The second Tuesday without him hurt more than the first.
The first had been shock.
The emptiness of the corner booth looked like a missing tooth in the diner’s smile. Her hands had kept reaching for a coffee pot at 1:58 like muscle memory, only to find they were already full.
The second, she’d known what to expect.
That somehow made it worse.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Kelsey said around three a.m., as Rae cut another slice of lemon meringue she knew no one had ordered.
“What thing,” Rae muttered.
“The thing where your eyes keep shooting to that table every time the door opens, like a dog who heard the treat bag crinkle,” Kelsey said.
“I am not a dog,” Rae said.
“You’re something,” Kelsey said. “How’s the class?”
Rae blinked.
It took her a second to switch lanes.
“Good,” she said. “We did in-class writing. Nobody died. Halpern’s actually… not insufferable.”
“Any cute classmates?” Kelsey asked.
“Why is that your second question?” Rae grumbled.
“Because your first answer didn’t include ‘I made out with anyone in the stacks,’ so I have to cover the important bases,” Kelsey said.
Rae rolled her eyes.
“There’s a guy with a beard,” she said. “He uses the word ‘liminal’ a lot.”
“So… no,” Kelsey said.
“I’m not… there for that,” Rae said.
“You’re never ‘there for that,’” Kelsey pointed out. “Then you end up accidentally emotionally entangled with a missing person over pie.”
Rae stiffened.
“We are not emotionally entangled,” she said automatically.
Kelsey just *looked* at her.
“Fine,” Rae muttered. “We’re… emotionally adjacent.”
“That’s not a thing,” Kelsey said. “You either are or you aren’t.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil,” Rae said. “I’ll see myself out.”
Kelsey sipped her coffee.
“You tell him about the PI?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Rae said quietly. “He already knew the type. Apparently his dad only hires the best mercenaries.”
“Yikes,” Kelsey said. “The vibes on that guy were… bad.”
“He knew my name without me giving it,” Rae said.
Kelsey’s eyes widened.
“He what?” she hissed.
“Name tag,” Rae said. “He pointed. But still.”
“Still,” Kelsey echoed.
“He put up a flyer,” Rae went on. “On the board.”
They both looked around the diner automatically.
Their eyes landed on the corkboard near the restrooms.
Smiling face. Bold reward.
$750,000.
The number looked obscene.
“We could buy a better coffee machine with that,” Kelsey said.
“We could buy a whole *new life* with that,” Rae said. “Or at least a really nice used one.”
“You still wanna call?” Kelsey asked.
The question made her stomach knot.
“Yes.
No.
Both.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Every day I… don’t… feels like a choice. And every day I consider it… also feels like a choice.”
“Welcome to moral gray areas,” Kelsey said. “They suck.”
Rae snorted.
“I noticed,” she said.
Mace rapped his knuckles lightly on the counter as he slid onto a stool.
“You look like you’re plottin’ a heist,” he said.
“Just planning my week,” Rae said. “Diner, class, lying to private investigators, the usual.”
Mace blinked.
“Private what?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
He wasn’t stupid.
His eyes narrowed.
“You tellin’ me that rich boy’s people have been sniffin’ around here and you didn’t think to mention it?” he demanded.
“Kline,” Kelsey put in. “PI. Slick haircut. Good shoes.”
Mace swore.
“Truck stop gossip’s been full of him,” he said. “Guys say he’s been up and down this stretch like a bad penny. Thought he’d stay closer to the city.”
“Apparently not,” Rae said.
Mace shook his head.
“You gotta be careful,” he said. “Guys like that… they’re not *bad* like in the movies. They’re worse. They’re… polite. They smile. They make you feel like you owe ‘em somethin’. Next thing you know, you’re sayin’ more than you mean to.”
“I’m not stupid,” Rae said, a little too sharp.
“I didn’t say you were,” Mace shot back. “But you’re… kind. That’s a scarier combo.”
Kind.
The word twisted.
She didn’t feel kind.
She felt… split.
Part of her wanted to protect Noah at all costs.
Part of her wanted to call his brother and scream at him to come get his idiot sibling before the world chewed him up.
She thought of Evan’s voice.
Don’t do anything permanent.
She thought of Noah’s.
If this gets worse… promise me you’ll pick yourself.
“You talk to him?” Mace asked, lowering his voice.
She hesitated.
“Not… in person,” she said. “He’s… staying away. For now.”
Mace nodded slowly.
“Good,” he said. “Guy’s got sense in there somewhere.”
His tone made something prickly rise in her.
“You don’t like him,” she said.
“Don’t know him,” Mace corrected. “That’s the problem. At least with the assholes I run into at truck stops, I can smell their bullshit. Him? He’s… quiet. That scares me more.”
“He’s not a killer,” she snapped. “He’s… just… tired.”
Mace studied her.
“You sure?” he asked.
“About which part?” she said.
He sighed.
“Just… watch your back, Sunshine,” he said. “I know you think you can see everything comin’ from that counter. But sometimes… the hit comes from the blind spot.”
She busied herself with the coffee mugs, throat tight.
The bell over the door jangled.
Her head snapped up.
Teenagers.
Bored, hungry, loud.
Her shoulders sagged.
“Hey!” one of them yelled. “You got pie?”
“Do I look like someone who *doesn’t* have pie?” she called back.
