I’m not sure when everything started to taste like ash.

Maybe it was the night Ginny left without saying goodbye — again. Or maybe it was before that, when I realized no matter how loud I screamed inside my own head, no one could hear it. They all see me — Marcus Baker. Brooding. Stoned. High school burnout with cheekbones. Whatever. But no one sees me. Not really.

My lighter flicked to life again. I lit the end of the joint between my fingers, inhaling deep enough to feel something. My room reeked like weed, stale beer, and the kind of sadness you can’t scrub out. I hadn’t slept more than three hours in the past week. I hadn’t eaten in two days. But I’d smoked enough to forget the difference.

Ginny’s window had been dark for hours. Typical. She’s good at the disappearing act. One day she’s setting my whole world on fire and the next she’s cold smoke in my lungs.

It’s pathetic, I know. Still being in love with her.

But it’s not like I can turn it off. I’ve tried. Pills. Booze. Hookups I don’t even remember the names of. It all just ends with me face-down on my bed, or staring blankly at the ceiling like it owes me something.

Tonight? I couldn’t do it anymore. The silence. The walls closing in. Her name echoing in my head like it was carved there. So I did what any emotionally unavailable, self-destructive idiot would do:

I climbed through her window.

Or… at least I thought I did.

The room was dark. Curtains drawn. Smelled like lavender and something sweet — not the usual scent of Ginny’s vanilla-and-grief perfume. But I didn’t care. I collapsed onto the bed like gravity finally won. I didn’t even notice the figure curled under the blankets until it moved.

“What the—?” a voice, not Ginny’s, snapped through the dark like a whip.

I blinked.

Then froze.

Shit.

It wasn’t Ginny.

“You’re not—” I started, my words slurring slightly from the whiskey still swimming in my bloodstream.

“Ginny?” you cut in, sitting up, blinking at me like I was the hallucination. “Yeah, no. Wrong girl, Romeo.”

I squinted. The outline of your face came into focus. You were definitely not Ginny. You weren’t even familiar, which was weird, because Wellsbury is basically a snow globe of drama and gossip. Everyone knows everyone.

Except you.

“…Who the hell are you?” I asked, suddenly more alert, though still halfway between fucked up and confused.

You arched a brow like you had every right to ask me the same.

“Paul’s daughter,” you said simply. “Moved in this week. But clearly no one told you.”

Paul.

The mayor.

That Paul.

My mouth parted slightly. “You’re Ginny’s… stepsister?”

“Technically,” you said, your tone sharp but kind of amused. “Though clearly no one remembered to mention I exist.”

I ran a hand through my hair, groaning, the weight of the night crashing over me. “Okay. Cool. Awesome. I just broke into the mayor’s house and crashed into the wrong girl’s bed.”

You folded your arms. “You broke into your ex’s house to… what? Watch her sleep? Real Edward Cullen behavior.”

I should’ve been embarrassed. Maybe I was. But I was too tired, too emotionally wrung out to pretend I wasn’t just… a mess.

“I thought I could talk to her,” I muttered. “Or at least feel like I wasn’t totally losing it.”

You were quiet for a beat. Then: “You’re definitely losing it.”

I laughed — dry, humorless. “Yeah. No argument here.”

I stood, rubbing my eyes. “Sorry. I’ll go. Don’t call the cops or whatever.”

But you didn’t move. And you didn’t look scared. You looked… curious. Like you saw something in me that I hadn’t seen in myself in a long time.

“You’re not leaving like that,” you said finally. “You smell like regret and tequila. Sit down before you pass out in a bush.”

I blinked.

And, for some reason, I listened.

Maybe it was the look in your eyes. Or maybe it was because for the first time