carried too far into hours it shouldn’t have reached. It was the kind of environment that filled space easily, that didn’t leave much room for anything quiet.
And he was busy. Not in the way he had been freshman year, where things felt new and overwhelming, but in a way that settled deeper, more consuming, something that demanded more from him because he was expected to give it now.
Practices were longer, harder hitting, more precise, the margin for error thinner. Lifts started earlier, ran longer, left him sore in places he didn’t even know he could be. Classes had shifted too—more focused, more demanding, the kind that didn’t let him skate by on effort alone.
Pre-med wasn’t something he could half-do, not if he wanted to get where he said he would. So his time disappeared. A missed call here. A shorter conversation there. Texts that came later than they used to, replies that didn’t carry the same length, the same attention. It wasn’t intentional. It never was. But it happened anyway, something small that built quietly into something harder to ignore.
Back in Lexington, Mel felt it.
One day during her senior year, she wore the crewneck he had given her, the navy fabric soft and worn now, sleeves still a little too long, the embroidered Penn State stretched across her chest. It still smelled faintly like him if she paid attention to it, though she tried not to think about that too much. She hadn’t worn it to school before—hadn’t wanted the attention—but that day, she didn’t think about it.
Not until lunch.
The comments started small.
“Didn’t know you were repping Penn State now,” one of the guys said leaning back in his chair at the table across from where she and Becca sat, a smirk already forming.
Mel didn’t respond, didn’t even look up, but they didn’t stop.
“He used to talk about you all the time,” someone else added, tone shifting, something meaner threading through it now. “Not like… in a good way.”
That made her pause for a second. “What?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
The guy shrugged, like it was nothing, like he hadn’t just dropped something that changed the air around her. “Just stuff. Said you and your sister were… weird. That he was glad to get out.”
Another voice, louder now, piling on. “Yeah, he said it was like babysitting half the time. Especially with your sister.”
Something in her chest tightened, sharp and immediate. “That’s not true,” she said, quieter than she meant to be, but steady enough to hold.
“Believe whatever you want,” one of them said, leaning back again. “He’s different now. College does that.”
Mel didn’t say anything else. She finished her lunch in silence, her appetite gone somewhere in the middle of it, her hands steady only because she forced them to be. Becca sat beside her, close enough to touch, her presence grounding in the only way it could be, but even that didn’t fully settle what had started to move inside Mel’s chest.
She told herself over and over that it wasn’t true. Frank would never say something like that. Not about her, not about Becca. But the words stayed, and they didn’t exist on their own. They sat beside everything else—the shorter calls, the missed texts, the way his life sounded fuller now, louder, filled with people she didn’t know and places she had never been. They paired with the distance, with the way she hadn’t seen him in almost nine months, with the way everything that used to feel certain had started to feel…less so.
Doubt didn’t come all at once. It crept in, slowly and quietly, and once it was there, it didn’t leave easily.
That night, she lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the crewneck pulled tight around her, her fingers curled into the sleeves the way they always were when she needed something to hold. Her phone sat beside her, lighting up once, then again, then finally staying still.
Frank.
She picked it up.
I’m so excited to come home for spring break. I’ve been thinking about it all week.
Another message.
You still owe me that fishing trip to Taylor Pond.
Another.
I miss you so much, Mel.
Her chest tightened and she stared at the screen for a long time. Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard, then dropped, then hovered again, like she couldn’t decide which version of herself was allowed to answer him.
Because she missed him too.
God, she missed him.
But it didn’t feel the same anymore. It felt heavier, messier. Like something she couldn’t quite reach no matter how hard she tried.
She didn’t respond. Not that night, or the next morning either. Instead, she moved through her day like normal, like nothing had shifted, like the words from lunch hadn’t stuck somewhere under her skin. She went to class, walked home with Becca, sat at the kitchen table and picked at dinner without really tasting it.
That night was worse.
The nightmare came harder, sharper, the edges less blurred than they had been before. When she woke, her chest was tight, her throat raw, her body shaking in a way that didn’t settle quickly. Her mom was there again, sitting beside her, tears already falling, one hand pressed to Mel’s arm like she was trying to hold her in place. It had gotten bad. Worse than it had ever been. She had started sleeping in her mom’s bed more often than not, the space smaller but safer somehow, the quiet less suffocating with someone else there.
When Frank asked about it, she told him the truth. Or at least, enough of it to count. But he was busy. What was he supposed to do?
The next morning, her phone lit up again.
Is everything okay?
She stared at it for a second, something tight settling behind her ribs, something she didn’t have the energy to untangle.
Then, she typed.
Yeah, sorry. I’ve been busy.
When Frank made it back home to Lexington for spring break, he didn’t even think about stopping at his own house first, the decision made somewhere instinctive and immediate the second he crossed into town.
The truck barely settled before he was out, sneakers hitting the gravel hard, the familiar shape of her house pulling him forward faster than he could slow himself down. Everything in him had been building for months—anticipation, relief, something restless and urgent—and it all pointed in one direction, like the needle of a compass.
He knocked once, then again, already knowing someone would answer.
Mrs. King opened the door, her expression softening into something warm and surprised the second she saw him. “Frankie,” she said, stepping aside without hesitation, like he belonged there as much as anyone else.
“Hi,” he said quickly, already moving inside, his eyes scanning the space without meaning to. “Is Mel here?”
Becca was already in the living room, curled into the corner of the couch, and she looked up at him the second he stepped in. “She’s at the tree,” she said, her voice even, like she had been expecting him to ask.
“Oh.” Frank nodded once, already turning slightly, the answer settling in fast. “Yeah—okay. I'm gonna go see her.”
“The football team at school has been really mean to us.”
The words stopped him cold. He turned back, slower this time, something sharp already rising in his chest. “What?”
