18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUbauWHb3dV
Eli Navarro measured his life in Friday nights.
Not the loud, chaotic kind that happened in crowded bars or packed living rooms, but this kind. The kind that smelled like cheap takeout grease, cooling asphalt, and the specific brand of fabric softener Jonah’s mom used on his hoodies.
They were sitting on the edge of the retaining wall behind the old community center, legs dangling over the drop where the town sloped down toward the highway. It was their spot. It had been their spot since sophomore year of high school, and now, two years out of graduation, it was the only thing that felt entirely unchanged.
"I’m telling you," Jonah said, leaning back on his elbows, a half-eaten burger balanced precariously on his chest. "If I had a superpower, it wouldn't be flight. Flight is too high-pressure. You have to save people falling out of buildings. Too much stress."
"So what is it?" Mara asked. She was balancing on the very edge of the concrete wall, walking it like a tightrope. She was the only one who never seemed afraid of falling.
"Invisibility," Jonah said seriously. "Think about the naps you could take. You could sleep anywhere. In a bank queue. In a meeting. No one would know."
"That’s the saddest superpower I’ve ever heard," Lena said, not looking up from her phone. The blue light illuminated her glasses. "You want a superpower so you can avoid participating in life?"
"I want a superpower that lets me rest, Lena. Some of us are tired."
Eli sat quietly in the middle of them, observing the rhythm. It was a dance he knew by heart. Jonah threw out the bait, Lena analyzed it, Mara challenged it, and Caleb…
Caleb was sitting a few feet away, leaning against the chain-link fence, whittling a piece of driftwood he’d found earlier. He didn’t say anything, but he offered a small, rough huff of a laugh at Jonah’s comment. That was Caleb’s contribution—a silent presence that made the rest of them feel safe enough to be loud.
"Eli, back me up," Jonah said, nudging Eli’s knee with his sneaker. "Invisibility. Top tier."
Eli took a sip of his soda. "I think you just want to disappear so you don't have to pay me the ten bucks you owe me for the food."
The group laughed, a collective, easy sound that drifted up into the night air. It was a good sound. But as the laughter faded, settling back into the hum of distant traffic, Eli felt that familiar, nagging pull in his chest.
He watched them.
Mara, staring out at the horizon with a hunger in her eyes that this small town couldn’t feed.
Lena, scrolling through emails, her brow furrowed with the weight of expectations she placed on herself.
Jonah, making jokes to fill the silence because silence gave him too much time to think.
Caleb, rubbing his thumb over the scar on his knuckle, lost in a memory he never shared.
They were together, their shoulders touching, their voices overlapping, but Eli could see the cracks. They were all waiting for something. Or maybe they were hiding from something.
"Do you guys ever think," Mara said, stopping her tightrope walk and turning to face them, her silhouette framed by the streetlights below, "that we’re just… looping? Same wall. Same food. Same conversations."
"I like the loop," Jonah said quickly. "The loop is safe. The loop has burgers."
"It’s stagnant," Mara countered. She kicked a pebble over the edge. They all listened for it to hit the ground, but the sound never came. "I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or for a door to open. Just… something."
Lena finally put her phone down. "Be careful what you wish for, Mara. Routine is underrated. Chaos isn’t usually fun while you’re living it."
"I don't want chaos," Mara said softly. "I just want… more."
She looked at Caleb. He stopped whittling. He looked up, meeting her gaze, and for a second, the air between them felt heavy, charged with the history of the mistake that haunted him—the reason he was so careful now.
"More isn't always better," Caleb said, his voice deep and gravelly. It was the first full sentence he’d spoken in an hour.
The mood dipped, shifting from light banter to something more fragile. This was the tension Eli felt constantly—the unspoken things they carried. They were a family, yes, but a family built on the precarious agreement not to look too closely at the scary parts of one another.
"Well," Eli said, breaking the silence before it could curdle. "Until the 'more' happens, you’re stuck with us. And you still owe me ten bucks, Jonah."
Jonah groaned, the tension snapping like a rubber band as the group relaxed back into their roles.
"I’ll pay you when I’m invisible," Jonah muttered.
Eli smiled, but as he looked out at the highway stretching into the dark, he couldn't shake Mara’s words. The loop.
He didn't know it yet, but the loop was about to break. The ordinary days were ending, and the "more" Mara wanted was coming for them faster than they could run.
For now, though, they just sat there—five friends on a wall, holding onto the moment before the world tipped over.
Would you like to make any adjustments to the dynamic in Chapter 1, or shall we move on to
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