Chapter 1: You Can Find Me
The last of the sunlight bled into a deep bruise-purple over the lake. The bonfire snapped and popped, sending up a shower of amber sparks that twisted in the warm air before dying against the vast dark. Audrey watched them rise and vanish, her camera a dead weight in her lap.
She focused the lens, not on the fire, but on the tree just beyond it. On Sen.
He was leaned back against the pine, a bottle of root beer dangling from his long fingers. Pierce was strumming something melancholy on his acoustic guitar, and Sen’s laughter cut through the notes—a warm, easy sound that made something in Audrey’s chest tighten. The firelight gilded the sharp line of his jaw, the earnest curve of his smile, the unruly waves of his black hair. He looked like a painting she could never get quite right.
“Earth to Audrey.” Zoey’s monotone came from her left. She was tucked under Maya’s arm, her black hair a stark contrast to Maya’s sun-bleached blonde. “You’re staring again. It’s creepy.”
“I’m not staring,” Audrey murmured, lowering the camera. “I’m… composing.”
“You’re composing a dossier,” Zoey said. “We’ve been here four hours. You’ve taken approximately two hundred photos, and I’d bet my next royalty advance a hundred and ninety of them are of Sen.”
Audrey felt her face heat. She was grateful for the freckles, for the fire’s glow, for any excuse for the flush she could feel spreading down her neck.
“Leave her alone, Zo,” Maya said, pressing a kiss to her girlfriend’s temple. “It’s the last hoorah. We’re all being weird.”
It was. Tomorrow, everything fractured. Sen’s flight to the West Coast was in forty-eight hours. Pierce was heading to Nashville. Avery was Paris-bound. The comfortable constellation of their group was about to implode into scattered stars.
Eddie tossed another log on the fire. “I still think you’re insane, man. Eight years of school? Minimum?”
Sen took a swig of his drink. “Someone’s got to do it. And it beats your plan of dissecting frogs for the next decade.”
“It’s called research, you philistine,” Eddie shot back, but he was grinning.
“I think it’s noble,” Lauren said. She was braiding a strand of her long brown hair, her movements graceful even while sitting cross-legged on a blanket. “My abuela says being a doctor is a calling.”
Sen shrugged, but Audrey saw the faint pleased tightening around his eyes. He loved this. The gentle ribbing, the unspoken support. This was his element. He shone in it.
“What about you, Audrey?” Avery asked. Their white hair seemed to glow in the dark. “Any grand plans? Or are you just going to document the rest of us failing at adulthood?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Community college for now. Fine arts program. Keep working at the café. It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. It was safe. It was stationary. It was the exact opposite of everything Sen was doing, and that felt like a verdict.
“Your photos are incredible, though,” Sen said, his brown eyes finding hers across the flame. “Seriously. You have a real eye. You could do that anywhere.”
The compliment, so effortless, so sincere, was a tiny knife between her ribs. He always said things like that. He believed them. And it never, ever occurred to him that his belief was the very thing that kept her pinned in place, hoping for a different kind of look altogether.
The night deepened. The fire burned down to a pulsing heart of coals. Marshmallows were roasted and blackened, stories grew louder and then softer. One by one, the group peeled away toward the three scattered tents.
Audrey lingered, pretending to fiddle with her camera settings until it was just her and Sen poking at the embers with sticks.
“Cold?” he asked.
“A little.”
He didn’t hesitate. He shrugged out of his flannel shirt—a worn, soft blue check—and handed it to her. It was warm from his body and smelled like woodsmoke and his cheap, clean shampoo.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She pulled it on. It drowned her.
“Big last night,” he said, staring into the fire. His profile was thoughtful. “Kind of surreal.”
“Yeah.”
“You okay? You’ve been quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Not with me.” He finally looked at her. “You’re never just quiet with me.”
The directness disarmed her. It was true. With him, she could talk about anything—the strange shape of a cloud, the existential dread of a blank canvas, the perfect way to poach an egg. Except for this. This one, massive thing.
“I’m just… going to miss this,” she managed.
“Me too.” He sighed, a long, tired sound. “It’s stupid, but I’m kind of… nervous.”
“About med school?”
“About all of it.” He broke his stick in half and tossed the pieces into the fire. “The whole… building a life thing. Meeting new people. It’s… tiring to think about starting from zero.”
Audrey’s heart ached. “You’ll make friends in five minutes. You always do.”