Becca shifted slightly, her posture straightening in that quiet, deliberate way she had when something mattered. Then, she told him everything. The comments. The things they said. The way they said it. The lies—twisted and ugly and deliberate—about him, about Mel, about Becca, about things he would never even think, let alone say out loud. Each word landed heavier than the last, something tight and furious building behind his ribs, his jaw locking harder the longer she spoke. By the end of it, he was seething. Not loud or explosive. It was fury that sat deep and dangerous.
“I would never—” he started, then stopped, forcing himself to slow down, to make sure she heard him clearly. “Becs, I would never say anything like that about you. About either of you. Ever.” His voice softened slightly, but the anger didn’t leave it. “You guys are—” he shook his head once, frustrated with how small the words felt. “You’re some of the most important people in my life. You know that.”
Becca nodded immediately. “I know,” she said simply. “They’re lying. They’re just bullies.”
The tension in his chest loosened just slightly at that, a quiet exhale leaving him before he could stop it.
“But Mel’s not dealing with it very well,” Becca added.
The relief didn’t last. Frank’s expression shifted again, something sharper cutting back through. “What do you mean?”
Mrs. King spoke this time. She told him about the changes—small at first, then not so small. The way Mel had pulled in on herself, the way she had stopped wearing the crewneck outside, then stopped wearing it at all. The way she moved through the house differently now, quieter, more guarded, like she was bracing for something that hadn’t come yet.
And then she told him about the nightmares. How they had gotten worse. So much worse. They were almost every single night, sometimes multiple a night, deeper, more tangled, reaching into places they hadn’t before. How they would find her some nights, drenched in sweat as she clutched at anything she could reach. How sometimes Mel would scream about things that hadn’t happened back then—voices that didn’t belong in those memories, faces that had no place there.
Sometimes the boys from school.
Sometimes—
Frank.
His chest tightened so sharply it hurt. For a second, he couldn’t breathe properly, something hot and painful rising up behind his ribs and catching in his throat. His eyes burned, tears pressing hard enough to blur his vision, but he forced them back, forced himself to stay steady long enough to understand all of it.
“I—” his voice broke slightly, and he swallowed hard, resetting it. “I gotta go see her.”
He was out the door before the words fully settled, back in his truck in seconds, the engine turning over beneath his hands. He drove faster than he should have, the road blurring at the edges as anger and something deeper, something heavier, pulled him forward with a force he couldn’t fight.
By the time he reached the field, he didn’t bother with the truck. He left it crooked along the edge and ran. Branches scraped against his arms and face as he pushed through the trees, leaving tiny slices in his skin that stung with the sweat beading from his pores, breath coming sharp and uneven in his chest, the air cool but no longer biting, the ground softer underfoot as winter finally loosened its grip.
He didn’t slow down, even when his foot slipped and he twisted his ankle on a root, searing pain shooting up his calf.
By the time the clearing came into view, his pulse was pounding hard enough to drown everything else out, his vision narrowing around the one thing he was looking for.
Mel.
she sat on the tree, exactly where she always was, her shape familiar even from a distance, something in his chest twisting at the sight of her before anything else could settle. And before he could stop himself, before he could soften it, or slow it down, or think it through, it came out.
“Please, for the love of god tell me you don’t believe anything those dickheads on the football team said, Mel.”
She flinched. Not visibly, not enough that anyone else would catch it—but he saw it, the way her shoulders tightened just slightly before she forced them still again. She looked up at him quickly, eyes wide for half a second, then dropped her gaze back down to her hands, fingers already laced together too tightly in her lap.
“Becca told you, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah,” he said, still trying to catch his breath, still standing there like he hadn’t decided yet whether to move closer or keep his distance. “I talked to Becca and your mom. They told me everything.” He paused, something heavier settling into his voice now. “Mel… why have you been lying to me?”
Her head tilted slightly, a small, humorless breath leaving her. “Because what the fuck would you even do if I did tell you, Frank?”
It came out sharper than anything she’d said to him in a long time, and in that second, it hit him—this wasn’t new. This wasn’t about today. This had been building, sitting somewhere under the surface long before he got here.
“You’re 500 miles away from me,” she went on, her voice steadier now, but not softer. “Five hours away. Even if you cared enough to do anything, you’re too far away.”
He stared at her. “If I cared enough?” he repeated, something dangerous threading into his tone now. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
He stepped closer without realizing it, stopping just in front of her, close enough that she could feel him but not close enough to touch. Her head stayed down, her eyes fixed on her hands, her knuckles white, her fingertips almost purple.
“Melissa,” he said, quieter now, but more intense. “What do you mean if I cared enough?”
“You barely talk to me anymore.”
That hit him harder than anything else, he felt like all the air was stolen from his lungs. He felt like he could throw up.
“You’re a sophomore in college,” she continued, her voice gaining something now. “At Penn State. I’m a fucking senior in high school.” She let out a small, tight breath. “I’m just… the childhood friend you left behind for bigger and better things, and I’m stuck here in Virginia while you get to have fun, and party, and drink, and smoke fucking cigarettes with all your new friends every night and you probably have some girlfriend there who’s way cooler and prettier than me—”
“Are you being serious right now?” he cut in, disbelief breaking through before he could stop it. “Mel, I could have stayed there. I came back to see you.”
“Yeah,” she snapped, finally looking up at him. He'd never seen her eyes like this. Her beautiful gentle brown eyes so full of pain and anger. “After nine fucking months.”
“You have no idea what pre-med is like,” he shot back, frustration rising fast now, matching hers in a way that felt unfamiliar but too easy all at once. “Mel, this shit eats all of my time. And football—I’m not just hanging out all day, I’m working. I’m busy.” He exhaled hard, trying to pull it back, trying to ground it. “I’m sorry I’m busy, but—”
“Exactly,” she cut in again. “Too busy for me.”
