The road into Willow Harbor curved along the edge of the sea, the kind of road that demanded silence. Emma Lawson rolled down her window, letting in the sharp salt air and the sound of the waves colliding with the rocks below. Ten years. Ten years since she'd driven this same stretch, her car loaded with canvases and the promise that she'd never come back.
But promises, she'd learned, were fickle things. Especially the ones we make to ourselves.
The town looked the same, and that somehow hurt more than if it had changed. The same weather-beaten storefronts. The same hand-painted sign outside the Harbor Café. The same old clock tower that never told the right time.
Emma parked in front of her aunt's house — now her house, technically — a white cottage with peeling blue shutters and a yard wild with weeds. She stood at the gate, gripping the rusted latch, feeling the weight of every memory pressing in around her.
Inside, the air was still and heavy with dust. Furniture covered with sheets. An empty teacup still on the counter. Her aunt had been gone for six months, and yet somehow it felt like she'd only stepped out for a walk.
Emma exhaled. "Guess it's just us now," she murmured, running her hand over the old oak table.
By late afternoon, she'd unpacked enough to feel like she might stay a night or two. But the walls were too quiet, and the silence too familiar. So she walked — past the rows of pastel houses, past the sound of gulls crying overhead, until she reached the café that had once been her second home.
The Harbor Café hadn't changed either. Same smell of espresso and sea air, same bell over the door that jingled too loudly. Emma paused inside, brushing the rain from her hair, and that's when she saw her.
Hannah Reed.
Sitting by the window, sunlight spilling across her in that soft, golden way that made the world pause. She was laughing with someone at the counter, her hands folded neatly around a mug, posture straight — every inch composed.
Emma recognized her instantly, even after all these years. She'd been a few grades ahead in school, always the dependable one — the girl everyone seemed to orbit around without realizing it. But Hannah had changed. There was something quieter in her now, something almost guarded.
Their eyes met across the room. Just for a second.
Then Hannah blinked, smiled politely, and went back to her coffee.
Emma's pulse stuttered. It was nothing, just a look. But the kind of look that lingers.
She ordered her drink, pretending not to glance back, but she could feel it — that strange awareness that hummed in her chest like static. When she finally sat down near the window, the rain had started again, streaking the glass between them.
Neither spoke. But when Hannah rose to leave, she passed by Emma's table, paused, and said softly, "Welcome back."
Emma's heart tripped. "You remember me?"
"Small town," Hannah said, her lips curving just slightly. "Nobody ever really leaves."
And then she was gone, leaving behind the faintest scent of rain and cinnamon — and the unmistakable sense that Willow Harbor was about to change everything Emma thought she knew about herself.