Page 15 of The Lilac River

Or at least that’s what I told myself.

It wasn’t the sunlight. It was the sight of Nash Miller. Standing in front of me, looking like my greatest memory and my worst heartbreak all at once.

I drove on autopilot, winding through the familiar streets of Silver Peaks. Every stop sign, every bend in the road, held a ghost of the past, and all of them wore his face.

He was still beautiful, of course. Maybe even more so now, all rough edges and hard-earned lines carved by time and pain. His hair was a little shorter, his jaw dusted with scruff that hadn’t been there when we were kids. His body, God, that body, had filled out into the kind of man women dreamed about. Solid. Strong. Devastating.

But it wasn’t his looks that wrecked me. It was his eyes.

The moment he met my gaze with eyes full of hurt and fury, it was like a fist to the chest. A physical blow. The kind that makes your knees buckle and your breath vanish. A reminder that I hadn’t just broken his heart. I’d destroyed theversion of himselfhe used to be around me.

And the worst part? Some selfish part of me hadsoaredjust seeing him again.

Just breathing the same air. Just knowing he was real. Still here. Still him.

Some traitorous thread inside me whispered maybe,maybe, we could find our way back. Or maybe I was a fool. He’d looked at me like I was poison.

The house came into view, and I pulled into the driveway, shutting off the engine but making no move to get out. I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel and let the silence settle around me like a weighted blanket.

I didn’t cry. Couldn’t.

The ache had grown too big for tears. It just sat there now; constant, old, and cruel.

Eventually, I lifted my head and stared at Mom’s house. Small. Neat. A little tired, like the rest of us. The white siding had faded in the sun, the tiny front yard was tidy but worn down by time, and the curtains, new when I left ten years ago, still hung in the windows like faded promises.

Inside, it smelled the same. Like old wood polish, lemon floor cleaner, and a hint of wildflowers from the backyard garden. The floorboard by the hallway, the one I used to sneak over after curfew, still creaked like a guilty conscience. Time hadn’t erased the past here.

It had crystallized it.

And it wasn’t the house itself that filled me with dread.

It was everything it represented. Everything I’d left behind.

I’d never cared about being the poor kid in school. Never resented secondhand clothes or having a single mom. I had love. I had best friends. I had Nash.

Nash Miller.

QB1. Prom King. Heartbreaker. Hope-giver.

He loved me the way only a teenage boy can; wildly, fiercely and with no safety net. He made me believe we could outrun everything. Even the truth.

And that was why I hated coming back here. Then, because being apart from him was unbearable. Now, because being near him might destroy me all over again.

My mind flashed back, his hand brushing hair from my face, his voice low and sure:

“One day, Lila, it'll just be you and me. Living on love.”

A kid zoomed past on a skateboard, jolting me from the memory.

I pressed a hand to my stomach, trying to calm the nausea.

Inside, Mom moved around the kitchen, still in her scrubs after a hospital shift. She looked exhausted even from a distance. Maybe she’d exaggerated how much she needed me, but still, she needed me. Maybe not to save her, but to share the weight.

I locked the car and forced a smile onto my face before walking up the steps.

“Hey,” I called as I opened the front door. “I’m back.”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Mom answered from the kitchen. “I’m trying to convince Grandma to let me cut her toenails.”