“Mel, baby. Please don’t be like this.”
She let out a short, sharp laugh, something hollow sitting underneath it. “I’m not your baby. You can’t just call me that like it doesn’t mean anything. And you don’t get to tell me how to be. I can be however the fuck I want to be, Frank.”
“And you don’t get to be upset with me for doing what I said I was gonna do,” he fired back, his voice tightening. “For school. For my future.”
Silence fell between them, heavy and unmoving. Frank stood there, hands hovering uselessly at his sides, his chest still rising too fast. Mel stayed where she was, sitting on the tree, her posture rigid, like if she relaxed even slightly, everything might spill out in a way she couldn’t control. Her hand moved slowly, down to the carved initials in the bark. Her fingers traced them without looking.
Frank’s gaze followed the movement. She looked older. Not just physically—though she was—but in a way he couldn’t place, like something had shifted inward, something that hadn’t been there before.
“If you only came here for me,” she said finally, her voice lower now, steadier in a way that almost sounded calm, “then you should just go back." She still wouldn't look up at him. "I’m sorry you wasted a trip.”
“Seriously, Mel?” he asked, softer now, more hurt than angry.
She still didn’t look at him, just nodded.
He let out a breath, shaking his head slightly, trying to catch her eyes, trying to find something that felt like her in the middle of all this. “If you really want me to go,” he said, his voice quieter now, stripped down to something real, “then at least look at me when you say it.”
There was a pause—a long one—then she lifted her head.
“Go back, Frank,” she said, her voice didn’t shake. “I don’t need you here.”
Fuck.
“It’s not like it would be the first time you broke that promise.”
For a second, neither of them moved. The words sat there, heavy and irreversible, something neither of them could take back even if they wanted to. Frank’s throat tightened, his vision blurring slightly as something sharp pressed behind his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mel.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t look away, just held his gaze with something unmovable behind it that made it impossible to tell what she was thinking.
“I love you,” he added, his voice quieter now, unsteady in a way she had never heard from him before. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She said nothing, and somehow that silence carried more weight than anything she could have given him in return.
He stayed there for a moment longer, waiting—long enough for hope to flicker in a place he knew it shouldn’t—like maybe she’d stop him, maybe she’d say something, maybe she’d give him a reason to stay.
But she didn’t.
So he turned and walked away, each step feeling heavier than it should have, like the ground itself was trying to slow him down. He didn’t look back—not when he reached the edge of the clearing, not when he got to his truck, not even when his hands shook slightly as he turned the key and the engine roared to life louder than it needed to in the quiet he was leaving behind.
By the time he pulled away, the tears had already started, blurring the road in front of him as the distance opened up again, wider this time, heavier, stretching farther than it ever had before.
And he didn’t stop driving.
Not for his own house with his own family who he was sure would have loved to see him. Not for anything.
And he didn’t come back.
Not for over two years.
It was late July when his mom called. Frank was stretched out along the couch in the apartment he shared with Yolanda Garcia—just Garcia to everyone who knew her—the dull hum of a fan filling the room, the air thick with that stagnant summer heat that never quite left. Garcia was half-dozing in the recliner across from him, one leg thrown over the arm, the Pirates game playing on the TV neither of them were really watching. His phone lit up on the coffee table, his mom’s name flashing across the screen, and he reached for it, answering quickly.
“Frankie, hi.”
“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
There was a pause. It wasn’t long, but it hit him in a way that made his stomach sink. She sighed on the other end of the line, quiet and heavy in a way that made something in his chest tighten before she even said anything. Frank pushed himself up from the couch immediately, his posture straightening, his grip tightening around the phone.
“What’s wrong?”
Another pause.
Then—
“Lisa died.”
The words didn’t land right. They hung there, disconnected, like they hadn’t found their place yet. Frank was on his feet before he told his body to move, the room shifting slightly around him as his brain tried to catch up to what he had just heard.
“Lisa—like—like Lisa King? Mel and Becca’s mom? That Lisa?”
“Yes,” his mom said softly. “I’m sorry, babe.”
“What the fuck,” he breathed, the words slipping out before he could stop them, his hand dragging roughly through his hair like he could make his brain make it make sense if he pulled hard enough.
“I know, honey. I’m so sorry.”
“Where’s—” he started, then stopped, his thoughts tripping over each other too quickly to settle. “Where’s Mel? Who’s with Becca? What—what are things like there?” The questions came out rapidly, overlapping, one after another, like if he kept asking them, he might land on something that helped.
His mom answered as best she could, her voice steady but quiet, filling in pieces he couldn’t see from where he stood. They were okay, physically. The community had stepped in—neighbors, friends, people who had loved Lisa and refused to let her daughters carry it alone. There wasn’t family for them in Lexington—not really—but there were people. Enough to keep things from completely falling apart.
It didn’t feel like enough for him to feel okay with it.
“The funeral is tomorrow,” she added gently. “Do you think you’ll be able to make the trip down?”
“Yeah,” he said immediately, the word coming out too fast, too certain. “Obviously. Of course I’ll be there. I—I’ll leave tonight. I’ll be there tonight.”
He didn’t wait for anything else. The call ended, and he was already moving, grabbing his bag, shoving clothes into it without really looking, his hands working faster than his thoughts. Garcia’s chair creaked as she sat up, the shift in the room impossible to ignore now.
“What the fuck is going on, Langdon?” she called out, her voice cutting through the haze in his head.
He didn’t stop moving. “I gotta go back to Lexington,” he said, already halfway to his room. “Mel’s mom died.”
There was a beat of silence. Garcia didn’t know Mel. Had never met her. But she had heard enough—late-night conversations, offhand comments, the way Frank talked about her without realizing he was doing it—to understand exactly what that meant.
