It's the blue hour — the twenty minutes between dark and darker when the sky is the color of something held underwater. The town is arranged below you like a confession: the houses, the roads, the lake at the edge of everything catching what little light is left.

You are standing at the top of the ridge. You always came here to think.

The town doesn't know you're back. Not yet. The dogs will figure it out first, then the children, then the people who loved you and the people who should have.

You have time. You have all the time there is now.

The woods are to the north — the old path, the clearing, the oak tree that remembers. Your house is three streets east: the light in the kitchen window means your mother is still awake, still sitting at the table, still not-looking at your photograph. The lake is south, cold and absolutely still. And somewhere in this town, behind one of these quiet, curtained windows, is the person who knew.

You can feel all of it. Every thread.

You get to choose which one you pull first.

Where do you go?