Chapter 2: The Forgotten Lunchbox
The oak tree’s shadow stretched across the playground like a bruise. Ryli leaned against the Charger’s fender, holding a neon pink lunchbox covered in cartoon llamas. Kayla had texted in a panic, left it on the counter. It was a flimsy excuse, even to herself. The school had been empty for an hour.
She’d driven the perimeter twice before seeing the flash of blonde hair near the rusted tire swing. Not leaving, not moving. Just sitting.
Cadence was on a bench under the skeletal branches of the old oak, a worn paperback open in her hands. The hazy afternoon light caught the dust motes floating around her, making her look like a figure in a snow globe—separate, contained, serene. Her backpack sat neatly at her feet, a single keychain dangling from the zipper. It was quiet except for the distant groan of a city bus and the dry rattle of leaves.
Ryli felt the familiar itch for a cigarette. She crushed it. Instead, she pushed off the car, the lunchbox swinging from her fingers like an absurd peace offering. The cracked pavement seemed to lengthen with each step. This was stupid. This was a type of insane she didn’t have a name for.
Cadence didn’t look up until Ryli’s shadow fell over the page. She startled, a slight intake of breath, her blue eyes widening. Recognition flickered in them, followed by a wariness so plain it felt like a slap. She closed the book, her finger keeping her place. It was an old copy of East of Eden, its spine spiderwebbed with cracks.
“Hi.” Ryli’s voice came out rougher than she intended. She held up the lunchbox. “Dropping this off for my sister. Saw you sitting here.” The lie was obvious. Kayla’s middle school was six blocks away.
“Oh.” Cadence’s gaze dropped to the ridiculous lunchbox, then back to Ryli’s face. A polite, timid smile touched her lips. It didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s nice of you.”
An awkward silence hung between them, filled with the creak of the empty swing chain in the breeze. Ryli nodded toward the book. “Heavy reading.”
Cadence looked down at the cover as if surprised to find it in her hands. “It’s for class. Mr. Davies assigned it. It’s… a lot.”
“Timshel,” Ryli said.
The word landed in the quiet. Cadence’s head came up sharply, her eyes searching Ryli’s. “You’ve read it?”
“Seen the movie,” Ryli shrugged, stuffing her free hand into her jacket pocket. “Doesn’t everyone choose their own fucking path? That’s the whole point, right?” She was parroting something she’d heard Kayla say at the dinner table months ago, but it sounded convincing.
A small, real smile softened Cadence’s features. “Something like that. It’s more about the choice to overcome your own… nature, I think.” She said it softly, like it was a secret.
“Nature’s overrated.” Ryli’s smirk felt brittle. She gestured to the bench. “Mind if I…?”
It was a trespass, and they both knew it. Cadence hesitated for a second that stretched into eternity before she slid her backpack closer to her feet, making room. “Sure.”
Ryli sat, leaving a careful foot of space between them. The cold of the metal bench seeped through her jeans. Up close, she could see the individual freckles across the bridge of Cadence’s nose, the faint, worried line between her brows. She smelled like clean laundry and the faintest hint of vanilla. It was a scent that had no business on this bench, in this decaying playground, next to someone who smelled of smoke and gasoline.
“You’re out here late,” Ryli said, staring straight ahead at the chipped yellow slide.
“I like the quiet after everyone’s gone,” Cadence said. She was tracing the embossed letters on the book’s cover with her thumb. “My mom picks up my sister Laney from dance on Tuesdays. It’s easier to just wait here.”
“You always follow the rules? Easier, I mean.”
Cadence glanced at her, that wary flicker again. “Not always. But usually. It… keeps things simple.”
“Simple sounds boring as hell.”
The words hung in the air, harsh and judgmental. Ryli winced internally. Smooth. Real smooth.
But Cadence just let out a soft, almost imperceptible laugh. It wasn’t offended. It was weary. “It can be. But boring isn’t the worst thing.”
“What is?” The question was out before Ryli could stop it, genuine, stripped of performance.
Cadence looked at her fully then, and Ryli saw it—not porcelain, not fragility, but a deep, quiet resilience. A steadiness that had weathered its own kinds of storms. “The worst thing,” Cadence said slowly, choosing her words with care, “is when you make a choice that hurts someone, and you knew it would. When you see the crack before you even swing the hammer.”
The parking lot. The crack in her own chest. The echo was so loud Ryli was sure Cadence could hear it.
She had no reply. The conversational gears she used with everyone else—sarcasm, deflection, aggression—were useless here, stripped and inert.
“Your friends must be wondering where you are,” Cadence said after a moment, her voice gentle, giving her an out.
“They’re probably at the gas station trying to shoplift energy drinks. They’ll live.” Ryli watched a leaf detach from the oak and spiral down, landing on Cadence’s shoe. Without thinking, she reached over and flicked it off.
