𝗠𝗘𝗔𝗡𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗕𝗘 // 𝗖.𝗙

𝖪 𝖭 𝖤 𝖶

THE NIGHT wraps itself around Sylvia like a trembling second skin as she walks away from Conrad—away from the tide, away from the weight of his confession, away from the way his voice had cracked when he said he wasn't running anymore.

She didn't trust herself to look back. If she did, she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep walking.

The sand clung to her ankles as if begging her to stay, whispering memories in every grain—laughter, last summers, Susannah's voice floating through open windows.

Sylvia swallows hard, forcing her legs to move until the beach ended and the wooden steps of the house appeared under the soft yellow glow of the porch light.

She sank onto the bottom step, her chest still tight with the remnants of Conrad's words—his truth, his regret, his hope.

But was she ready for it?

She didn't know. Not when everything inside her felt stretched too thin, like a thread pulled to the verge of snapping.

Her hands—cold, shaky—gripped her phone so tightly the edges dug into her palm. The screen came alive with the name she had been avoiding for months: Laurel.

Sylvia stares at it.

This was the house Susannah built for them—not with tools or money, but with warmth and summers that felt endless. The party tonight had been meant to honor that, to stitch torn seams between them, to remind them they were still a family even with a missing piece.

But now, after the conversation with Conrad, after hearing the sincerity in his voice and still feeling the hollow ache of everything they'd lost, all the grief she thought she had buried rose like a tide.

And suddenly, all she wanted—no, all she needed—was her mother.

Someone who had loved Susannah as fiercely as they had. Someone who might know what to do when it felt like the last piece of Susannah's memory—the beach house—was slipping through their fingers.

With a sharp inhale, Sylvia presses call.

Her thumb trembles. Her heart felt like it was beating from somewhere outside her body.

Every ring twists deeper into her chest.

Pick up, Mom. Please... please pick up.

Tears blur the screen before any sound came through—right when Sylvia's breath hitched, right when she was sure she'd fall apart if she heard her own voice reflected back to her.

Then:

"Sylvia?" Laurel's voice was groggy, startled, and instantly fearful. "Sweetheart, are you okay?"

For a moment Sylvia couldn't speak. Her throat closed around everything she'd been trying to hold together.

Laurel knew.

She always knew—especially because Sylvia never called her. Not anymore. Not unless something was truly wrong.

"N-no." Sylvia whispers, her voice cracking on a breath she couldn't steady. "I—I need you. We need you, Mom."

The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was thick with a mother's worry—a kind that crossed miles in an instant.

"What's going on?" Laurel asks, her tone sharp, awake now. "Where are you? Is Belly there? Steven?"

Sylvia swipes at a tear that fell straight onto her jeans. "Yes, we're here. At the beach house."

Another pause—this one short, bracing.