Five years after the accident.
Tessa woke before the alarm, the way she always did.
Morning hadn’t decided what it was yet. The room was grey, washed thin by rainlight leaking through the blinds. Outside, traffic muttered along the main road—buses groaning, tyres hissing through puddles, a delivery van idling too long before giving up and moving on.
An arm lay heavy across her ribs.
Warm. Familiar. Real.
Tessa stayed still, eyes open, counting the cracks in the ceiling until they stopped trying to turn into roads. The air smelled faintly of rain and vanilla detergent, soaked into the sheets from too many shared washes. She hated the smell. Jolie bought it anyway. Said it felt clean.
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Jolie breathed against her neck, slow and deep, fingers curled into the hem of Tessa’s top like she might drift away if she let go. Possessive without intending to be. If Tessa moved, Jolie would wake. If Jolie woke, she’d smile—soft, hopeful—like the day hadn’t already begun wrong.
Tessa waited.
When she eased herself free, Jolie murmured and tightened her grip for a second—reflex, fear—before letting go. Tessa stood at the side of the bed, bare from the waist up, heart ticking too fast for such a quiet morning.
The flat was still in that in-between state: last night’s mugs on the coffee table, one chair permanently buried under clothes, the radiator ticking like it was thinking about turning on and deciding against it. Three years here and it still didn’t quite feel finished. Nothing ever did.
The mirror caught her before she could look away.
Dark eyeliner, smudged by design. Mascara she never fully cleaned off. A cropped black top pulled on without thought—skin bared like a challenge. Oversized denim jacket, sleeves frayed, heavy on her shoulders. Ripped jeans. Boots by the door, scuffed and familiar.
She looked like someone who’d learned how to stand her ground and never unlearned it.
The kettle screamed when she switched it on.
Too loud.
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She flinched, then huffed out a laugh under her breath like that solved anything.
By the time she turned back, Jolie was already in the kitchen, barefoot, mug cradled in both hands. She smiled when she saw Tessa—open, unguarded. The kind of smile that wanted answers.
“You’re up early,” Jolie said.
“Didn’t sleep,” Tessa replied.
She reached for a cigarette out of habit, then stopped. Tucked it behind her ear instead. A compromise she’d made years ago and never fully honoured.
Jolie noticed. She noticed everything lately. Careful, measured, like she was constantly checking the edges of things.
They’d lived together nearly three years. Cheap rent. Second-hand furniture. A life that worked as long as neither of them asked what it was built on.
“Tess,” Jolie said, then paused. Her thumb worried the clasp of the chain at her throat. “Before you go in tonight—”
Tessa’s phone buzzed against the counter.
A news alert. Local. She hadn’t opened one in years.
Parole hearing concludes. Release scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Her chest locked instantly.Her tongue tasted like pennies. Sharp. Total. Like something had grabbed her from the inside and refused to let go.
The room tipped a fraction to the left.
Jolie saw it happen.
“You saw it,” she said quietly.
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“Don’t,” Tessa said. Her voice came out flat, wrong. “Don’t say his name.”
“I didn’t.”
That somehow made it worse.
Tessa turned away, palms braced against the counter, breathing shallow. Five years, and the knowledge of him still did this—still dragged her back to tyres screaming, white light blooming too fast, the exact moment weight left her hands.
“What does it change?” she said, too quickly.
Jolie stepped closer. Not touching yet. “I don’t know. I just—tomorrow’s going to be strange. I wanted to be here. With you.”
Tessa laughed, short and humourless. “You’re always here.”
The words landed between them and stayed there.
Jolie’s hand hovered, then settled at the small of Tessa’s back. Light. Asking. Tessa leaned into it despite herself. The contact steadied her and didn’t.
“I love you,” Jolie said. No hesitation. No drama.
Tessa closed her eyes.
She loved Jolie. Or she loved the way Jolie stayed. The warmth. The proof that someone could choose her and keep choosing.
