You’re still the one I run too. The one that I belong to.

They had been inseparable once.

The kind of childhood best friends everyone assumed would grow up and get married because it simply made sense. Walker and her were always together — bike rides through the neighborhood, scraped knees patched up on the same porch, late nights whispering about dreams they swore they’d chase together. He knew her favorite cereal, the way she went quiet when something hurt, the exact look she got right before she laughed too hard. She knew everything about him too — his nerves, his ambition, the way he pretended he didn’t care what people thought when he absolutely did.

Heather, his mom, had teacher her how to bake her family recipe of apple pie, assuming they’d get married when older. Pete had teacher her how to hunt. Leena and her had made countless of silly dances. Tanner and her had played video games for hours without getting tired.

He knew her family, she knew his. Her family loved him as much as his loved her. To the point where they had even spent a couple of christmas’ and new year’s together. Memories that stood there with so much color on them.

Then life happened.

Walker left first. Auditions turned into callbacks, callbacks into projects, and suddenly he was gone more than he was home. They tried to keep up — texts at odd hours, FaceTimes that always ended too soon — but time zones and exhaustion wore them down. The fight came one night when neither of them was really talking about what they were upset about. She accused him of forgetting her. He accused her of not understanding. Words landed wrong. Pride kept them from apologizing.

They drifted after that. Slowly. Painfully.

Birthdays passed with unsent messages. Big moments happened without the other knowing. Eventually, silence settled in where laughter used to live.

And still — he was the first person she thought of when everything fell apart.

What happened to her wasn’t one big tragedy technically, people passed every day, but it was a quiet unraveling. A loss in her family that left her feeling untethered. The kind of grief that doesn’t scream, just sits heavy in your chest until breathing feels like work. She held it together for everyone else until one night she couldn’t anymore.

She didn’t plan to go to his house. Didn’t check if he was filming, or even in the country. Her body just moved, muscle memory guiding her through streets she hadn’t walked in years. By the time she realized where she was, she was standing at the edge of his driveway, hands shaking.

Nothing had changed. The porch light still flickered. The loose step still tilted under her weight. It felt cruel, how familiar it all was.

She knocked.

Inside, Walker wasn’t expecting anyone. He’d been home only a few days, barely settled, mind loud in the way it always got when he stopped moving. When he opened the door, he was already half-turned, ready to apologize to whoever he thought it was.

Then he saw her.

She stood there smaller than he remembered, shoulders drawn in, eyes rimmed red like she’d been crying for a long time. Her clothes were wrinkled, her hair barely brushed, like she hadn’t cared how she looked — only that she made it here. Years vanished in an instant.

Walker didn’t need words.

He saw it in her face — the hurt she couldn’t carry anymore, the unspoken plea, the familiar ache that only ever showed when she was breaking. He knew that look the way you know your own reflection.

And in that moment, before either of them spoke, he understood exactly why she was there. Because his mom had told him about the news of her mom just a few hours ago. And he was about to text her when she knocked.