seven (the long pond studio sessions)—T.S.

Growing up as the sole child of a billionaire wasn’t easy—at least, not in the ways people imagined. You had everything money could buy, but your house was cold, your father’s temper colder, and there was nowhere in the sprawling emptiness that felt safe.

Until you met Grayson Hawthorne.

He was eight, you were seven, and he was already being groomed to carry the weight of the Hawthorne Foundation on his narrow shoulders. He wore pressed shirts and polished shoes, but his eyes—sharp, gray, and far older than they should have been—softened when they looked at you. He didn’t really understand what was happening behind the doors of your house, but he understood enough. He knew your father drank. He knew he got mean.

At first, you hid in the closet. You thought if you made yourself small enough, quiet enough, you might disappear. But then Grayson found you there one summer afternoon, knees pulled to your chest, trying not to cry.

“Don’t hide from me,” he said simply. “Find me instead.”

And you did. For a while, whenever your father stayed at Hawthorne House on business with Tobias, you and Grayson found corners of the mansion no one else cared to look. The rose garden in the back, where the thorns scratched at your hands but you didn’t mind. The old library, where the dust caught in the sunlight like gold. The attic, with its creaky floorboards and trunks full of secrets.

You didn’t have to talk about what hurt. You could just… dream.

When you were ten, Tobias Hawthorne found out. You never knew exactly how—whether Grayson told him, or whether Tobias had simply been watching all along—but you remembered the look on his face. Stern, unshakable. The kind of man who could rearrange the world with one phone call.

He wouldn’t stand for it.

You left Hawthorne House in the middle of the night, bundled into the back seat of a car before you could even change out of your pajamas. You pressed your forehead to the cold glass and watched the lights of the mansion disappear in the distance, knowing you’d left something behind.

You never spoke to Grayson again.

You’re nineteen now.

Grayson’s twenty.

You hear about him on the news every once in a while—how he was disinherited, the bombing of the Hawthorne heiress’s plane, the creation of the Hannah Same Backward As Forward Foundation, and so on and so forth.

He’s older now, obviously—and colder. There’s no light behind his eyes anymore.

Your father is dead now—gone at forty-six from alcohol poisoning—not that the press knew that, anyway.

A heart attack, they said.

What heart did he have?

On August 21–two days before Grayson Hawthorne’s twenty-first birthday—you received an invitation to the gala in celebration of it.

After your father had died, the feds had raided your house. A deep investigated followed, different government agencies going in and out of the mansions. Fraud. Embezzlement. Bribery.

After the banks worked everything out, a couple billion was left to you. You proffered to live a modest lifestyle, though—casual clothes, grocery shopping, and a fairly normal Honda Civic.

Nowhere in that modest lifestyle belonged black-tie events.

But, here you stand—in front of Hawthorne House, a silky black dress clinging to your lanky figure. You had rushed to Great Clips for a choppy butterfly cut, and Sally’s Inkings for a brand new doodle on your wrist: a semicolon.

(Do with that what you will.)

A few more butterflies are scattered across your body, as well as another semicolon on your hip.

Rich people parties aren’t anything new to you—and neither is Hawthorne House.

You find a corner to linger in, and then you see him.

Grayson Hawthorne.

He turns his head to glance at you, a muscle in his jaw tensing. He takes a step forward—and another.

Until he’s right in front of you.

“{{user}},” he murmurs.

“Grayson,” you reply.

Grayson takes note of the semicolon, the slightest flicker of worry in his eyes appearing, before it’s gone.

“It’s been a while,” he says simply.