“Oh shit,” she said, softer now. “Dude, I’m sorry. That’s fucked.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, not slowing down or really hearing anything except the urgency in his own chest. “Yeah, it is.” He shoved the last of what he needed into the bag and zipped it closed. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but—I’ll text you when I get there, I guess.”
“No rush,” Garcia said, her voice steady, grounded in a way he couldn’t be right now. “Stay there as long as you want. Maybe I'll rent out your room and pocket the chump's cash.”
"Nice Yoyo." He breathed, shaking his head at her inability to be serious about anything, then grabbed his keys and was out the door before anything else could settle.
His graduation tassel swayed lightly from the rearview mirror, the blue and white thread catching the fading light as he turned onto the main road. He noticed it for half a second—just enough for it to register—before his focus snapped back to everything else.
To her.
It had been over two years. Two years without hearing her voice. Two years without seeing her. Two years without knowing anything beyond what he allowed himself to assume.
And now—
This.
His grip tightened on the wheel, his knuckles going pale as the miles started to blur together, the road pulling him forward whether he was ready or not. His thoughts moved faster than the truck, faster than anything he could slow down, each one hitting harder than the last.
Mel.
What that must have been like.
The call.
The moment.
The way everything must have stopped and then kept going anyway.
He pictured her alone in it, even knowing she probably wasn’t—not physically—but alone in the way that mattered. The way grief isolates, the way it narrows everything down until there’s no space left for anything else. He thought about her standing in that house without Lisa, the rooms too quiet, too empty, filled with things that still belonged to someone who wasn’t there anymore.
Becca.
God—Becca.
Mel was all she had now. That thought hit harder than anything else. She wasn’t just a sister anymore, she was everything. The responsibility of that settled heavily in his chest, something almost suffocating as he tried to wrap his head around it. Mel, who already carried too much, who already held everything together in ways no one ever asked her to—and now this.
Now, all of it.
He swallowed hard, his throat tight, his vision blurring slightly before he blinked it clear, forcing himself to stay present enough to keep driving. The road stretched on endlessly, darkening as the sun dipped lower, the sky shifting into something deeper, heavier.
And all he could think about was how he hadn’t been there—not for anything leading up to it, or the slow unraveling he hadn’t even known was happening. The gaps pressed in on him the longer he drove, filled with things he didn’t know and moments she had carried alone, each one settling heavier than the last. It twisted in his chest, sharp and unrelenting, something he couldn’t undo no matter how fast the road moved beneath him or how hard he tried to outrun it. Because this didn’t just change her day—it shifted everything at once, her life, her future, the fragile outline of what she thought it would be bending into something else entirely.
And somewhere along that stretch of road, something in him shifted too. For the first time since he had turned onto it, it stopped being about whether she would want to see him. It stopped being about what had happened between them, what he had said, what she had said, what had been left unfinished. It became something simpler, heavier, more urgent.
Just the quiet, desperate hope that he wasn’t too far gone.
The next morning, Frank dressed without thinking. Black slacks, pressed but slightly wrinkled at the seams from being shoved in his bag, a black button-down pulled tight at the shoulders, a tie he tied three times before it finally sat right.
The church looked exactly the same as it did the last time he saw it. White siding, tall windows, the same narrow steps leading up to the doors that creaked faintly when pushed open. The air inside was cool and still, carrying that quiet, reverent weight he recognized immediately. He had been here hundreds of times before—had sat in these same pews.
Had held her tiny hand while she cried, when her world fell apart the first time. When she was just seven, and he was just ten.
That memory hit harder than he expected.
Now, it was happening again. His stomach twisted in knots at the thought of Mel, just nineteen years old, forced to put her life on hold.
They moved down the aisle, his family slipping into a row halfway up, but Frank barely registered it. His eyes had already found the front, drawn there without effort, like something inside him had been pulled instinctively towards her.
And there she was.
He couldn’t see her face fully, not from this angle, but he didn’t need to. He recognized her instantly in the smallest details—the fall of her blonde hair against her shoulders, the line of her jaw, the slight tilt of her head.
And there, just beneath it, the small mole under her jaw—the kind of detail he had never consciously noticed, because he never had to. He had known her long enough that the shape of her, the small, unremarkable things most people overlooked, had settled into him without effort, without intention. They weren’t things he remembered—they were things he simply knew, the way you can know your way around your own house with your eyes closed.
Her shoulders were shaking. Tears tracked steadily down her cheeks, catching the light in brief, uneven streaks, and something in him gave way at the sight of it. His chest tightened, sharp and immediate, his throat closing before he could swallow it down. He hadn’t seen her in over two years, hadn’t known what she looked like now, what she carried in her face.
And this—
This was what he saw first.
The tears came before he could stop them. Quiet and unwelcome, but impossible to hold back.
Becca sat beside her, smaller than he remembered somehow, her head resting heavily against Mel’s shoulder, her posture folded inward like she didn’t have the energy to hold herself up anymore. On the other side of Becca sat a woman he didn’t recognize, her presence attentive but careful, like she was there to help without intruding.
Frank didn’t look away from them once. The service passed around him in fragments—words about Lisa, about her kindness, her generosity, the way she had moved through the community leaving something better behind her. People spoke of her as a mother, a wife, a constant presence in so many quiet ways. It was beautiful, in the way funerals sometimes are, in the way they gather everything good and hold it up in contrast to what’s been lost.
But Frank barely heard any of it. He was still just watching every small movement that came from that front pew. The way her arms stayed folded tightly in front of her like she needed to hold herself together. The way she didn’t wipe her tears, just let them fall, steady and unbroken, like stopping them would take more energy than she had left.
By the time it ended, the room shifted quickly. People stood, voices rising in low murmurs, the space filling with movement as everyone made their way forward to offer condolences, to say the same variations of I’m so sorry over and over again. Frank stayed where he was at first, letting the crowd move ahead.
