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“I like it,” Evie said, offering me a small, almost shy smile before slipping past him toward the kitchen. I dropped the cape, watching her go, trailing her movement with my heart in my throat.

“You keep looking at her like that,” Peter said behind me, “and I’m going to have to use this.” I turned slowly to find him pointing a plastic gun at me, badly concealed amusement written all over his face.

“Am I supposed to be afraid?” I asked flatly.

His grin widened, something knowing flickering in his eyes.

“You should be very afraid, Easton,” he said, backing away with exaggerated caution, arms stretched out like some kind of undead cowboy. “Very, very afraid.”

We spent the night trick-or-treating and watching horror films. I remember Evie woke up the next morning with her eyeliner smudged beneath her eyes. She thought she looked like a racoon. I thought she was so beautiful, it made my stomach hurt.

But I wasn’t looking at any of that now.

I was looking at her.

The way she was looking up at me.

The sight knocked something loose in my chest in a way I’d never been able to properly explain to anyone—not even myself. My thumb dragged over her face without thinking.

“Evie,” I said under my breath. And for a second—just one cruel, perfect second—it felt like she might answer. “You’re unreal,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if I was talking to the photo or to a memory that refused to stay in the past where it was supposed to.

The worst part wasn’t even the loss.

It was how vividly I could still hear her.

The way she used to laugh too quietly when she thought something was funny, but didn’t want to admit it. The way she’d stand slightly behind me when she was nervous, like I was some kind of barrier between her and the world. The way she looked at things like she was trying to memorise them. Like she knew she didn’t get enough time.

Six weeks.

That was all we had after this picture.

Six weeks before everything split clean down the middle and never stitched itself back together properly. I set the photo down on top of the growing pile, careful with it in a way I didn’t really understand, until I realised I was being careful with her, not the still image.

The next one felt worse before I even turned it over. I knew it was coming. That was the problem. I always knew. Evie was in a West Coast Kangaroos scarf, the red, blue, and gold wrapped loosely around her neck as she smiled straight at the camera. Behind her, Peter was mid-bunny ears, completely unashamed. I leaned back against the bottom of the couch and let out a tired exhale. Looking at this image…I could see a version of a life that should’ve happened. The one that never needed imagining, because it should’ve just…been.

“She would’ve hated the cold,” I muttered under my breath, thumb brushing the edge of the photo like it might warm it somehow. “Still would’ve come to every game, though.” I swallowed harshly as my eyes watered. “She would’ve made it everyone’s problem that she was there for me.” A small laugh slipped out before I could stop it, but it caught halfway and died.

Fuck.

It wasn’t even hypothetical in my head anymore. It had become something I returned to without meaning to, some quiet, impossible loop where she was always in the crowd, always shouting my name like it mattered more than anything else in the world. Like I mattered more than anything else in the world. I placed the photo down carefully and reached for the next one.

This one stopped me completely.

My hand didn’t even close around it properly at first.

Evie was reading a book on the patio one night after dinner. Peter was doing the dishes while I fiddled around with the camera he’d just gifted me for my nineteenth. I didn’t even try to be subtle when I opened the fly screen door and stood above her. As soon as she looked up, I took the photos in succession, capturing her surprise. Large, green doe eyes shone with innocence in the first one while the second captured the moment she realised it was me. A tender smile painted across her lips, her eyes softened with…love.

It had always been there, hadn't it?

My grip tightened on the edge of the photo until the paper bent slightly, and I forced myself to loosen it before I ruined it completely, but kept a hold of it anyway. Because putting it down felt like letting go in a way I was not ready to do.

Ollie hopped onto the couch and watched me from a distance, head tilted like he understood more than he should. But I just sat there with the photo in my hand, breathing around a memory that still felt too alive to be allowed to hurt this much, for this long.

Steam billowed through the moonlit bedroom, drifting in slow, ghostlike ribbons from the open bathroom door. The shower ran hot, hammering against my shoulders and spine until the ache in my lower back dulled into something almost manageable. The sacroiliac joint injury still flared if I shifted wrong. Last month’s tackle nearly ended my season. The doctor said rest. I said finals—that was the end of the conversation.

“Shit,” I cursed when the bar of soap slipped from my grasp and hit the tiles with a wet slap. I bent down to grab it when the lights switched off, plunging the bathroom into darkness. The water kept running for half a second longer before I killed it, heart already ticking faster than it should. Steam thickened around me, clinging to my skin, turning the room into something I couldn’t see through properly. “Power outage,” I muttered, more to myself than anything. But it didn’t feel like a power outage.

I stepped out, dripping, reaching blindly for my towel. The fabric scraped my hands as I found it and wrapped it around my waist, eyes adjusting slowly to the dim bleed of streetlight slipping through the frosted window. I stood in the doorway, noticing how the Christmas lights were still flashing on the house across the road.