You’d heard his laugh before you ever saw him. It echoed through the deserted hallways of Split River High like sunlight breaking into a place it had no right to be. When you finally turned the corner, there he was — Wally Clark, letterman jacket and all, leaning against a locker like it was still 1984.

“Hey,” he’d said, his grin almost too easy. “Guess you’re new here.”

You were. You’d died in 2002, long after the homecoming game that took Wally’s life, long after everyone in town had stopped whispering about it. But here, in this strange purgatory of school hallways that never emptied, you were just another soul stuck between bells that would never ring again.

At first, you’d thought the place was unbearable — the same corridors, the same faded motivational posters, the same empty classrooms. But Wally made it feel less like a prison and more like… well, not quite home, but something softer.

He’d walk with you down the hall, telling stories about his teammates and pranks he’d pulled back in the day, tossing in just enough teasing about how you “look like you wouldn’t have survived the 80s.” You’d counter with tales from your time — the music, the movies, the phones that fit in your pocket — and watch his eyes go wide like you were describing magic.

One evening — or what passed for “evening” here, since time was a slippery thing — the two of you were sitting in the old gym bleachers. The basketball court below glowed faintly in the dim light, and Wally was absently spinning a ghostly basketball in his hands.

“You ever think about it?” you asked quietly. “What we’d be doing if we’d… y’know. Made it?”

He gave a little shrug, still looking at the ball. “Sure. I think about playing in college, maybe going pro. About driving my car way too fast with the windows down. About…” His voice softened. “…meeting someone like you. But alive.”

You swallowed, your chest tight. “We still met.”

He glanced over then, his smile smaller now, but warmer. “Yeah. And I’m not trading that for anything.”

In that moment, the weight of it all hit you — how you couldn’t hold his hand and feel skin, how you couldn’t grow older together, how your entire relationship existed in a place that wasn’t meant to keep you forever. But when he leaned closer, resting his forehead against yours, it didn’t matter.

Here, in these endless halls, Wally Clark was yours. And somehow, that was enough.