The contact was minuscule. The cuff of her leather jacket barely brushed the denim of Cadence’s jeans. Cadence went very still.
Ryli pulled her hand back as if burned. The air between them charged, taut. It wasn’t like the quarry, where tension was about proximity and possibility. This was about presence. Acknowledgment.
“I should go,” Ryli said, standing abruptly. The bench shuddered. “Llamas won’t deliver themselves.” She hefted the lunchbox.
Cadence looked up at her, the setting sun now turning her hair to liquid gold. The wary kindness was back in her eyes, but there was something else, too—a curiosity, a faint, puzzled frown, as if Ryli were a difficult passage in a book she was determined to understand. “Okay. Drive safe, Ryli.”
She knew her name. Of course she did. Everyone did. But hearing it in that soft voice, without a sneer or a challenge attached, did something dangerous to Ryli’s internal wiring.
She just nodded, a sharp, stiff motion, and turned to walk back to the Charger. Her back felt exposed, a target. She expected a laugh, a whispered comment to the empty air. Nothing came.
When she got in the car, she didn’t start the engine immediately. She watched in the rearview mirror. Cadence didn’t pull her book back out. She just sat on the bench, watching the tire swing twist in the wind, one hand resting lightly on the space where Ryli had been sitting.
The crack wasn’t a fissure anymore. It was a chasm. And Ryli was falling, with no idea what waited at the bottom. She started the car, the roar a feeble protest against the silence Cadence had left inside her. She drove away slowly, the unlit cigarette dangling from her lips forgotten. The taste of vanilla seemed to linger in the air of the car, a ghost accusing her of a theft she hadn’t even figured out how to commit.
The taste of vanilla seemed to linger in the air of the car, a ghost accusing her of a theft she hadn’t even figured out how to commit. She drove three blocks before pulling over, her hands tight on the wheel. The silence was a physical thing, thick and demanding, and her usual outlets felt obscene, like shouting in a chapel.
She needed a cigarette, a drink, a fight—anything to flood out the quiet clarity Cadence’s voice had left behind. Instead, she fumbled for her phone, the screen blazing to life in the dark car. Her thumb moved on its own, a compulsion she didn’t name.
She opened Snapchat, the app she used for streaks and party invites. The search bar glared at her. She typed ‘Cadence’. Nothing. ‘Cadence Stover’. A few irrelevant accounts. Her mind hooked on the little sister’s name, the one she’d heard called across the lot. ‘Laney’. She tried ‘CadeStover’, ‘StoverC’—nothing felt right.
Then she remembered the book, the careful way Cadence had held it. ‘Only Cadence’. She typed it. ‘Only_Cadence’ was taken. She added a ‘2’. ONLY_CADENCE2.
The profile loaded. No bitmoji, just a simple ghost icon. Her story was empty. But the display picture wasn’t.
It was a photo of Cadence, but not the Cadence from the bench. This was her looking over her shoulder, laughing at something unseen, her blonde hair a mess caught in sunlight, her eyes crinkled with a joy that was totally unguarded. Freckles stood out across her nose. She looked alive in a way that made Ryli’s breath stall.
She tapped the icon, opening the full image, zooming in. The quality wasn’t perfect, but it was real. It was a version of Cadence no one at school ever saw, a secret self kept for a tiny, locked screen. Ryli’s throat tightened.
She scrolled down to the friendship bit. It showed Cadence’s score, low, only used for real friends. Below that, a handful of saved photos in a private ‘My Eyes Only’—locked, of course—but a few public ones were visible above it. A picture of a sunset from what looked like a rooftop, colors smeared like wet paint. A close-up of a gray kitten nuzzling a hand, Cadence’s hand, her fingernails painted a pale, pearly pink.
The last public photo was older. Cadence at maybe fifteen, sitting on a pier with her legs dangling over the water, hugging her knees. She was looking at the lens with a soft, tentative smile, the fading light turning everything to gold and shadow. There was a sadness in her eyes, a depth that the girl on the bench worked hard to conceal.
Ryli stared. She zoomed, studying the curve of her cheek, the way a few strands of hair stuck to her lip gloss. She felt like a thief, a grave robber, but she couldn’t stop. This wasn’t the porcelain doll Kayla described. This was a person with a private laugh, a favorite kitten, a memory of a sad evening on a pier. It was infinitely more dangerous.
She leaned back against her headrest, the phone’s glow the only light. The Charger’s interior, her sanctuary of chaos, suddenly felt cheap and childish. The cracked windshield, the fast-food bags, the lingering scent of old weed—it was all the debris of a life spent running. Cadence’s digital shrine was to quiet moments, to seeing beauty in sunsets and small animals.
Something raw and unfamiliar clawed up behind her ribs. It wasn’t just wanting. It was a devastating sense of lack. She was looking at a world she could never inhabit, a language she’d never learned to speak, captured in three stupid, perfect photos.
