It starts slow. A sniff. A small, barely noticeable tremble.
Then it floods. All of it. Every version of her I tried to keep alive. Every what-if. Every could-have-been.
She’s gone.
And I think, somewhere deep down, I always knew.
But now I feel it. In my bones. In the way the stars blur and the sand sticks to my knees and the cold presses into my spine.
She’s not coming back.
I wipe my face with the hem of my shirt as I stand up. My legs shake. My flip-flop sticks in the sand and I have to hop a step to yank it free—and just like that, I’m eight again, chasing Brynn down this same stretch of beach with a plastic shovel in one hand and seaweed in the other, threatening to make her a kelp crown because she said she wanted to be queen of something.
She’d screamed, laughed, and flung wet sand at me until our mom yelled from the blanket to cut it out. Then she pulled me behind a rock and whispered that we were gonna run away someday. Buy a van. Paint it pink. Live on the beach and only eat ice cream and chips. No rules. No bedtimes. No bullshit.
And I’d believed her.
Because Brynn always said things like that—like magic wasn’t a maybe, it was a promise.
Now the sand’s too quiet. The stars don’t look like magic—they look like dust someone forgot to sweep. And me? I’m just some half-wrecked girl caught in a never-ending dick-measuring contest between a drug dealer with a god-tier cock and a DJ who, despite being a total insufferable asshole lately, has hands that could probably make Mother Teresa moan.
Which—honestly—is rich, considering I used to believe in a lot of things. Like fairy tales. And rehab. And that Brynn was just lost, notgone. Like I wasn’t slowly turning into a fucking cliché with smeared mascara and a dead sister-shaped hole in her chest.
But hey. At least the sex is fucking top tier.
I head back the way I came. The vending machine hums in the distance, a dull electric drone. I don’t realize I’m being watched until I hear the crunch of tires over gravel.
A van pulls up alongside me. Slow. Too slow. My head snaps to the side. It’s matte black. No plates. Windows tinted so dark I can’t see inside, and the guy behind the wheel?
Wearing a fucking ski mask.
Oh fuck no.
I spin on my heel.
But the door slides open before I can take a step.
Hands—big, gloved, fast—snatch me by the waist. A cloth bag comes down over my head while another guy zip ties my hands behind my back. I scream, and kick.
“Let go of me, you fucking psychos!”
My teeth find flesh, I bite down hard, and get a sharp curse in return.
“Bitch, bit me!”
“Just get her in the fuckin’ van!”
A knee slams into my ribs. I cry out. Pain rips through my side. My feet leave the ground.
“No—let go of me! I’ll kill you—I swear to God!”
I try to twist, to run, but my legs are already off the ground. I’m lifted. Thrown.
My shoulder hits metal. Hard. The floor of the van is rough, slick with something I don’t want to think about. My knees scrape. My hip slams into a bolt sticking out from the side panel. I twist, try to buck free, but someone’s already on me. Holding me down.
The door slams shut behind me, the echo like a gunshot. Tires screech. The van lurches forward.
We’re moving. Fast.