“That’s not…” He trailed off, searching for the words. “It’s not about friends. It’s about… the other stuff. The relationship stuff. I think I might just be… broken for that.”
The admission hung in the cool air between them. It was the most vulnerable thing he’d said all night.
“You’re not broken,” she said, too quickly.
He gave her a sad, knowing smile. “Come on, Aud. My track record is historically bad. I think at this point the common denominator is pretty clearly me. Maybe some people just aren’t built for it. Maybe I’m one of them. It’s easier to just accept that, you know? Focus on other stuff.”
Each word was a stone sinking in her stomach. This was the void he carried, the one he hid with charm and easy laughter. He’d been rejected, brushed off, politely forgotten so many times he’d decided the fault was encoded in him. He had given up, and he didn’t even know she was standing right here, holding a love for him so large it scared her.
“That’s… really sad, Sen,” she whispered.
“It’s fine,” he said, standing up and brushing dirt from his jeans. “It is what it is. Ready to turn in? We should douse this.”
They poured the last of a water jug over the coals, which hissed and steamed violently, the final light gone. The world was plunged into dense, pine-scented blackness, broken only by the weak beam of Sen’s phone flashlight.
They shuffled to their tent, the one they’d shared on camping trips since they were fourteen. It was a familiar routine, but tonight every movement felt charged, amplified.
Inside, the space was close and dark. The nylon walls seemed to press in. They wriggled into their separate sleeping bags, lying side-by-side in the absolute dark. She could hear his breathing. She could feel the heat radiating from him.
“Remember,” he said into the darkness, “that time we tried to canoe across the lake and it started storming?”
A laugh bubbled out of her. “You swore you could out-paddle the lightning.”
“I nearly capsized us trying.”
“You did capsize us.”
“Details.” She heard the smile in his voice. “And then we had to build that pathetic little shelter with the broken canoe paddle.”
“We were soaked. We smelled like wet dog for a week.”
“It was the best trip,” he said, his voice growing softer.
Her courage rallied, a desperate, fluttering thing in her throat. The darkness made it feel possible. “Sen?”
“Yeah?”
The words were right there. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Don’t go. See me. Please, just see me.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get to California?” she asked.
A beat of silence. She’d surprised him.
“Uh… probably get catastrophically lost on campus. Then call you. You’ve always been better with maps.”
Tears burned hot behind her eyes. She blinked rapidly, staring up at the invisible ceiling of the tent.
“I’ll be here,” she said.
His hand found hers in the space between their sleeping bags. His fingers laced through hers, a platonic, practiced gesture from a thousand sleepovers. It felt like heaven and hell.
“I know,” he said. His thumb brushed over her knuckle. “That’s the only part I’m sure about.”
His breathing evened out, grew deep and slow, within minutes. He was asleep.
She lay there, wide awake, holding the hand of the boy she loved, listening to him breathe. The weight of his confession sat on her chest. He thought he was unlovable. He thought he was the problem. And she, by her silence, was agreeing with him.
Outside, an owl called. The lake water lapped softly at the shore.
Very carefully, so as not to wake him, she turned onto her side, facing him. Her eyes had adjusted to the gloom. She could just make out the shape of his face, the fan of his dark lashes against his cheek. He looked peaceful. He looked gone.
Slowly, she extracted her hand from his. She brought her own trembling fingers to her lips, kissed them, and then, with infinite caution, reached out and touched that kiss to his cheek.
His skin was warm. He didn’t stir.
She pulled back, her heart hammering against her ribs like it wanted to break out. She had done it. One secret, silent transfer of everything she felt.
It changed nothing. He was still leaving. He still thought he was broken. She was still the coward in the tent, stealing touches in the dark.
A quiet, ragged sound escaped her. She clamped her lips shut, burying her face into the borrowed sleeve of his flannel shirt. She breathed him in until the pressure behind her eyes receded, leaving only a cold, hollow certainty. Dawn was still hours away. The tent was a tomb for a feeling that had never learned how to live. Outside, the world was quiet, waiting.
The grey light of dawn felt like a violation. It seeped through the green nylon of the tent, transforming the intimate dark into a dull, mundane space. Audrey lay frozen, her eyes gritty from unshed tears and lack of sleep, watching Sen’s chest rise and fall. The borrowed flannel still smelled like him. It was a curse.
A zipper rasped outside, followed by Pierce’s groggy voice. “Who used all the damn water?”
