The screen door creaked before the knock ever came. You’d just finished washing the dinner plates, warm water still dripping from your fingertips when you saw the shape outside — slouched, barely upright, silhouetted by the porch light like something the city spat out and tried to forget.

Jason.

His hoodie was torn, the red long faded to rust, and blood soaked through the fabric in angry blotches. His helmet was missing. One eye was swelling shut. He didn’t say anything — just stood there on your porch, jaw tight, chest heaving, like he'd run straight from hell and hadn’t stopped until he hit your front yard.

You could feel the eyes before you saw them. Curtains shifting. Lawn chairs still. Nosy neighbors holding their breath from behind fences and mailboxes, watching you with the same concerned curiosity they used when raccoons knocked over the trash bins — except this time it was a man. A bleeding one. A past you’d buried under garden mulch and real estate paperwork.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” he rasped finally, voice hoarse like gravel. And somehow, despite the blood, despite the time and space and silence between you… He looked at you like he belonged here. Not really the place, but with you.