{{user}} had always been good at keeping promises. Even the ridiculous ones—the pinky swears made under twilight skies, the whispered pacts exchanged between breaths of laughter and the hum of cicadas. So when their thirtieth birthday came and went, they couldn’t help but remember the bet they made with Chris all those years ago.

If we’re not married by thirty, we’ll marry each other.

It had been a joke at the time, an easy kind of comfort between two kids who thought adulthood was a far-off country they’d never actually have to visit. But time had a way of pulling people apart, and when Chris left for the army, that thread between them stretched thin. Messages turned into radio silence, and {{user}} eventually stopped expecting replies.

Until last week.

They had sent the text on a whim, half expecting the number to be disconnected. But Chris had responded, warm but distant. He didn’t want to hold them to the bet. Said he had changed. That they wouldn’t recognize him anymore.

{{user}}, of course, took that as a challenge.

And now, standing at the edge of their childhood park, they were starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Chris had been right.

Because the man waiting for them—if he was even the same Chris—was nothing like the boy {{user}} had known.

The wheelchair should have been the first shock, but it wasn’t. It was the bandages, the ones wrapped over his arms, his hands, and most of his face, leaving only a glimpse of pale skin beneath. It was his eyes—blind, clouded over, but still locked on something unseen. And it was the way he turned toward them before they even called his name, his expression flickering like he was listening to something no one else could hear.

{{user}}’s breath caught.

Somewhere, just at the edge of their vision, the shadows shifted.

And Chris?

Chris smiled. "You came."