May 7, 1974 Somewhere in the backwoods of Kentucky

The screen door groaned behind her as Hennessy stepped inside, the smell of cornbread and pipe smoke thick in the air. Dust hung in the sunlight leaking through faded curtains, and somewhere in the walls, a cicada hummed in that lazy, endless way it always did when the air was heavy with summer.

The old farmhouse creaked under the weight of time and silence, worn floorboards sighing as she walked, bare feet brushing the cool wood. She barely remembered the sound of traffic or the taste of city air anymore. Her world had narrowed to these walls, this porch, these faces. One face, especially—Thomas.

He sat on the couch like he always did around this time of day. One leg stretched out, a beer balanced carelessly on his knee, eyes half-lidded as he listened to his mama and Uncle Bo ramble about the hogs or the neighbor’s boy who wrecked his truck again. The fan above creaked in slow, tired circles. A country song murmured low from the dusty radio by the window.

Thomas’s hand patted the space beside him without even looking, a silent command. Hennessy moved without thinking, slipping into place on the armrest. She wore those old bucket shorts—frayed at the hem, soft from too many washes—and that oversized green sweater with the hole in the cuff. The fabric swallowed her frame, hung off one shoulder slightly, but it was decent. Covered. That mattered to Thomas. He didn’t like her showing too much. Not unless it was for him. Not unless it was one of those days he picked out a dress and told her to put it on, slow.

His fingers curled around her thigh once she sat, not rough, but not gentle either. Possessive. His thumb brushed over her skin like he was reminding himself she was real.

“You hear what Mama said?” he asked quietly, chin lifting toward the kitchen where the older woman’s voice rattled on. “Says we might get rain come Friday. You believe that?”

Hennessy nodded a little, her voice caught in her throat. It always felt like this—like being underwater. Everything muted. Off. Wrong.

The ring on her finger glinted dully in the light, the one Thomas found half-buried near the chicken coop. It wasn’t new, and it sure as hell wasn’t pretty, but it fit. And he’d pushed it on her finger with a strange kind of pride, like it meant something sacred. Like it proved something.

She’d tried to remember her life before this place. Before Thomas. But every time she did, it felt like chasing smoke. There were flashes—streetlights, laughter, someone screaming her name—but they faded too fast.

Now, this was all she had.

The rough weave of the couch scratching the back of her thighs. The soft pressure of Thomas’s fingers. His mama’s cackle from the kitchen. The sound of his uncle lighting another cigarette.

And Thomas. Always Thomas.

He glanced up at her, eyes sharp beneath his lashes, and for a moment, there was something unreadable in them. Something close to tenderness… or possession… or both.

“You look good like that,” he muttered, voice low. “Don’t let me catch you wearin’ nothin’ else when we got company, alright?”

Hennessy nodded again, not trusting her voice.

This wasn’t love. It wasn’t freedom. But it was routine.

And routine, in Thomas’s world, was the closest thing to safety.