With a jerk of her wrist, she locked the phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat. It clattered against the empty lunchbox. She started the car, the violent rumble a comfort. She needed to move, to outrun the image now seared into her brain.
But as she pulled back onto the road, her eyes flicked to the dark phone. She knew she’d look again. Tonight, alone in her room, she would study every pixel until the girl in the pictures felt as real as the one on the bench, until the line between observation and obsession dissolved completely. The crack was now a window, and she was pressed uselessly against the glass.
The crack was now a window, and she was pressed uselessly against the glass. Her thumb hovered over the ‘Add Friend’ button on the Snapchat screen, the blue light washing out her knuckles. She tapped it before she could think, the action sending a jolt through her wrist like static.
The request sent, she threw her phone onto the passenger seat again. It landed face-up, silent. She drove home through streets glazed with orange streetlight, her mind replaying Cadence’s weary laugh. Boring isn’t the worst thing. The Charger’s engine growled at every stop sign, a protest against the quiet waiting in her bedroom.
An hour later, she was sprawled on her bed staring at a water stain on the ceiling. Her phone chimed, a soft, singular note. She snatched it up.
A notification glowed on the screen: ‘Cadence Stover added you as a friend.’
Ryli sat up too fast, the springs groaning. Her heart did a strange, thick beat against her ribs. She opened the app, and there it was—a new chat window with the ghost icon and the name ONLY_CADENCE2. No message yet. Just the digital acknowledgment hanging in the ether.
She stared at the empty text field, the blinking cursor. What did you say to a sunset? To a gray kitten? To a girl who talked about hammers and cracks with a gentle certainty that unraveled you? Her usual openers—hey slut or a blurry party pic—felt like throwing mud on a clean window.
She typed, deleted. Typed again.
hey. it’s ryli. from the bench.
She sent it. The words looked alien in the bubble, formal and stiff. She held her breath.
Three dots appeared. They pulsed. Vanished. Appeared again.
Hi Ryli. I know.
Ryli’s exhale was shaky. She wiped her palm on her jeans.
saw the llama lunchbox made it. kayla said thanks.
Tell her she’s welcome. A pause. It was nice today. Talking.
Ryli read the sentence five times. Each time, the crack in her chest warmed a degree. She typed slowly, each letter a conscious choice.
yeah. it was. your book any good? besides the heavy life lessons.
It’s beautiful. And sad. The sentences are so long I get lost sometimes, but in a good way. Like walking in a big, complicated garden.
No one Ryli knew talked about books like that. Marley would have said it’s boring, I sparknoted it. Abby would have mocked the prose. Ryli smiled, a real one that felt unfamiliar on her face.
sounds better than the quarry. tristan’s fireworks were a damp squib.
‘A damp squib’? Cadence replied. That’s a very… specific phrase.
my dad’s british. it bleeds through when i’m not being an asshole. Ryli sent it, then winced. Was that too much? Too crude?
The reply came fast. I don’t think you’re being an asshole.
Ryli’s chest tightened. She lay back on the bed, phone held above her face. The glow was the only light in the room. She could hear Giselle’s voice in her head: You’re being nice. It’s disgusting. She was. She was asking about a book. She was using full sentences. She hadn’t mocked anything.
what are you doing now? she typed.
Reading. Well, trying to. My cat, Mittens, is attacking my pen. A photo appeared in the chat. It was the gray kitten from her Snap, a tiny blur of fur batting at a chewed blue biro, Cadence’s hand just visible, pulling the pen away.
Ryli zoomed in. The kitten was all fierce, silly concentration. Cadence’s fingers were slender, the pearly nail polish chipped at the edges. It was a moment, intimate and ordinary, and she’d shared it. Ryli’s throat felt thick.
he’s vicious. you should probably surrender.
Never. He’s a tyrant, but I love him. Another pause. What are you doing?
Talking to you. The truth slipped out, simple and unarmed.
The three dots lingered. Ryli waited, the silence in the chat screamig.
I’m glad, Cadence finally sent. I have to go actually. My mom’s calling for dinner. But… this was nice.
yeah. it was. Ryli added, night, cadence.
Goodnight, Ryli.
The chat went still. Ryli dropped the phone onto her chest, staring into the dark. The silence in her room was different now. It wasn’t empty. It was full of the echo of a gray kitten and a complicated garden and a girl who said I’m glad. She had been polite. She had been engaged. She had been, undeniably, nice.
And it hadn’t felt like a performance. It had felt like breathing for the first time without smoke in her lungs. The window wasn’t just something to look through anymore; a latch had clicked open, and a draft of clean, cold air was pouring in, chilling and thrilling her all at once. She reached for the pack of cigarettes on her nightstand, then stopped, her hand curling into a fist on the crumpled sheets.