By the time his family reached the front, she was gone. He wasn’t surprised, not even a little. Mel had never been the type to stand there and take it, to let people crowd around her with their grief layered over hers. She would have slipped out the first chance she got, quiet and unnoticed if she could manage it.
So he followed his family out. The air outside felt heavier than it should have, thick and warm, the sky a dull gray that pressed down over everything without breaking. He scanned the parking lot without meaning to, his gaze moving quickly.
And then, he saw her.
Not Mel.
Becca.
She was walking toward a car, slower than everyone else, the same woman from inside keeping pace beside her, one hand hovering near her arm. Frank hesitated for half a second, something uncertain flickering through him, the weight of the last time he had been here settling in sharper now. Two years had passed since she had last seen him—since any of them had—and standing there now, the weight of that time pressed in harder than he had expected. He didn’t know how she would react, didn’t know if he had any right to step into her space like this after everything that had happened, after the way things had ended. But none of that was enough to stop him.
“Becca?”
She turned at the sound, and the change in her hit him immediately—she wasn’t just worn down in the way grief leaves people hollowed out, this was something deeper, something that made her look like she wasn’t fully anchored in the moment. Her expression stayed unfocused for a second too long, like she was still catching up to where she was, to who was standing in front of her, and when her eyes finally landed on him, there was a brief, unsettling distance there that hadn’t existed before.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Becca doesn’t—” the woman beside her started, stepping slightly forward, her tone polite but firm, practiced in a way that made it clear she had done this before.
Frank’s eyes flicked down instinctively, catching the badge clipped neatly to her shirt—Geri—and something about it clicked into place before he could fully process it.
“It’s okay, Geri,” Becca said quietly, her voice thinner than he remembered but steady enough to carry. “He’s my friend.”
Friend.
The word landed somewhere complicated, but he didn’t have the space to sit with it, didn’t have time to unpack what it meant now compared to what it used to. Instead, he just opened his arms, offering the choice the way he always had, letting her decide what she needed.
She stepped into it, with zero hesitation.
He wrapped his arms around her immediately, pulling her in close, firm but careful, the way he knew grounded her when everything else felt like too much. For a brief moment, she stayed still in his hold, her body rigid like she wasn’t sure what to do with it, and then something gave. She broke against him, her shoulders shaking as the sound that came out of her slipped past anything she had been holding back, small and raw and completely unguarded.
Frank tightened his hold just slightly, one hand pressing gently between her shoulders, the other resting steady against her back, anchoring her there. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, his voice low, steadier than he felt. “I’m so, so sorry. I should’ve been here. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
He didn’t know if those were the right words. Didn’t know if there even were right words, but they were the truth, and right now, that was all he had to give her.
After a while, he felt it, not obvious, but there. Her body tensed slightly in his arms, her shoulders pulling inward in a way he recognized instantly, the same subtle signal she had always given when she needed space. He loosened his hold without hesitation, stepping back the second she did, giving her room without making it a moment.
“I’m not sure exactly how long I’m gonna be here in Lexington,” he said, his voice quieter now, careful, like he didn’t want to overwhelm her with anything more than necessary. “But I’m gonna stay for a bit, okay? If you need anything—anything at all—I’ll be there.”
Becca nodded once. “Okay," was all she said, but it was enough.
Frank hesitated, his gaze drifting past her for a second, scanning the space like he already knew what he was going to find—or not find rather. “Where’s your sister?” he asked, his voice softer again, something shifting underneath it.
Becca didn’t answer.
“She said she needed to get some air.” Geri said.
Frank nodded once, the motion small but certain, something in his chest settling into place with that answer.
Of course she did.
He didn’t need anything else, he already knew where she’d be.
As his mother’s car pulled into the driveway, Frank opened the door before it had even fully stopped, stepping out into the rain like his body had outrun his thoughts. He didn’t explain, didn’t look back, just crossed the yard toward his truck with his keys already biting into his palm. By the time he climbed inside, his black shirt was damp at the shoulders, rainwater sliding cold beneath his collar.
He had done this so many times before. He had climbed into this truck and driven to Mr. Madison’s field with Mel’s name already sitting behind his teeth. He had run through those woods in panic, in guilt, in love, in every feeling he had never learned how to say properly. But this time felt different, darker, like the sky had opened because it had no idea what else to do with the pain.
The rain came down hard, that heavy, late-July rain Virginia got when the air grew too full to hold itself together. It hammered against his windshield, blurred the way into streaks of gray and green, and made the whole world feel underwater.
Frank almost threw the truck into park too late, his hand already reaching for the door, because his mind had narrowed to one thing only.
Mel.
Mel sitting in the rain, at their tree, with her whole life split open.
Again.
Except this time, she was alone.
He left the truck crooked at the edge of the field and ran. The route was still burned into him, even after two years away, written somewhere deeper than memory. He moved through the woods without thinking, over slick roots and moss-dark rocks, past branches that grabbed at his sleeves like they were trying to slow him down. Rain poured through the canopy of maples and birch trees in cold streams, soaking his hair, his face, his shirt, but he barely felt it.
He couldn’t remember ever making the trek that fast.
He didn’t think he ever did.
Maybe grief made the body faster when the heart was already somewhere else.
The clearing opened in front of him—and he saw the tree first.
It rose out of the ground like something remembered instead of something real, its fallen trunk stretched wide, branches reaching out in crooked, glistening lines. For a moment, it felt like it was watching him—like it knew him, like it had been waiting.
He slowed without meaning to. Something in his chest pulled tight, something old and familiar and untouched by everything that had come after. He had never stopped thinking about this place—not just the tree itself, but what it held.
