Part II, Chapter I — The Return
The year begins before anyone knows what it will be
The road back to Westmore felt shorter than Ethan remembered.
It wasn’t the distance. The same long stretch of highway unspooled past the windshield, the same gas stations and exit signs he half-recognized without fully placing. But something about it moved faster now, like the trip had lost whatever weight it carried the first time.
Or maybe he had.
Tyler drove.
He had one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting against the open window, fingers tapping absently against the door as warm air pushed through the car. The late August heat had started to break, just enough to take the edge off the humidity. It carried that faint dry smell Ethan associated with the end of summer, something shifting whether you noticed it or not.
They hadn’t talked much in the last hour.
Not in any deliberate way. It just settled there, the quiet between them not empty so much as already filled. A kind of understanding that didn’t need checking in on.
Ethan rested his elbow against the window and watched the trees blur past. He could feel Tyler beside him in that way that had become familiar over the summer: steady, unintrusive, always there without asking for attention.
It still surprised him sometimes. Not the feeling itself. That had stopped being surprising weeks ago. It was how easily it had become normal.
He didn’t say that out loud.
Tyler finally broke the silence.
“Nervous?” he asked, casual enough that it almost passed.
Ethan let out a quiet breath. “A little.”
“That’s a lie.”
Ethan smiled faintly. “Yeah.”
They drove another few seconds without speaking.
Tyler tapped his fingers once against the door. Then:
“You think Mark’s gonna be weird?”
Ethan glanced over. “About what?”
Tyler didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”
A beat.
Ethan looked back out the window. “We left it fine.”
“Fine’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
That was as far as it went.
Westmore came into view slowly, the brick buildings rising out of the trees in that same deliberate, almost staged way he remembered. White columns. Symmetry. The kind of place that looked like it had always been there, even if you knew better.
Tyler slowed as they passed the sign at the entrance.
“You sure you’re good?” he asked, not looking over.
Ethan nodded once. “Yeah.”
It was the same answer he’d given the first time he’d arrived. It felt different now.
They drove through campus without speaking, past the quad, past the bell, past clusters of students moving in uneven lines between dorms and cars. There were more people than he expected for this early—groups already forming, voices carrying across the lawns, the low hum of a place waking up again.
But something about it felt off.
Not wrong. Just slightly misaligned.
Tyler seemed to notice it too.
“Feels busier,” he said.
“Yeah.”
Ethan watched a group of freshmen dragging suitcases across the grass, one of them already sweating through his shirt, another laughing too loudly at something that didn’t quite land. The energy was familiar. Too familiar. It felt like a memory he wasn’t inside of anymore.