Gibsie was at Kavanagh's, halfway through trying to fix the aux in Johnny's car while Shannon and Claire argued over which songs were more fall, when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He wiped his greasy fingers on his hoodie and checked it.

Her name.

Not saved under a contact anymore — just a number burned into memory.

He hadn’t heard from her in months. Not since she ended things sitting cross-legged on his bed, wringing her sleeves and whispering “I love you, I just… I’m not okay right now.”

He’d nodded. Said he understood. That she didn’t owe him anything except her truth.

Then he’d driven home and screamed into his steering wheel until his throat went raw.

Now her message was glowing back at him, simple and quiet and devastating:

“You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.” — Fleetwood Mac

He stared at the words. Blinked hard. Felt the whole world tilt a little.

Shannon was still talking, music spilling out of the car speakers now, but it all felt muffled.

That song — Silver Springs — he’d caught her humming it once after they fought, the same night she told him she didn’t want to disappear into anyone else’s world. That she was scared she’d lose herself in the noise.

But now she was reaching back out — not with an apology or an explanation.

With a lyric. With a piece of her heart dressed up as a warning.

Gibsie swallowed, thumb hovering over the screen.

He didn’t text her back. Not yet.

Didn’t know how.

He just leaned back against Shannon’s car, eyes closed, chest full of her voice echoing in his head — and her love, quiet and impossible and still there, wrapped up in five borrowed words that cracked him open like a secret.

And Gerard Gibson, loudest boy in town, said nothing at all.