"Beautiful night, isn't it?" Her voice floats somewhere above me, golden and distant, as if she's speaking through layers of water rather than sitting right beside me. She tells me her name is Farrah, as if I’m going to remember it come morning.

When my phone rings, she answers with casual dismissal.

Through the chemical haze, my thoughts drift to a different kind of escape—one with brown hair and a smile that could light up the darkest corners of my mind. Even now, the memory of her threatens to pull me back from this edge I'm dancing on. She'd see right through me with those knowing eyes, straight to the darkness I'm letting consume me.

Part of me wants her to save me.

The rest of me knows I'm already in too deep.

I close my eyes against the night sky, letting the high carry me further from the person she once knew. It's better this way—Nora’s memory of me preserved in summer days and innocent laughter, not this hollow shell I'm becoming. Every hit, every high, every bad decision pulls me further from her orbit, and maybe that's exactly where I need to be.

Because this path I'm choosing?

It's a one-way trip to somewhere she can never follow.

31. Frosted Flakes At 2Am

CHAPTER 31

FROSTED FLAKES AT 2AM

NORA

PRESENT DAY

It's 2:03 AM and my thoughts are deafening. I slip out of bed, my bare feet silent against the wooden floors as I pad downstairs to the kitchen. The familiar path to the Frosted Flakes feels like muscle memory—a comfort I can't explain. I reach for a mug instead of a bowl, an old habit that will never be broken. The faint creak of stairs breaks through my reverie, and I turn to find Nate standing in the doorway, hair tousled and shirtless. Even exhausted, he looks like he stepped out of a Greek myth—all sharp angles and perfect shadows with a body I’m struggling to keep my eyes off of.

"Late-night snack?" His trademark smirk appears, the one that still makes my heart stumble over itself after all these years.

"Old habits die hard.” I shrug, grateful for the dim light hiding the heat in my cheeks. "Why are you up?"

"Couldn't sleep."

I don't push because I know the way secrets feel safer in the dark. I have my own demons I'm not ready to share—the nightmares where Evan's weight suffocates me, where Dad's final words echo endlessly.

Nate moves into the kitchen with fluid grace, retrieving a spoon before claiming my mug of cereal without asking.

"Still eating cereal out of a mug, huh? You know bowls exist, right?"

I roll my eyes, reclaiming my midnight snack. "Shut up. I like it this way. It's efficient."

"Efficient?" His laugh is low, intimate in the quiet kitchen. He leans against the counter, eyes lingering on me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. "You're still a little weirdo."