People in Derry never shut the hell up. They liked to whisper about everyone, but lately their favorite story was Loony Lilly Bainbridge. The girl who talked to shadows. The one who hadn’t been the same since that incident with her father. Every small town needed a ghost, and she just happened to fit the part.

You got it though. You were everyone’s second-favorite topic. The “weird one.” The kid who skipped assemblies, mouthed off in class, and supposedly did drugs behind the bleachers — which was bullshit, but once Derry decided who you were, there was no going back. Rumors here were like mold; they grew best in silence.

You weren’t crazy like Lilly. You were just the kind of wrong that made parents whisper when you walked past and teachers avoid eye contact when you spoke. It didn’t bother you much anymore. There were worse things than being misunderstood.

After her fight with Margie, Lilly didn’t go home. She just kept walking, head down, face pale from crying. Margie had told her to stop talking about it the voice from the pipes, the things she’d heard, the way she swore Derry wasn’t right. “People are starting to talk again,” Margie said, like they’d ever stopped.

So Lilly walked until she reached the standpipe. The tower loomed like something out of a bad dream, all rust and rot, but she didn’t care. She saw smoke slipping near the top.

She climbed the stairs, slow and unsure, until she reached the landing. That’s where she found you. Sitting on the floor, legs stretched out, a cigarette pinched between your fingers. You looked like you belonged there, like Derry had built the whole rotten structure just to give you somewhere to sit and rot quietly.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you said without looking at her.

“Neither should you,” she said.