The quiet. The space. The way it had always felt like stepping outside of everything else. He had dreamed about it more times than he could count. Sitting there beside her, shoulder to shoulder, the world reduced to something small enough to hold. Those dreams had always been softer, blurred at the edges, untouched by distance, untouched by everything they had broken.
This wasn’t that.
His eyes moved across the trunk slowly, over the worn grooves in the bark, over the place where their initials had been carved, still there, still real, still something that hadn’t changed.
And then—
He saw her.
Not on the tree, but on the ground beside it.
At first, it didn’t register properly, like his mind hadn’t caught up to the shape of her folded into herself. She sat with her knees pulled tight to her chest, arms wrapped around them like she was trying to hold herself together, her head tucked down into that small space like she didn’t want to be seen. The black sundress clung to her frame, soaked through, the thin fabric somehow darkened by rain, outlining the sharpness of her shoulders. Her tights were streaked with dirt where they had pressed into the ground.
He stepped forward. A branch snapped under his foot, the sound cutting sharp through the relentless drum of rain.
Her head lifted instantly, and her eyes found him just as fast. Even with the rain running down her face, it was obvious—she had been crying, for a long time, and hard enough that it hadn’t stopped even now. Her hair clung to her cheeks and neck, strands plastered to her skin, and her face looked drawn in a way that made something inside him twist painfully.
She looked broken. Not like before, this was different—months of something he hadn’t been there to see. Two years had changed her, carved something deeper into her than he could fathom, and he hated that he could see it without knowing the full shape of it.
Their families had stayed connected, of course they had, but nothing ever really made it back to him. Sometimes his mom would start to say something—half a story, a name, a moment—and then stop herself mid-sentence with a quiet, “Never mind,” like she had already decided he wasn’t meant to hear it. It happened often enough that he stopped asking, left with fragments that never formed anything whole, never enough to understand what Mel had actually been going through. He still wasn’t sure if that was for his sake or for hers.
His mom had told him everything the night before. Everything she had seen. Everything Lisa had told her. About the nightmares, the weight she carried, the way she had stepped into a life she never asked for. About Becca, about appointments, about holding everything together in ways no one her age should ever have had to. Enough that something had sat heavy and bitter in his chest all night.
That day at the tree, he should have told her no. He should have stayed anyway. He should have known she was hurting more than she was angry.
Frank stood there in the rain, soaked through and breathing hard, every apology he had ever owed her pressing against his throat at once. Mel didn’t move, didn’t stand, didn’t say anything. She just looked at him, arms still wrapped tightly around herself, like letting go might mean falling apart completely.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The rain filled the silence between them.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Mel!” His voice tore through the rain, rough and unsteady, and the second the words reached her, her face collapsed inward. Her shoulders caved, her head dropping back down between her knees like whatever had been holding her upright finally gave out completely.
The sound she made wasn’t quiet—it was raw, jagged, pulled straight from somewhere deep within her chest.
Frank didn’t hesitate. He crossed the distance between them and dropped down in front of her, mud seeping immediately through the fabric of his slacks. She didn’t move. Her arms stayed locked around her legs, her body folding tighter into itself as the sobs tore through her, sharp and unrelenting. He had never seen her like this—not when they were kids, not when her dad died, not even in the worst moments he could remember. This was different, this was everything at once and it absolutely shattered his heart.
He didn’t think about it anymore. Didn’t give himself anymore time to question whether he had the right, whether it was his place after everything that had happened between them. His body moved before his mind could interfere, because none of that mattered right now—not when she was sitting in front of him like this.
Not when she needed something to hold onto, something to ground herself
He reached forward carefully, his hands finding her arms first, gentle but certain, easing her out of that tight, closed position just enough to move her. Then he shifted back, pulling her with him, settling into the mud and bringing her into his lap.
She didn’t fight it, didn’t hesitate. Her face pressed immediately into his chest, her hands grabbing onto his shirt, twisting the fabric tight as another wave of sobs hit her. Her whole body shook with it, violent and uneven, like she couldn’t get enough air between them.
Frank’s arms tightened around her instinctively. One hand cradled the back of her head, fingers threading gently through her soaked hair, the other wrapping firmly around her back, anchoring her as best as he could. He leaned his head down slightly, his cheek brushing against the top of her head as he held her there.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, the words coming out uneven, breath catching between them. “I’m so fucking sorry, Mel.”
He didn’t stop. The words kept coming, quieter now, but no less urgent, spilling out in pieces that had been building for two years.
“I should’ve been here. I should’ve stayed—I should’ve listened closer, I should’ve—” he exhaled sharply, his voice breaking around the edges. “I should’ve known things weren’t ‘fine’ like you said. I should’ve checked. I should’ve called more, I should’ve—fuck, I should’ve just shown up.” His grip tightened slightly. “I’m sorry I let things get so far,” he added, softer now, his thumb brushing small, steady motions against the back of her head. “I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry I made it feel like you were… like you were alone in it.”
She didn’t even try to respond. She just cried. Harder than before, if that was even possible, her face buried in his chest, her breath uneven and broken against him. Loud, guttural sobs that left her choking and dry heaving in his arms. The sound of it cut straight through him, deeper than anything she could have said, deeper than anything he could fix.
So he didn’t try to fix it. He just held her and let her cry. Let it happen the way it needed to. Every few minutes, he murmured something—quiet reassurances, soft apologies, anything that might remind her she wasn’t alone in this moment. To remind her that she wasn't alone at all anymore. Remind her that he was here now. He pressed small, careful kisses to the crown of her head, to her temple when she shifted slightly, grounding touches that didn’t ask anything from her in return.
“I’m here now,” he whispered once, his voice low and steady despite everything. “I’ve got you.”
The rain kept falling around them, soaking them through completely, turning the ground beneath them soft and uneven, but neither of them moved. Time stretched out, undefined, measured only by the slow, uneven rhythm of her breathing and the way it gradually, barely, began to shift.