She didn’t know if that was the same thing.
“Work,” Tessa said, stepping away gently. “I’ll be late.”
Jolie nodded. Disappointment flickered, then smoothed into something practiced. She smiled again. Hopeful. Dangerous.
Tessa grabbed her jacket, the cigarette still forgotten behind her ear, and paused at the door. The flat suddenly felt too small, the air too clean, like it expected her to be someone else.
Tomorrow was coming whether she wanted it or not.
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She stepped outside anyway, leaving the door open just long enough for the kettle to click off by itself.
The city kept moving.
It always had.
———
The smoke clung to her jacket like it didn’t want to be left behind.
When Tessa pushed the door open, it followed her in — stale and bitter — tangling with the smell of fried oil, spilled lager, and old wood soaked too deeply to ever come clean. The bar was already crowded in the way pubs got before they admitted it to themselves: bodies too close, voices overlapping, laughter pitched half a note too high.
Fairy lights blinked along the beams overhead. Some were dead. The rest flickered, unreliable, as if the room couldn’t decide how bright it wanted to be.
The floor stuck to her boots.
Good.
She liked places that punished you for standing still.
“Took you long enough.”
Mick didn’t look up. He was wiping the bar with a cloth that had lost the argument with dirt years ago. Thick arms, greying beard, eyes that missed nothing — not because he cared, but because he’d learned not to trust what people showed him.
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Tessa checked the clock above the optics. Two minutes past.
She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on the hook by the door, careful not to look at the faint scorch mark near the pocket. “Miss me?”
“No,” Mick said. “Apron. Now.”
She tied it tight, yanking harder than necessary. The fabric bit into her ribs, sharp enough to ground her. Standing hurt. Carrying trays hurt. Being snapped at hurt.
It all felt deserved.
She slid behind the bar and disappeared into motion — glasses, taps, coins, muscle memory. The kind of work where your hands stayed busy enough that nobody asked what you were thinking. The kind of place where pain was acceptable as long as it didn’t interrupt service.
“Oi,” a regular called. “You alive today?”
“Define alive,” Tessa said, setting his pint down a little too hard. Foam crested over the rim and ran onto her fingers.
He grinned. “Fair.”
Someone laughed near the back. A couple argued quietly over crisps. Builders in fluorescent jackets replayed the same story louder each time, the details warping with every retelling.
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The bar hummed. Pressed in on itself. Too warm.
Mick reached up and turned the television volume up.
“...as tomorrow marks the release of the man convicted in the deaths of Lexi Kingsley and Skye Harper—”
The words cut clean through the noise.
Tessa’s chest tightened instantly, breath going shallow, like someone had wrapped a hand around her lungs. She kept her eyes on the glass she was drying, watching her reflection bend and stretch in the curve of it.
She didn’t look up.
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The screen filled with the Kingsleys anyway. Lexi’s mother shaking at the podium, grief sharpened into anger. Her father staring straight ahead, jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might crack.
JUSTICE FAILED US scrolled along the bottom of the screen.
A man at the bar twisted on his stool. His gaze slid from the television to Tessa and stayed there a fraction too long.
“Hey,” he said slowly. “Aren’t you—”
Her stomach dropped. Not surprise. Recognition.
“Aren’t you the sister of the girl that got killed by that guy?”
The room shifted.
Not dramatically — worse. Sound dipped and came back wrong. Someone coughed. Someone stopped laughing mid-breath. Tessa set the glass down carefully.
“Yeah,” she said.
The word felt hollow. Easy.
She didn’t look at him when she added, “Yeah. And I dated him. You want another or you want to keep staring?”
Silence settled, thick and awkward. The man’s face drained of colour.
“No,” he said quickly. “No, I’m— I’m good.”
He turned back to his drink like it might save him.
A laugh broke out too late to sound natural. Someone muttered, “Christ.”
