The gray light came first—flat, colorless, the kind that made the pool house feel like it was underwater. Ryan blinked against it, his eyes gritty from a night that hadn't been sleep so much as a series of small surrenders to exhaustion. The ceiling fan turned slow overhead, clicking with each rotation, and for a moment he didn't remember where he was or why his chest felt hollow.

Then the cold hit him.

The sheets beside him were empty, the warmth long gone. He reached out without thinking, his palm pressing into the hollow where Marissa's body had been, the cotton cool against his skin. The imprint of her was still there—a curve, a dip, the ghost of her hip in the mattress—but she was gone.

He lay still for a long moment, letting the silence settle around him like a thing with weight. The pool house had never felt this quiet before. Even when he was alone, there was the hum of the pool filter, the distant crash of the ocean, the creak of the main house settling. Now there was nothing but the fan and the sound of his own breathing, too loud in his ears.

He turned his head, and the scent hit him—jasmine and something sweet, the perfume she wore when she was trying to be brave. It clung to the pillowcase, faint and already fading, and he found himself breathing it in like it was the last thing he'd ever get of her.

The note was on the nightstand.

He saw it before he understood what it was—a folded piece of paper, the kind torn from a notebook, sitting on the wood like it had been placed there with care. His name was on the outside, written in her handwriting, and his stomach dropped before his brain caught up.

He sat up, the sheet pooling around his waist, and reached for it. His fingers brushed the paper, and he hesitated, suddenly afraid of what was inside. The last time someone had left him a note, it had been his mother, and she hadn't come back for three weeks.

He unfolded it anyway.

*Ryan—*

*I had to go before she noticed. I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave like this. I didn't want to leave at all.*

*Thank you for last night. For all of it. I don't know how to say what it meant, so I'm not going to try. You were right. Some things hold together.*

*I'll find you later. I promise.*

*—M*

Her handwriting was shaky, the letters uneven, like she'd written it in a hurry, one eye on the door. The last line was smudged, the ink bleeding where her thumb had pressed down too hard, and he traced the edge of the paper with his thumb, feeling the rough tear where she'd ripped it from the notebook.

He read it twice. Three times. The words didn't change.

She was gone.

He'd known it the second he woke up, known it in the cold sheets and the empty space beside him, but seeing it in her handwriting made it real in a way that settled in his chest like a stone. She'd left before he could wake up. Before he could tell her—what? He didn't know. Something. Anything.

He was still holding the note when his phone buzzed.

The sound cut through the silence like a blade, sharp and sudden, and he flinched, his hand closing tighter around the paper. The phone was on the floor, where he'd dropped it the night before, the screen lighting up with a glow that seemed too bright in the gray morning.

He reached for it, his fingers brushing the cold glass, and the name on the screen made his throat tighten.

*Marissa.*

He unlocked it, his thumb moving before his brain caught up, and the text bloomed against the dark:

*My mom knows I wasn't home. She's waiting for me. I'm scared.*

He stared at the words, his heart hammering against his ribs. The letters were stark, unadorned, and he could hear her voice in them—that low, raw voice she used when she dropped the mask, the one that made him want to find whoever had put that fear in her and make them understand what it cost.

His thumb hovered over the screen. He wanted to type something back—*I'm coming. Where are you? Don't go in alone.*—but the words wouldn't come. His hands were shaking, a fine tremor he couldn't stop, and he hated it. Hated that she was out there, facing whatever was waiting for her, and he was here, in this quiet room with her perfume on his pillow and her note in his hand.

The phone lit up again. Another message.

*Don't text back. She might see it.*

He set the phone down on the nightstand, face-up, the screen still glowing. The note was still in his other hand, creased where his fingers had closed around it, and he looked at it for a long moment before folding it carefully, the way he'd folded her first note—the one she'd passed him in class, the one that had led him to the Harbor party, to the dock, to this.

He tucked it into the pocket of his jeans, over his heart, next to the worn paper of the first note he'd ever gotten from her. They were both there now, two pieces of her, and he pressed his palm against them like he could keep her safe through sheer force of will.

Then he swung his legs off the bed and reached for his boots.

