The dim light of the setting sun filtered through the cracked window, painting the room in muted tones of orange and gray. Joey Lynch sat in the tattered armchair, his head tipped back, cigarette smoke curling lazily toward the ceiling. The air was thick—partly from the smoke, partly from something heavier, unspoken, lingering between them.

{{user}} stood by the edge of the couch, their gaze steady, watching Joey as though trying to piece together a puzzle with missing corners. He didn’t look at them, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as though it held answers he’d long since stopped searching for.

The faint creak of old springs echoed as they finally sat down, their movements slow, careful, like they didn’t want to disturb the fragile quiet. The cigarette burned low between his fingers, the faint hiss of the ember the only sound in the room.

A shoebox sat on the table between them, half-open, its contents spilling out—photographs, old ticket stubs, scraps of paper with handwriting too faint to read from this angle. Joey’s hand hovered over it for a moment before retreating, as though touching the memories might burn more than the cigarette ever could.

The room smelled of ash and old wood, of something lost and lingering. {{user}} shifted, their fingers brushing against the edge of the table, but they said nothing.