Page 48 of Five Years

“We should probably head back,” Ariana said at last.

Leah tugged her coat sleeve back, glancing at her watch: 2:31 p.m. Grace had made it clear—no return before six.

“Erm...” Leah swallowed hard. “There’s one other thing I wanted to do—if you don’t mind?”

Think. Quick. Shit.

“What would you like to do?”

Come on, Leah. Christ. Use your brain.

“Erm...well...” She blurted the first thing that came to mind. “I would love to get a Chicago deep dish pizza? If you’re still hungry?”

It was a terrible idea. Ariana had eaten a hot dog an hour ago—she couldn’t possibly want pizza now. And Leah would have to explain to Grace why she couldn’t even manage the simple task of keeping Ariana away until cake time.

“Sure. Okay.” Ariana agreed easily.

Oh.

“Great.”

“Do you have a place in mind?”

“Not really—”

Damn, you’re bad at this.

“Okay,” Ariana said, amused. “I know just the place.”

TWELVE

“Okay, you need to trust me on this one. Can you do that?” Ariana asked.

Leah turned onto a street that looked like the aftermath of a warzone—trash cans overflowing, boarded-up windows, cracked sidewalks, and a car so covered in graffiti it could’ve passed as an art installation.

“Ariana, where the hell are we?”

They were far from the Riverwalk now. Leah considered turning around, running toward the nearest place that didn’t feel like the set of an apocalypse movie—then the smell hit her.

“Oh, wow.” She inhaled so deeply her stomach growled, desperate for a sample of whatever magic was perfuming the air. It smelled like Sunday in her grandma’s kitchen.

“What is that?” Leah spun in place, nose twitching like a bloodhound on the hunt.

“You don’t recognize it, do you?”

“No.”

The street was a stranger to her now.

“Okay, imagine that car gone. The trees less wild. That building to your left was once a breakfast spot. The boarded-up place on the right? A bakery with the best banana pudding cookies you’ve ever tasted. And right here—” Ariana stepped into the middle of the street and pointed to the cracked metal grate. “This is where you got so excited about moving to Chicago that you dropped your last slice of pizza into the sewer.”

“Oh my God.” Leah’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

The neighbourhood was a shell of what she remembered—abandoned, run-down, almost completely unrecognizable.

“COVID.” Ariana shrugged. “Wiped a lot of businesses out.”

“It’s like a ghost town now. That’s really sad.”