They were on the floor where he'd kicked them off the night before, scuffed and worn, the leather cracked from a thousand Chino streets. He grabbed the first one and pulled it on, his fingers fumbling with the laces, his mind already running ahead of him—to Marissa's house, to her mother, to whatever scene was waiting there.

He didn't know what he was going to do. He didn't know if there was anything he *could* do. But he knew he couldn't stay here, in this room, with her note in his pocket and her text glowing on his phone, unanswered.

He was halfway through the second boot, the laces still loose, when the slider creaked open.

Ryan's head snapped up, his body tensing, his hands stilling on the leather. The gray morning light spilled in through the open door, and against it stood Seth—coffee cup in one hand, the other raised in a lazy wave, one eyebrow arched high on his forehead.

"Well," Seth said, his voice carrying that particular blend of curiosity and amusement that only he could manage at seven in the morning. "This is either a very good morning or a very bad one. I'm here to find out which."

Ryan stared at him, his heart still pounding, his fingers frozen on the laces. The phone glowed on the nightstand behind him, Marissa's words still burning on the screen. The note sat in his pocket, a weight against his chest.

And Seth stood in the doorway, waiting for an answer Ryan didn't have.

Ryan's fingers tightened on the laces, the leather rough against his knuckles. The scarred skin pulled white across his joints, and he watched his own hands like they belonged to someone else—someone who knew what to do next.

"Bad," he said finally. The word came out flat, scraped clean of anything Seth could use.

Seth's eyebrow climbed higher. He didn't move from the doorway, but something in his posture shifted—the lazy wave gone, replaced by a stillness that looked almost like concern. "Bad how? Like, 'I accidentally wore white after Labor Day' bad, or bad enough that I should put down this coffee and do something about it?"

Ryan's jaw worked. He looked past Seth, out through the open slider to the gray morning beyond—the pool flat and still, the hedges dark with dew, the sky the color of old dishwater. Somewhere out there, Marissa was walking into a house where her mother was waiting. Waiting to ask where she'd been. Waiting to find out she'd spent the night in a pool house with a boy from Chino.

"She left before I woke up," he said. The words came out slower than he wanted, each one dragged up from somewhere deep. "Her mom knows she wasn't home."

Seth's face did something complicated—a series of micro-expressions that landed on something close to understanding. He stepped inside, letting the slider hiss shut behind him, and crossed the room to set his coffee on the small table by the bed. The mug made a soft sound against the wood, too loud in the quiet.

"Okay," Seth said. "Okay. So we're in 'bad enough' territory." He dropped onto the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, and Ryan felt the shift through the frame. "What do you need?"

Ryan stared at him. The question was so simple, so direct, that it took him a moment to understand it. People didn't ask him that. They told him what he needed—a lawyer, a home, a chance—but they never asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. The truth sat heavy in his chest, next to the folded notes. "I don't know what I can do from here."

"That's a start," Seth said, and there was something in his voice that wasn't a joke for once. "Not knowing is better than pretending you've got it figured out. Trust me, I've done a lot of both."

The fan clicked overhead. The pool filter hummed its low, steady note. Ryan's phone glowed on the nightstand, the screen dark now, but he could still see the words burned into the back of his eyelids: *She's waiting for me. I'm scared.*

He looked down at his boots—one laced tight, the other loose, the lace trailing across the floor. He should finish tying it. He should stand up. He should do something. But his hands had gone still, and the room felt like it was holding its breath with him.

On the floor near the foot of the bed, half-hidden by the shadow of the nightstand, something caught the light. A small glint, gold against the gray. Ryan leaned forward, his fingers brushing the wood, and picked it up—a small hoop earring, delicate, the kind that cost more than his entire wardrobe. The clasp was still closed, like it had been pulled free by accident, caught in a tangle of hair or a hurried turn.

He turned it over in his palm. The metal was warm from the floor, warm like it had been there all night, waiting for him to find it.

"That hers?" Seth asked, his voice quiet.

Ryan nodded. He closed his fingers around it, the metal pressing into his palm, and felt something settle in his chest—not calm, not resolution, but something smaller. A fixed point. A thing he could hold onto.

He tucked the earring into the pocket of his jeans, next to the notes, and reached down to finish tying his boot.