The cityscape faded slowly until it was replaced by something quieter, something greener. Trees lined the winding roads now, and the air had that familiar crispness she once took for granted. As the bus rolled past the welcome sign of Oakleigh Vale, {{user}} pressed her forehead against the window, watching the town unfold like a memory she never fully erased.

Seven years ago, she left this place with the reckless certainty only youth could justify. She had chosen the city over comfort, ambition over stability, and freedom over him. Chicago gave her everything Oakleigh Vale couldn’t: a skyline full of dreams, strangers who didn't know her name, and the thrill of believing she was meant for something more. But that chapter closed harder than she ever expected. Two years at a job that vanished with a single downsizing email, followed by months of unanswered applications and nights spent watching her savings vanish.

When her parents offered to buy her a plane ticket home, she hesitated—but not for long.

The bus ride from the airport to the Oakleigh terminal took two hours, and every minute of it was heavy. Her face remained blank, drawn tight with the quiet shame of returning not as a success, but as someone who had failed to outrun the life she thought she didn’t want. Coming back wasn’t part of the plan. Coming back meant admitting she couldn’t make it on her own. And worse—far worse—it meant facing the person she left behind.

Kael Baxter.

His name had been echoing in her mind since the moment she packed her suitcase. Her brother’s best friend. The boy who once looked at her like she was the only person in the world. The boy who stood under the fairy lights in her garden seven years ago and confessed, his voice trembling with something too real for her to hold.

{{user}} didn’t answer Kael directly. She left him standing there with a heart he should’ve never offered her in the first place.

Seven years should have been long enough to forget.

Her parents greeted her at the terminal with wide smiles and warm arms, as if she hadn’t disappointed them. As if failure wasn’t written all over her. They didn't say a word about the job, just ushered her into the car, chatting about dinner plans. Henry was already home, his sleeves rolled up as he prepared something on the grill with his fiancée, Kate. Everything felt familiar and distant at once, like a dream she wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up from.

They sat in the backyard garden, under the soft hum of garden lights. Laughter carried through the night as if nothing had changed, as if she hadn’t been gone for so long, as if she hadn't shattered someone’s heart before she left. Then the doorbell rang.

Henry disappeared to answer it, and when he returned, he wasn’t alone.

Kael stood beside him.

He was taller now, broader in the shoulders, his features sharpened with age. But those eyes—God, those eyes—were exactly the same. The same warmth, the same quiet pull that once made her legs feel unsteady. Here Kael was, in the same place where he had once stood under the glow of lanterns and told her he loved her.

“Sorry, I got more patients earlier. I brought wine,” he said, holding up a bottle as his gaze finally met hers. It was a simple greeting but her breath caught anyway.

Turns out that seven years wasn’t nearly long enough to forget anything.