They laughed.
The night rolled on.
The corner booth stayed empty.
***
The first workshop was the following Tuesday.
Halpern had them submit their drafts a week in advance via email, then printed everyone’s out and passed them around with handwritten comments in the margins.
Rae’s story had been a thinly veiled piece about a girl on the night shift in a funeral home.
She’d changed names and details.
But the bones were familiar.
Lonely hours.
Linoleum floors.
Dead weight she couldn’t talk about with anyone.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from the workshop.
Maybe for people to pick it apart until it didn’t feel like hers anymore.
Maybe to feel… exposed.
Instead, as her classmates talked, she felt something else.
Seen.
“I like how she talks to the dead people,” Sky said. “Not in a creepy ‘they answer’ way, but… it makes sense. The idea that the only ones who can’t judge you are the ones who can’t answer back.”
“I wanted… more about the mom,” Miriam said. “We get glimpses. The cigarette smell. The hospital bracelet. But I feel like… there’s a whole ghost there we only see the edge of.”
Halpern nodded.
“You’re doing that thing where you skirt the most powerful part of your own story,” he said gently. “You don’t have to… rip it all open at once. But trust your instinct that that’s where the heat is.”
Heat.
She thought of that.
Of the word in Noah’s mouth—when he’d talked about her writing, about how the diner had become a character, about how she put herself on the page even when she didn’t mean to.
He wasn’t in the room.
But he was in her head.
She wanted him there.
Wanted him to hear this.
To hear other people say the things about her writing that he’d been saying for weeks—months—so it didn’t sound like some weird, flattering echo.
She pictured him in the corner booth.
Elbows on the table.
Pen in hand.
Listening.
She almost expected to look up and see him there.
Instead, there was only Halpern.
“Questions for Rae?” he asked.
Danny raised his hand.
“Why a funeral home?” he asked. “Why not, like… a hospital, or a 7-Eleven?”
“Or a diner,” Aaron added.
Rae’s throat worked.
“Because…” she said slowly, “that’s where… my head feels like it’s been for a while.”
A beat.
Halpern’s eyes softened.
“Honest answer,” he said. “Hold onto it. Dig.”
When class ended, Miriam caught up with her in the hall.
“You’re good,” she said. “Like… really good.”
Rae flushed.
“Thanks,” she said awkwardly.
“I’m not just being nice,” Miriam said. “Halpern tears me apart when my metaphors get too… Pinterest.”
“He tore into my ending,” Rae said. “Said it was ‘emotionally evasive.’”
Miriam laughed.
“He tells everyone that,” she said. “We’re all emotionally evasive. It’s self-preservation.”
They walked out together.
It felt… nice.
Having someone to walk with.
“Where do you work nights?” Miriam asked.
“Sunset Grill,” Rae said. “Off Exit 19.”
Miriam’s eyes widened.
“No shit,” she said. “I used to go there with my ex. Before he was my ex. Before we realized we hated each other’s chewing noises.”
Rae barked a laugh.
“Small world,” she said.
“You get a guy in a suit who tips big and reads hardcovers at two a.m.?” Miriam asked. “He used to come in on my nights when I worked at the Walgreens down the street.”
Rae’s heart stuttered.
“Guy with gray eyes?” she asked carefully. “Kind of… sad jawline?”
Miriam tilted her head.
“Sad… jawline,” she repeated, amused. “Yeah. That sounds right. He hasn’t been around in a while, though. I always wondered… what happened to him.”
Rae swallowed.
“Roads took him somewhere else,” she said lightly. “I guess.”
“Hope he’s okay,” Miriam said. “He had that vibe.”
“What vibe?” Rae asked.
“The ‘I’m one bad day away from burning my whole life down’ vibe,” Miriam said.
Rae huffed a humorless laugh.
“Yeah,” she said. “Something like that.”
They split in the parking lot, waving.
Rae sat in her car for a minute, fingers white on the steering wheel.
The net around Noah was smaller than she’d realized.
He wasn’t just her Tuesday secret.
He was… sightings.
Memories.
At Walgreens.
At gas stations.
At rest stops.
At diners like hers all up and down the interstate.
Everywhere he tried to disappear, he left ripples.
She turned the key in the ignition.
The engine coughed, caught.
As she pulled out onto the road that would take her to Exit 19, her phone buzzed in the cup holder.
She fumbled it up at a red light.
> How’d it go
Her chest eased.
> They didn’t hate it
> Halpern says I’m emotionally evasive
> He’s not wrong
> He’s also not wrong
> I’m proud of you
> Stop
> Make me
She smiled at the screen.
> You promised
> Don’t push your luck
> How’s nowhere
> Lonely
> Loud
> I miss the bell
Her throat tightened.
> The bell misses you
> It keeps startling me with strangers
> Jealous bell
> I’ll fix it soon
The light turned green.
She set the phone down.
The drive to the diner felt… shorter.
Her life, longer.
Or at least… wider.
She had words on a page other people were reading.
She had a PI sniffing around like a wolf.
She had a missing man in her pocket and her heart and her future tense.
And she had eight words looped in her head like a refrain.
*I promise… I’ll kiss you when I come back.*
The almost had become a when.
Whatever came next, she’d chosen that much.
It would have to be enough.
For now.
***