The spell was broken. Sen stirred, his breathing hitching. His eyes fluttered open, finding hers immediately in the close space. For a suspended second, there was a raw, unguarded connection—just the sleep-softened recognition of each other. Then he blinked, and the easy friend-mask slipped back into place.
“Morning,” he mumbled, his voice gravelly.
“Morning,” she whispered back, the word cracking.
The process of breaking camp was a silent, efficient funeral. Sleeping bags were rolled too tight. Tent poles clacked together with a cold, final sound. The cooler, emptied of its beer and lukewarm sodas, was lighter, hollow. No one joked. Even Pierce’s guitar stayed in its case.
They packed the cars in a fog. Audrey folded Sen’s flannel shirt with careful, deliberate movements, as if arranging relics, before handing it back to him without meeting his eyes.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Anytime,” he replied, and the word felt like a lie wrapped in good intentions.
The drive to the airport was a ninety-minute stretch of muted highway. Audrey rode shotgun in Sen’s beat-up sedan, the same seat she’d occupied for years. The familiar cracks in the dashboard, the stubborn spot on the windshield the wipers missed, the faint scent of his car’s old upholstery—it was all a museum of their friendship. Every mile marker was a countdown.
He talked. He talked about the orientation schedule, about the weird Airbnb room he’d rented for the first month, about how he’d heard the cadaver lab smelled overwhelmingly of disinfectant and decay. His words were bright, brittle things filling the silence she couldn’t.
She just nodded, watching the landscape flatten and give way to the sprawling outskirts of the city, the airport’s control tower a cold needle on the horizon.
“You’ll text when you land,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Obviously. And you’ll send me pictures of the terrible latte art at the café.”
“Obviously.”
He reached over and turned the radio up. A generic pop song filled the car, a pathetic shield against everything unsaid.
The airport terminal was a chaos of echoing announcements and rolling suitcases and strained goodbyes. Their group clustered near the drop-off curb, an island of stillness in the river of motion. Hugs were distributed—fierce, back-thumping hugs for the guys, longer, sniffly ones for the girls.
Avery squeezed Sen’s shoulders. “Don’t become a pretentious dick, okay?”
“No promises,” Sen laughed, but it sounded thin.
Lauren kissed his cheek. “Call us when you’re drowning in textbooks.”
“I will.”
One by one, they peeled away, giving him space, until it was just him and Audrey standing on the grimy, oil-stained concrete. The idling cars hissed beside them. A jet screamed overhead, drowning out the world for a moment.
Sen looked down at his shoes, then at her, his brown eyes wide and suddenly too young. “Well.”
“Well,” she echoed.
He opened his arms. She stepped into them, burying her face against the solid warmth of his chest. He held her tightly, one hand cradling the back of her head. She inhaled, committing the scent of him—laundry soap, pine from the campfire, the faint, clean sweat of travel—to a permanent, punishing memory.
“Eight years is a long time,” he murmured into her hair.
“It’s nothing,” she forced out, her voice muffled against his shirt. “You’ll be back before you know it.”
“You’ll visit.”
“Sure.”
They both knew it was a fantasy. The cost, the time, the separate planets they were about to inhabit.
He pulled back first, his hands sliding down to her shoulders. His gaze searched her face, a flicker of something like confusion in his eyes. “Audrey…”
This was it. The last possible second. The words thrashed in her throat, a dam about to break. I love you. Stay. Please don’t go. I love you.
A voice blared from the terminal doors. “Final call for passenger Sen Takahashi on flight 447 to San Francisco.”
The moment shattered. The confusion on his face smoothed into resigned urgency. He gave her shoulders a final squeeze, his thumbs brushing the sharp bones. “I gotta run.”
She nodded, her jaw clenched so tight it ached.
He grabbed the handle of his suitcase, took a step back, then another. He was a figure retreating into the bright, artificial light of the terminal, getting smaller, blurrier.
He turned at the sliding doors, lifted a hand in a wave, and offered her one last, brilliant, heartbreaking smile.
Then he was gone.
The air left her lungs in a sharp, silent gasp. The sounds of the airport rushed back in—a roaring, metallic ocean. Her knees buckled slightly. She pressed the heels of her hands hard into her eye sockets, a desperate, physical pressure to hold the tears in, to keep the sob locked behind her ribs. It was a volcanic, terrifying force. She stood there on the curb, shaking, invisible in the crowd, as the world moved around her and the love of her life disappeared into it.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. The breakdown wasn’t on the verge anymore.
It was here.