Chapter 4 Evie
Evie
The Lighthouse Diner is ten blocks from the arena, which is just close enough to make it everyone’s personality as the night drags on.
The bell over the door doesn’t stop ringing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Every time it jingles, another blast of cold air rushes in, carrying damp ocean wind and the smell of wool coats and cheap cologne and anticipation.
The place is packed—every booth full, counter stools taken, a line forming near the front even though we don’t technically have a hostess.
It’s just me, Tasha, Gus, and Sam the cook.
Gus is behind the grill with Sam, shoulders hunched like he’s personally wrestling every burger into submission.
“Tasha!” he barks.
“I’m here!” Tasha yells back from the dish pit.
I slide between tables with my coffee pot like a weapon. At booth six, a couple in matching Midnight Halo scarves lean toward each other like they’re planning a heist.
“Do you think they’ll do ‘Halo Burn’ tonight?” the girl whispers.
“They have to,” the other girl whispers back, like this is a sacred matter.
At the counter, a group of college kids argue loudly about which member is “most lethal.”
“Jules,” one says. “Jules is chaos. Chaos is lethal.”
“Remy,” another insists. “Remy is like… poetry with a knife.”
“Kaia,” a third says, dreamy. “Kaia is the moment.”
Kaia.
The name bounces around the diner, ricocheting off plates and people and my skull. I pretend I don’t hear it, because I’m very good at pretending.
“Evie!” Tasha pops up at my elbow like a sprite. “Table twelve needs ketchup, and they asked if you know where Kaia went to high school.”
I don’t even stop walking. “Tell them she went to Hell High and graduated with honors.”
Tasha giggles, delighted and scandalized. “Evie!”
“Tell them we don’t do trivia here.”
“They’re just excited!”
“They can be excited at home,” I say to Tasha, before sliding ketchup toward table twelve with a smile that could cut glass. To them, I say, “There’s only one high school in Harbor’s Edge.”
Harbor’s Edge High: one long, low building that always smelled like floor wax and old fries.
Pep rally banners that never fully came down.
The same cracked trophy case by the office where Kaia’s name had ended up printed on glossy plaques: Choir Soloist, Festival Showcase, “Most Likely to Make It Big.”
At least they weren’t wrong.
The woman at twelve takes it like I’m handing her a relic. “Thank you! Oh, are you going to the show?”
“Nope,” I say.
Her face falls. “But it’s Midnight Halo.”
“I gathered,” I say, and turn away before my mouth gets mean enough to be a problem.
The pre-show rush has a particular rhythm—frenetic and impatient, people shoveling fries like its fuel for worship. They keep checking their phones. They keep glancing at the windows like they expect to see Midnight Halo walk by.
Outside, festival lanterns sway on wires over the street, unlit but waiting. The air feels charged, like a storm is coming.
Tourist season in Harbor’s Edge, which is mainly the week leading up to the Harbor Lights Festival is usually busy anyway.
Tourist season, I tell myself as I slide plates down, refill coffee, dodge elbows.
Tourist season, I repeat when someone asks if “Kaia Rhee ever came in here.”
No. No, she didn’t.
Not anymore.
Half an hour before the concert doors open, the diner is a boiling pot.
Then, like a switch flipped, the crowd empties. The bell over the door jingles and jingles and jingles: people flowing out in a wave of glitter and merch and breathless energy.
“See you after!” someone calls.
“Wish me luck!” a teen girl says, clutching her ticket like it’s a passport to heaven.
“Tasha, come on!” one of her friends yells through the window, waving a lanyard. “Just ditch!”
Tasha’s face presses against the glass for half a second, longing written all over it.
Gus catches her staring and barks, “Eyes on the dishes!”
Tasha jumps. “Sorry!”
I watch the last cluster of fans hurry down the sidewalk toward the arena, their laughter already half swallowed by the night.
Then the diner… exhales.
It doesn’t go dead quiet—we still have a few regulars, a couple tourists who missed the memo about the world’s largest pop group performing nearby, and Mr. Alvarez with his second slice of pie—but the frantic energy bleeds out of the room.
The town’s attention shifts. Ten blocks away, a stadium fills.
I lean on the counter and take my first full breath in two hours.