Mick’s eyes snapped to her. Sharp. Warning.
“Table four,” he said. “Now.”
She grabbed a tray and moved, weaving through bodies, past apologies and spilled drinks. The bar felt smaller now. Elbows brushed her arms. Someone stood too close behind her at the till.
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She hated that she noticed.
The words replayed in her head — I was his girlfriend too — sharp, cruel, true. She waited for the familiar rush of satisfaction.
It didn’t come.
Just emptiness. Like she’d reached for something jagged and found air.
She was halfway back to the bar when she realised someone was sitting where there hadn’t been anyone before.
A woman at the end stool.
Older. Pale. Wrapped in a thin coat despite the heat. Her hair was neat, too neat, pulled back as if she didn’t want it touching her skin. Her hands rested on the bar, fingers folded together, nails clean and short.
She was watching Tessa.
Not staring. Waiting.
Tessa hadn’t seen her come in.
She smelled faintly of antiseptic, sharp under the heat of the room.
“What’ll it be?” Tessa asked, forcing her voice neutral.
The woman smiled faintly. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“Whatever’s easiest,” she said. Her voice was soft, but there was something off about it — like she was conserving energy. “It’s my last drink.”
Tessa paused. “Last of the night?”
The woman shook her head once. Slow. Deliberate.
“I’m dying,” she said. “Cancer. It’s progressed.”
The word landed wrong — too clean, too casual.
Tessa swallowed. “I’m... sorry.”
“So is everyone,” the woman replied. “But you don’t look like someone who lies about it.”
That made Tessa’s skin prickle.
She poured the drink without asking what kind. Whisky. Neat. Set it down carefully.
The woman didn’t reach for it.
Her gaze flicked to the television. The press conference was still playing, grief looping like an advert.
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“People talk like it’s finished once the court says it is,” the woman said. “Like that’s the end.”
Tessa stiffened. “You should drink your whisky.”
“Tessa!Table Six!,” Mick snapped, not looking at them.
The woman smiled again — thinner this time.
“You don’t believe that,” she said. “Not really.”
Tessa’s chest tightened. “You don’t know anything about me.”
The woman’s fingers shifted. She reached out and rested her hand over Tessa’s.
Her skin was cold. Not clammy. Just... cold.
“I know you didn’t walk her home,” the woman said gently.
The bar noise dropped away.
A glass shattered somewhere behind her.
Mick swore. Someone laughed too loudly.
The noise surged back in for half a second — then slipped out of reach again.
Tessa’s breath hitched. “Take your hand off me.”
The woman didn’t move.
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“I know you think that was the last thing you ever said to her,” she continued. “I know you think that’s the shape of the world now.”
Tessa yanked her hand back. “You need to leave.”
The woman finally picked up her glass. She held it, but didn’t drink.
“Sometimes,” she said quietly, “what’s buried isn’t gone. It’s just waiting.”
Tessa shook her head, pulse roaring in her ears. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
The woman met her eyes fully now. Something in her gaze was unbearable — not pity, not hope. Certainty.
“She won’t stay where you left her,” the woman said. “None of them will.”
Tessa felt dizzy. “Drink. Then go.”
The woman took a small sip, winced like it hurt, then set the glass down untouched.
“Be kind when she comes back,” she said. “She’ll be confused.”
Tessa’s voice cracked. “Get out.”
The woman stood slowly, steadying herself on the bar. She placed a note beside the glass — more than enough.
As she passed, she leaned in just close enough that Tessa could smell antiseptic on her clothes.
“It won’t fix anything,” she murmured. “But it will change everything.”
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Then she was gone.
The door shut behind her, letting in a rush of cold air and noise from the street.
Tessa stood frozen, hands trembling, the untouched whisky still on the bar.
Behind her, the television replayed the same sentence again.
Tomorrow marks the release—
Outside, sirens wailed and faded.
The day wasn’t finished with her yet.
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and then Add to home screen.