Adrift

Riley doesn't remember the last time someone asked if she was okay.

Not really asked. Not in the way that meant they were going to stay for the answer.

She is seventeen years old and she has already learned the most important lesson this town has to offer - that people leave. They leave with promises folded neatly in their pockets, with good intentions they fully mean at the time, with duffel bags and bus tickets and fifteen days that turn into three years without a single word. They leave, and the ones left behind learn to stop waiting by the window. They learn to stop setting an extra plate. They learn to breathe around the absence until the absence just becomes the air.

Riley works the late shift. She carries drinks to tables without being asked twice. She doesn't flinch at loud voices anymore. She doesn't cry at things that used to make her cry. She has become very good at being invisible in a room full of people - and even better at being invisible to herself.

This is not the life she imagined. But it is the life she has. And she has made her peace with it, quietly, the way you make peace with things you never had a choice about.

She is not waiting for anyone anymore.

She stopped doing that a long time ago.

Until the night a familiar face walks through the door - and three brothers who left her behind must now face what their absence built. Because blood doesn't forget. And neither does Riley.