Tasha wanders over, wiping her hands on her apron, eyes bright like she’s about to launch herself through the ceiling.
“They’re starting soon,” she whispers, like saying it loudly might jinx it.
“Yep,” I say.
Tasha squints at me. “You’re being weird.”
“I’m being employed,” I correct.
She opens her mouth to argue, then the bell jingles again and a couple stumbles in, cheeks flushed, hair damp with fog.
“Is it too late for pancakes?” the woman asks.
“It’s never too late for pancakes,” I tell her, because that’s the one thing I believe in without complicated feelings.
I slide them menus, take their order, and keep moving.
When I pass the TV mounted above the counter, my eyes snag on it.
Black screen. Remote sitting right there under the register.
I bet the local news station is having a field day with Midnight Halo.
I can picture it too easily: the livestream, Kaia onstage in a spotlight, voice filling the arena.
My chest tightens like a fist.
Yeah, nope.
Instead, I go to the old jukebox, the one Gus claims is “vintage,” and click it on.
The jukebox crackles to life, neon lights buzzing softly. I select the first thing that comes up that isn’t a power ballad and isn’t likely to send me into a spiral.
Some old rock song. Loud guitars. Nothing soft. Nothing sweet.
Tasha makes a wounded noise. “Evie!”
“What?” I snap automatically.
“That’s, like, dad music.”
“Good,” I say. “Let the dads have something.”
Tasha huffs, then drifts toward the kitchen as if she’s carrying her disappointment like a flag.
I hear her a minute later—her phone speaker muffled behind the swing door, then the unmistakable opening of a Midnight Halo track.
My shoulders go rigid.
The worst part isn’t that I recognize it.
The worst part is that I recognize it immediately.
I don’t want to know the beat drop.
I don’t want to know the harmony line.
I don’t want to know the exact point in the chorus where Kaia’s voice will cut through like a blade wrapped in honey.
I know anyway.
I walk into the kitchen with the kind of calm that scares teenagers.
Tasha jumps, phone in hand like she’s been caught stealing. “Oh! Hi!”
“Turn it down,” I say.
She blinks. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“That’s not a reason,” she argues, bravely, because she’s eighteen and thinks the world is negotiable.
I stare at her until she remembers I am older, meaner, and currently holding a tray like I could become violent.
Tasha’s voice softens. “Evie… it’s the kickoff. Everybody’s there. I can’t go. This is the closest I’ll get.”
I shouldn’t care.
I do.
That’s the problem.
I exhale, sharp. “This is a kitchen, not a concert venue.”
Tasha’s jaw juts out. “You hate them.”
“I don’t hate them,” I say too quickly.
Tasha’s eyes widen, as if realizing it just now. “You totally hate them.”
“I don’t like their music.”
Tasha blinks. “What?”
As if that is somehow less believable than me hating them.
“It’s… glossy.” I gesture vaguely at the air, as if the concept of pop production is floating above the fryers. “Overproduced. Like it was assembled in a lab by a committee of people who hate joy.”
Tasha looks personally attacked. “That’s—Evie, it’s literally art.”
“It’s literally trashy,” I argue. “All that glitter and—what—swords and smoke and everyone screaming like they’re being exorcised. It’s too much.”
Tasha’s mouth falls open. “They’re iconic.”
“They’re loud,” I correct, sliding a plate onto the pass with more force than necessary. “There’s a difference.”
She looks like she wants to argue again, then she hesitates, eyes searching my face like she might actually see the bruise under my annoyance.
Her voice drops. “Is it… because of Kaia?”
The name lands like a slap.
My throat tightens so fast it’s almost embarrassing.
Tasha, oblivious, continues. “Because earlier Gus did say that you knew Kaia.” Her eyes brighten. “Were you friends? Were you enemies? Were you like… rivals? Because—oh my god—what if you were in a band together—”
“Tasha.” I don’t look at her. If I look at her, I’ll give myself away.
But Tasha is already vibrating with excitement, words tumbling out faster. “I’m just saying, it would explain why you’re acting like her name is—”
“Don’t,” I repeat, and my tone comes out sharper than it should.
Tasha recoils slightly, stung.
I immediately regret it.
