House 58 itself looks like all the other houses on Axio Street: a wrap-around porch, a garage, and a wide window that bubbles outward from the second level. But this isn’t just a house. This is the house, the house that marks the end of my journey. Inside it is the girl I loved so long ago.

I remember opening my front door and seeing her. She had long black hair and dark blue eyes, paler skin than me, and soft red lips that would’ve driven any sixteen-year-old guy crazy. And the way she talked…free and lazy, always with a cool, almost bored-sounding drawl. Ladia Purnell was the girl from Father’s stories. I was supposed to fall in love with her, and I did, right there on my doorstep.

Like destiny.

When she left, I promised I’d join the Embassy and find her again. I whispered that promise in her ear. She smirked at me, and kissed me, and let her hands fall down my arms. I can still feel the chills that rushed up my spine, even as she walked away, leaving Undil…

…but never saying goodbye. In fact, she didn’t say a word as she left. She didn’t even look back. She smirked, kissed me, rubbed my arms, and walked off to join her father at the hovercraft that would take them back to the Undil Embassy, and from there, Belvun. It’s my last clear memory of her. I stood there and watched the hovercraft fly off, and there came a point when I realized I couldn’t remember the last thing she said to me. Her voice was gone from my head, and for the next four years, I yearned to hear it again, not caring that I pushed away my friends, living only to join the Embassy and embark on this expedition to Ladia.

Now here I am, standing at the head of her driveway, steps away from fulfilling my promise. My heart is pounding so hard, I can feel the pulse skipping through my neck. My muscles are tense, and weak, like when the doctors pumped fluids into me on the day of the accident that killed Father. He died on impact, but I got away with three broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a cut above my left eye. I should’ve been dead, too.

But I’m not dead. I’m here, just I promised. And for the first time since Ladia left Undil, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to see her, or look at her house, or be in her neighborhood. Heat rises into my face, and I start gnawing on my lower lip, my teeth tight together. I clench my fists and dig my nails into my palms. Even my forehead is tight, my eyes narrowed in anger, but not at her.

At myself.