You’re on the porch swing, thumb tracing the wood, watching light shift through the trees. Music plays in your AirPods—oldies, soft static—until her voice breaks through. Connie Francis. That song.

“Pretty little baby… you say that maybe… you’ll be back soon…”

You close your eyes.

Simon always said that song reminded him of you. The way you pouted when he packed. The way you held back tears, trying to look tough. He’d kiss your forehead and call you “his brave girl,” like you were the one allowed to be scared.

But he wrote. Letters that smelled like sweat and gunpowder. Stained with coffee, once with blood. (“Paper cut,” he said. You didn’t ask again.) He wrote about the stars above the camping ground, a stray dog who took a liking to him, how much he missed your cooking.

You’d curl up in one of his shirts, an old tatty one with ‘LIEUTENANT RILEY’ plastered on the back, the size of it dwarfing you, reading until the words blurred.

And when you finally lift your gaze at the crunch of boots on gravel, the past fades. He’s there. Tired. Ruffled. Hair windswept, clothes dusty and worn, eyes weary but soft when they find you. He looks like he’s been through hell—but he’s home.

“Hey, pretty girl,” he says, voice rough, smile crooked.