Because she’s a kid. Because she’s not trying to hurt me. Because I’m the one who keeps stepping on the same landmine and acting surprised when it explodes.
I drag a hand down my face. “Look. Play whatever you want,” I say, forcing my voice into something less angry. “Just… quieter. Okay?”
Tasha hesitates, then nods. “Okay.”
She turns the volume down until the music becomes background sound, a heartbeat under the kitchen noise, not the whole room.
I step back into the dining area and feel the shift again.
I can hear the arena from here, faint through the night: a low rumble like distant thunder.
Crowd noise.
A roar, muffled by buildings and fog and ten blocks of street, but still there.
Someone screams. Thousands answer.
The sound crawls under my skin.
Mr. Alvarez looks up from his newspaper. “They’ve started.”
“Yep,” I say, too casual.
One of the tourists at booth three laughs. “Wow. You can hear them from here.”
“Yeah,” Gus says from behind the counter, wiping a mug with a rag that’s seen war. “Town gets loud when it wants something.”
Tasha drifts out of the kitchen, hands clasped in front of her like she’s trying to behave. Her eyes are shining. “Do you think they’re opening with ‘Halo Burn’?”
Gus grunts. “I think you should be sweeping.”
Tasha sighs, dramatic. “You don’t understand art.”
Gus points the rag at her like a gun. “I understand rent.”
His gaze flicks to me, then he jerks his chin once, almost grudging.
“At least one of you knows how to keep your head on straight,” he mutters. “Evie doesn’t let all this noise get to her head. She clocks in and works hard.”
I don’t react. I don’t let my face do anything.
Instead I wipe down the counter that is already clean and say, “I can’t go anyway.”
Tasha frowns. “Why not?”
I keep my eyes on the cloth moving in circles. “I need to go home after this. Check on my grandma.”
It’s not even a lie.
Not fully.
Grandma is asleep more than she’s awake these days, and she forgets where she is when she wakes up at night. If I’m not there, she wanders. She panics. Or, worse, she tries to make tea and forgets the stove.
Tasha’s expression softens. “Oh.”
Gus doesn’t say anything. He just sets a slice of pie in the pass window.
I swallow hard and carry it to Mr. Alvarez’s booth.
He looks up at me. “Your grandmother doing alright?”
“She’s fine,” I say, because that’s my favorite lie. “Just… needs watching.”
He nods, accepting it. “Family’s family.”
“Yeah,” I mutter.
At the booth near the window, a trio of teen girls are whispering over milkshakes they’re barely touching.
One of them says dreamily, “Kaia’s voice sounds like first love.”
I freeze mid-step.
The phrase sinks in under my skin like a splinter.
First love.
The second girl sighs. “Like the kind that ruins you.”
The third giggles. “Shut up. You’re so dramatic.”
My chest aches in a place I don’t have a name for anymore. I force myself to keep walking, coffee pot steady in my hand, expression flat.
Teenagers say stupid things, I tell myself.
Teenagers romanticize everything.
Teenagers don’t know what it feels like to have your first love leave town and turn into a billboard.
I pour their refills without looking at them.
One of them smiles. “Thank you!”
I nod. I don’t trust my mouth.
Behind the counter, the remote for the TV still sits there.
I glance at it once.
Just once.
My hand twitches.
Because ten blocks away, Kaia is singing. The whole town is hearing it. Feeling it. Letting it fill their ribs like a hymn.
And I’m here, pretending I don’t care, wiping down the same clean counter, refusing to turn on a screen like it’s a moral victory.
The crowd roars again, louder this time, a wave cresting and breaking.
My breath catches.
Tasha’s phone in the kitchen shifts to another Midnight Halo song, quieter now but still unmistakable.
I close my eyes for half a second, then open them and go to the jukebox again. I punch the button for the loudest, dumbest song I can find.
The diner fills with guitars and drums and something deliberately un-romantic.
Tasha makes a small, offended sound from the kitchen.
The roar from the arena fades into the background for a moment, swallowed by our own noise.
I tell myself it helps.
I tell myself I’m fine.
I tell myself the past is just an echo, and echoes can’t hurt you if you don’t listen.
But the night keeps breathing through the windows—fog and salt and sound.
And ten blocks away, the world’s loudest echo is singing like she owns the sky.