It took a while. Long enough that his legs started to go numb beneath her, long enough that his voice had softened down to almost nothing. Her sobs slowed, the sharp edges dulling into something quieter, something that still hurt but didn’t tear through her the same way. Her grip on his shirt loosened slightly, though she didn’t pull away, didn’t lift her head. She stayed right where she was.
For a few more minutes, neither of them spoke. Then, quietly, almost lost beneath the rain—
“I wasn’t sure if you’d come.”
Frank’s chest tightened again, something fragile shifting under the weight of it. “I came as soon as I knew,” he said softly, his hand still moving in slow, steady circles against her back. “I came straight to Lexington.”
She was quiet for a moment, her fingers tightened just slightly in his shirt again. “I told you to go,” she added, almost like she needed to say it out loud, like she needed to put it somewhere outside of herself. “I told you to leave. I said I didn’t need you.”
Frank shook his head faintly, his cheek brushing against her hair again. “That doesn’t mean I should’ve listened,” he said softly. “Not like that. Not when it mattered.”
She let out a shaky breath, something caught in the middle of it, something that wasn’t quite a sob anymore but wasn’t steady either. “I just…” she trailed off, her voice thinning slightly. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking…if you were here, it wouldn’t feel this hard.”
The words broke something open in his chest. He tightened his hold on her just slightly. “I’m here now,” he said for what felt like the trillionth time, his voice low beneath the rain, but he didn't care. He'd keep saying it until the end of the time if it settled her. His eyes fixed somewhere past her shoulder, on the initials carved into the tree. “I’m gonna stay a while. I don’t know how long exactly, but I’m not going back any time soon.”
“But—”
“I had already planned for a gap year,” he said gently.
The sky split open before she could answer, lightning flashed so brightly the whole clearing went white for one violent second. Thunder cracked almost immediately after, loud enough to shake through the ground beneath them, through the tree, through Frank’s arms still wrapped around her. Mel lifted her head then, startled out of herself, and Frank finally saw her up close.
She looked exhausted. Hollowed by something relentless. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face pale beneath the rain, her freckles lighter than he'd ever seen them in the summer, her mouth trembling with words she hadn’t found yet. She looked lost and scared in a way that made him feel ten years old again, uselessly promising things too big for either of them to understand.
She was only nineteen years old. Nineteen, and already standing in the ruins of another life.
Becca’s life was tied to hers now in a way neither of them had chosen, and Frank could see the weight of it settling over her shoulders. Appointments, paperwork, grief, money, school, the future she had planned and the one now forming around her without permission. There were so many things she would have to delay, rearrange, surrender quietly before anyone even thought to ask.
He couldn’t let her do it alone. Not this, not anything.
His hand lifted before he fully decided to move, brushing wet strands of hair away from her face with a gentleness that made her chest ache. His fingers lingered there, his thumb resting against her cheek, moving once over rainwater and tears he couldn’t separate.
She looked up at him, and for one breathless, terrible second, he wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt. Wanted to press his lips to hers and say everything they had buried under years of timing and fear. Wanted to be something clear for her, something certain. But not now. Not here, not while grief had her by the throat and the rain was swallowing the woods around them. So he didn’t.
“It’s okay,” he whispered instead. “I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”
He helped her stand carefully, his hands steady even when hers weren’t, then laced his fingers through hers. They ran through the woods together, slipping over roots and soaked leaves, rain hitting their faces hard enough to sting. He kept hold of her the whole way, just like he did all those years ago, on the walk to his house. Even when branches scraped his arms, even when mud pulled at their shoes.
When they reached the truck, he opened the door for her first, guiding her inside before circling around quickly. The cab smelled faintly of old leather, and the stale trace of cigarettes he suddenly hated more than ever. He climbed in, flipped the center console up into a bench, and pulled her into him without asking. She came easily, her body trembling against his side as the truck rumbled to life beneath them.
They rode that way the whole drive back. Her hand stayed locked in his, fingers cold and damp, while his thumb moved slowly over her knuckles. Neither of them spoke, but the silence wasn’t empty; it was careful, bruised, full of things waiting their turn. Rain blurred the windshield, and the wipers fought it in uneven sweeps, clearing the road only long enough to lose it again.
When he pulled into his driveway, his mother’s car was gone. He assumed the house was empty, but he still called out when they stepped inside, their hands still linked between them. “Mom?” His voice echoed faintly through the quiet hall. “Is anyone home?” and like he expected, he got no answer.
Frank led her to his room, the familiarity of it hitting him strangely as he opened drawers and found clean clothes for her. He handed them over then stepped out so she could change, taking his own dry clothes into the bathroom.
When he came back, he paused outside his bedroom door and knocked lightly.
“Come in,” she said.
He opened the door and froze. She was sitting on the edge of his bed, in his clothes, shoulders curved inward, damp hair clinging to her neck. The sight of her there pulled something old and aching through him, memories of easier nights and half-finished homework and laughter muffled into pillows.
It had been so long since he had seen her in this room.
Too long.
She looked at him for a second, then her face crumpled again.
Frank crossed the room without a word, climbed onto the bed behind her, and pulled her down with him. She folded into his chest, still crying, her body shaking against his as his arms wrapped around her. Her wet hair stuck to her neck in sticky, uncomfortable strands and an absurd flash of anger moved through him because he knew she hated that feeling. He took her hand gently, kissed her knuckles once, then slipped the blonde hair tie from her wrist.
“Here,” he murmured, gathering her hair carefully, smoothing it back with slow, patient fingers. He tied it into a loose ponytail, making sure nothing pulled too tight, then let his hand settle against the back of her head.
She kept crying, but something in her body loosened slightly, like being known in that small way had reached somewhere words couldn’t.
