Iris:
A week passed, and somehow Blair Ridge started to feel less like a strange new world and more like something I could almost belong to.
Classes. Coffee. Late nights spent in the library with Hunter —who had a way of making the silence feel alive.
He found me there one afternoon, half-buried in my psychology notes, my brain melting into the textbook.
"You look like you're trying to decode the meaning of life," he said, dropping into the chair beside me without asking.
"I'm trying to pass my first quiz," I muttered, not looking up.
"Same thing," he said, his grin tugging at the edge of my patience and something else I couldn't name.
When I glanced up, he was already leaning in, close enough that I caught the faint trace of his cologne—clean and woodsy, like he'd just stepped out of sunlight.
"You're actually really good at this," he said, tapping the corner of my notes. "Most people's handwriting looks like hieroglyphics."
"Thanks," I said, pretending to refocus on the page.
"Not sarcasm," he added. "You've got a sharp mind, Iris. I like that."
His tone was soft, but the words hit deeper than I expected. I looked at him for a heartbeat too long. Hunter's gaze didn't waver, steady and warm, so different from the way Sawyer had looked at me that night by the river.
Sawyer's eyes had burned.
Hunter's eyes invited.
And I didn't know which one was more dangerous.
Lena talked me into stopping by The Grind-house a few days later.
"You'll love it," she said, looping her arm through mine. "It's cozy, and if you get the job, we'll have free caffeine for the rest of our lives."
The bell over the door jingled as I stepped inside. The place smelled like espresso and something sweet—vanilla, maybe. I was halfway through filling out the application when a voice came from behind the counter.
"I knew I'd see you here."
Cole Asher.
His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his apron tied around his waist, and a pencil tucked behind his ear. His smile was easy, but his eyes… they were careful and observant, as if he were trying to memorize me without looking like he was.
"Hunter said you might apply," he said, sliding a cup of coffee toward me. "On the house."
"You remembered how I take it?"
He grinned. "You make an impression."
I couldn't help but laugh, though my cheeks warmed.
He leaned on the counter, elbows bent. "You seem like someone who could handle this place. Most people fold under the morning rush."
"I grew up around chaos," I said before I could stop myself.
He tilted his head. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. You could say I'm good at surviving it."
For a second, his expression softened, the teasing gone. "For what it's worth," he said quietly, "you don't look like someone who just survives."
The words lingered long after I left.
Outside, the late sun turned Blair Ridge a golden hue. I was just about to cross the street when I saw him.
Sawyer.
Leaning against a black truck, cigarette between his fingers, that same cold calm wrapped around him like armor. A girl stood close—too close—laughing at something he said. He didn't laugh back.
His eyes lifted, finding mine across the street.
Everything stilled.
The noise of the road, the people walking by—it all disappeared. For one endless second, we just stared.
Then he dropped the cigarette, crushing it under his boot, and turned away.
I stood there until the ache in my chest dulled, telling myself it didn't matter.
But that night, as I crawled into bed, my phone buzzed against the nightstand.
A number I didn't recognize.
I stared at the message for a long time, the words pressing down on my chest like a weight.
My first thought was that it had to be some joke. My second was that it wasn't.
I typed out a reply, then deleted it before sending.
The dots never came back. Whoever it was—whoever thought they knew something about them—was gone as quickly as they appeared.
I told myself it didn't matter.
But I couldn't sleep that night.
Because deep down, I wasn't sure if I was afraid…
Or if I wanted to know who was watching me.
I must've closed my eyes at some point, but sleep never really came.
The silence pressed too heavily.
And then — like it always did when my mind got too quiet — I slipped back.
Not in dreams, but in memories.
The house was dark in my head, just like it used to be.
The smell of bourbon, the hum of the TV — I could still feel it all, down to the way the floor creaked when I tried to move without being noticed.
I was twelve the first time I realized silence could be dangerous.
That quiet wasn't safety. It was a warning.
"Where were you?"
That voice — my dad's — came from the living room. Slow, steady, too calm.
The kind of calm that came right before something broke.
I didn't answer fast enough. I never did.
I could still hear the sound that followed — not yelling, not words, just the sharp crash of something hitting the floor and my heartbeat screaming louder than anything else.
The memory bled into the darkness around me until I wasn't sure what was real anymore.
I opened my eyes, sitting up fast, breath caught in my throat. The dorm room was quiet again. Lena mumbled something in her sleep and rolled over.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
That was years ago.
He wasn't here. He couldn't be.
Still, I checked my phone again — the screen lighting up my face in the dark.
No new messages.
But the old one was still there.
You shouldn't hang around guys like them.
I locked the screen, placed it face down, and told myself to stop shaking.
It was just a message.
It didn't mean anything.
But my body didn't believe that.
Because fear like that — the kind that grows from years of waiting for something to break — doesn't leave just because you do.It hides in the corners of new places, behind laughter, beneath the hum of fluorescent lights in classrooms. It sits beside you while you pretend to start over.
By the time I crawled into bed, the message had burned itself into the back of my mind.
You can't hide forever.
I stared at the ceiling until the shadows blurred. I told myself it was a prank, a wrong number, anything but what it felt like — a hand reaching out from the past I was still running from.
I thought if I ignored it, it would go away.
But deep down, I knew better.
When my phone buzzed again, sometime past midnight, I didn't look. I couldn't.
I just turned onto my side, pulled the blanket over my head, and whispered to the dark—
"Please… not again."
And somewhere outside the dorm window, through the trees and the still night air,
a match struck.
A flicker of orange light, gone as quickly as it came.
Tomorrow would come.
But tonight, the fire was already waking