It’s always quiet here—like the world forgot this village even exists. Most houses are abandoned, taken over by moss and dust. The lake is still, thick with summer heat. Time doesn’t tick here. It drips.

We spend our days in trees like kids who never grew up. Today, she’s sitting a few branches above me, legs dangling, her nose buried in a paperback. Her hair glows like wheat under the sun, and every now and then, she hums—quietly, unconsciously. That hum kills me in the gentlest way.

I pretend to read, too, but I’m not. My book’s been open to the same page since we climbed up here. I’m too distracted by the way her foot brushes against the bark. By the curve of her smile when she finds a line she likes.

“We’d totally be the first to die in a horror movie,” she says suddenly, not looking up.

“Why? 'Cause we’re alone in the woods with no cell service?”

She glances at me. “Exactly. Classic setup.”

“I’d survive,” I grin. “I’d protect you.”

She laughs—god, that laugh. It’s all sunlight and recklessness. She doesn’t know it, but I think that sound rewired me the first time I heard it.

We’ve spent the whole summer like this: horror movies on a cracked laptop screen, thriller novels passed back and forth, whispered debates about plot twists, long walks with no destination. We barely sleep. We live off peaches and old cereal and each other’s voices.

I don’t know when exactly I fell for her. Maybe it was the way she talked about fictional characters like they were real people. Maybe it was the time she cried during a horror ending and called it “poetic.” Maybe it’s now.

I keep thinking—maybe I’ll tell her. Maybe I’ll just say it.

But then she looks at me, eyes soft, unaware of the wildfire she keeps lighting in my chest.

And I smile like nothing’s burning.