After a while of just crying into him, she tried to speak. Her mouth opened once, but closed again, and her hand tightened weakly in his shirt. Frank brushed his thumb along her shoulder, ready to stop her before she forced herself somewhere she couldn’t go.
“My mom told me everything, Mel,” he said softly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to try to—”
“No,” she interrupted, her voice rough and small against his chest. “I want to.” She swallowed, gathering herself in pieces. “I’ve wanted nothing more for so long than to tell you everything that’s fucked my life up,” she said, the words shaking but clear. “But I didn’t know if you wanted to hear it anymore. Or if you cared. Or if you were still mad at me for what I said.”
Frank’s throat tightened. He looked down at her, at the curve of her cheek against his shirt, at the way her fingers held on like she still expected him to disappear. Every defense he had ever carried, every hurt, every bitter memory from the day he left—it all seemed smaller now.
“I was never mad at you Mel,” he said, his voice careful and steady. “I always cared, no matter what happened. No matter how much space there was between us.” His hand moved slowly over her back. “I’m always listening.” he reminded her.
“I knew they were lying.” Her voice came out thin but certain, pressed against his chest where his shirt was faintly damp from her tears, her breath uneven between words.
“Who?” he asked quietly, though something in him already understood what she meant before she said it.
“The guys at school,” she murmured, her fingers tightening slightly in the fabric at his side. “I knew they were lying, but… it still hurt. The thought of those words paired with you.” She swallowed, her throat working around something thick. “And I missed you so fucking much, but you were always busy—and I don’t blame you, it’s okay. It’s been so long since then, and I hold absolutely no resentment towards you for it. I never really did. But… god I’ve missed you so much, Frank.”
The words didn’t rush, they poured, slow, steady, like something that had been waiting too long to be let out, filled past its limit.
“I just wanted to sit with you,” she continued, her voice cracking softly, “and talk to you and hear you tell me everything was going to be okay. But I didn’t think I deserved it anymore.”
Frank’s chest tightened painfully beneath her, his breath catching somewhere between his ribs as he listened, his hand moving in slow, automatic patterns along her back.
“I can’t tell you the last time I got a full night of sleep,” she whispered. “My mom got sick early last year, and I had to step in. I’ve been doing my classes online. My life has been completely put on hold, and… I love Becca so much, but it’s so hard to not be able to just be her sister anymore.”
Her words grew sharper, more desperate, like they were slipping through cracks she couldn’t possibly hold closed anymore.
“I barely have the energy to take care of myself—how am I supposed to take care of a whole other human being?”
“I’m so sorry, Mel,” he said, his voice breaking despite how hard he tried to steady it.
“The nightmares are so bad now,” she went on, like she hadn’t heard him, or couldn’t stop now that she had started. “I can’t even fall asleep anymore because I know they’re there—I know they’re always going to be there when I close my eyes. So I’ve stopped trying.” She let out a shaky breath. “If I fall asleep, fine. But I don’t… I don’t try to anymore.”
Frank’s vision blurred, tears slipping down without permission now, his jaw tightening as something heavy and furious turned inward. “I’m so sorry, Mel,” he said again, quieter this time, more broken. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for—”
“Yes, I do,” he cut in, the words coming faster now, urgency bleeding through them. “I do, Mel. I should have been here. I should’ve been the person you could talk to. I never should have left when you told me to. I should have stayed for break, and we could have talked, and figured everything out, and I could have been here when—”
His voice faltered, and the rest didn’t come.
“I should have been here,” he finished softly. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, lingering there for a second like it was the only thing grounding him.
Mel shifted slightly then, lifting her head just enough to look at him, her face exhausted in a way that made his chest ache all over again.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he said again, quieter now, steadier. His eyes searched hers, and she didn't push back like the last time he called her that. “I love you more than you’ve ever known. There wasn’t a day I didn’t think about you. I dreamt about sitting with you at the tree almost every night—”
She didn’t let him finish, just tilted her head up and closed the distance between them, her lips finding his in a movement that felt both sudden and inevitable, like it had been waiting for years. His hands came up immediately, framing her face with a care that bordered on reverence, thumbs brushing lightly along her cheeks as he held her there.
The kiss was soft, but full. Full of everything they hadn’t said, everything they had carried alone, everything that had stretched between them without breaking. He felt a tear slide down onto his thumb, warm against his skin before it slipped away. He didn’t know if it was hers or his, but it didn’t matter. They stayed there for a second longer than necessary before she pulled back slightly, her forehead resting against his.
“You’re here now,” she whispered.
“I am,” he answered, just as softly. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna be right here with you. We’re gonna figure everything out together.”
Something in her body gave then.
He felt it—the way her shoulders dropped, the way the tension she had been holding finally loosened its grip just slightly. She settled fully against him, her weight sinking into his chest, her breathing beginning to slow in a way it hadn’t since he had found her, and after a while, she fell asleep. Not the restless kind that pulled her under and dragged her through something she couldn’t escape. This was different. Her body went still in his arms, her breath evening out into something soft and steady. Frank stayed exactly where he was, one arm wrapped around her, the other resting lightly at her back, afraid to move in case it broke whatever fragile thing had settled over her.
And for the first time in a long time—
She dreamed.
Not of warm blood on cold tile, or broken moments, or voices that didn’t belong.
She dreamed of sunlight filtering through leaves, warm and golden against her skin. Of the tree, not darkened by rain or heavy with memory, but dry and familiar and theirs. She sat on the trunk with her legs stretched out, Frank beside her, their shoulders pressed together like they had always been. The air was quiet, still, safe.
For the first time in what felt like forever, it didn’t feel like something she had to survive.
It felt like somewhere she could return to.
Somewhere quiet.
Somewhere theirs.
Somewhere only they knew.