Your phone buzzes once under your pillow. 1:42 AM. Ghost: "You up?”

You don’t even need to look. You know that tone. That stupid, short, cryptic text. It’s him. It’s always him. And it always means the same thing: he’s outside again.

Simon Riley — “Ghost” to most people — is probably leaning against that dented black bike of his, hoodie pulled up, cigarette unlit between his teeth, arms crossed, waiting in the alley behind your house like some scene out of a bad teen drama. He’s a walking contradiction: all black clothes and scowls during the day, but soft-spoken and almost shy when it’s just you and the dark.

And yet you run to him every night regardless.