Chapter One
Dawn
Starting over is supposed to feel lighter than this.
The California sun is too bright, sharp against the windshield as I pull into the apartment complex.
My car is packed to the roof—boxes stacked precariously in the back seat, a duffel bag wedged into the passenger side, and my entire life reduced to whatever fits inside a four-door sedan.
It should feel like freedom. A clean slate.
Instead, the pressure in my chest hasn’t let up.
Santa Monica. We meet again.
I shut off the engine, exhaling slowly as I stare at the building in front of me.
It’s nothing special—just another beige, overpriced apartment in a city that used to be home but now feels like a stranger.
I barely remember living here as a kid; I was so young.
But I remember leaving. I remember my father gripping the steering wheel too tightly as we drove away, his silence filling the car like a second passenger.
Now, after all these years, I’m back. And I don’t know why that makes my stomach twist the way that it does.
The boxes make it inside, but that’s as far as I get.
I stack them against the wall, leaving my suitcase by the door.
I should start unpacking, or at least dig out the basics, but the thought of sifting through my life right now feels exhausting.
Instead, I collapse onto the couch—an old thing I bought secondhand and had movers place inside for me, the fabric still stiff with unfamiliarity—and pull out my phone.
A new text awaits on the screen.
Cassidy: You made it, right? Don’t tell me you bailed halfway through the drive.
A tired smile tugs at my lips. I type out a response.
Me: I’m alive. Barely.
Cassidy: Good. Drinks tonight. On me. You owe me a decade of in-person friendship.
I huff out a laugh, shaking my head. Typical Cass.
We were inseparable as kids—matching scrapes on our knees, whispered secrets in the dark, promises to be best friends forever. Then, life happened. I moved away when we were only 8 years old. We didn’t talk for years. Until one day, a random friend request brought her back.
Now, after years of messages, tagged memes, and “we have to meet up someday” plans, someday is finally here.
Me: Where?
Cassidy: Roscoe’s. Don’t be lame. Dress hot.
I glance at the clock. I have two hours to shower, change, and try to look like someone who has their life together. It’s been years since I’ve seen her, but tonight I could use a distraction. And reconnecting in person with my best friend seems like the best distraction there can be.
I toss my phone onto the couch and drag myself off of it, stretching the stiffness out of my legs from the long drive. Dress hot. I let out a quiet laugh. No pressure or anything.
I rummage through my suitcase, pushing past t-shirts and jeans until I find something acceptable—something that says, I put in effort, but not too much.
A fitted black dress, simple but flattering.
Paired with some thigh-high boots, it’s enough to make me look like I belong at a bar, not like someone who just spent the day hauling boxes across state lines.
The shower is quick, washing away the exhaustion of the move. By the time I run a brush through my damp hair and swipe on some mascara, the girl in the mirror looks a little less like someone starting over, and a little more like someone who has their shit together.
Good enough.
I call for an uber. The bar isn’t far—just a short drive to the coast, where the city of lights fades into neon signs and the hum of weekend traffic.
When I pull into the lot, Roscoe’s is already packed.
It’s the kind of place where the music is loud enough to feel it in your ribs, but not so deafening that you can’t have a conversation.
I barely make it inside before I hear it—
“DAWN CARTER.”
A blur of blonde and leather barrels toward me before I have a chance to react. Arms wrap around me, squeezing the air from my lungs, and then I’m laughing.
“Cass!” I squeal out with pure, unbridled excitement to see my other half again.
She pulls back, gripping my shoulders like she needs to make sure I’m real. Her grin is just as wide as I remember it, though now she’s got dark liner smudged around her beautiful green eyes, and a confidence that wasn’t there when we were simply children.
“You look hot! Thank god. I was terrified you were going to show up in, like, a moving day sweatshirt and crocs.” She laughs, nudging my shoulder.
I snort. “That’s rude, and I don’t even own crocs.”
“Good,” she sparks. “I would’ve disowned you.” She grabs my wrist and pulls me through the crowd like it’s perfectly normal. “We need drinks!”
I let her.
Cassidy leads me through the bar, drinks in hand, weaving through bodies until we step out onto the back patio. The air is cooler here, the scent of saltwater and cigarette smoke mixing into something familiar.
She drops into a chair, kicking her heels up onto the empty seat beside her, and pulls a pack of cigarettes from her bag.
The flick of her lighter cuts through the night, and she exhales slowly, watching me through the curling smoke.
“So,” she says, tapping ash into a tray.
“How are you? And don’t give me that I’m fine stuff. ”
I exhale, feigning a laugh. “Straight for the kill, huh?” I sip my drink.
“Damn right.” She blows out another drag and tilts her head. “I wanted to be there, you know. For the funeral.” Her voice trails off.
“I know,” I pick at the condensation on my glass, watching a droplet slide down the side. “It was… small. Quiet. I think that’s what he would’ve wanted.”
Cassidy nods like she gets it. “And your brother?”
I sigh, swirling my drink. “Luke was too busy with the campaign. Couldn’t make it.”
Her brow lifts. “For real?”
“For real.”
Cassidy shakes her head, taking another drag. “Damn. That’s cold.”
I shrug. “Not really. It’s politics. Timing is everything.” The words taste bitter, but I swallow them down.
It was hard handling my father’s illness alone.
Seeing him like that. The decline was slow at first—small signs that got buried under his stubbornness.
But when it hit, it hit hard. Watching him lose parts of himself, piece by piece until the man who raised me was a stranger in his own body.
The late-night doctor visits. The tests that never seemed to stop.
There was no escape from it. No one to shoulder it.
My brother? Too busy climbing the political ladder to see his own father’s descent.
So, I carried it with whatever strength I could muster by myself.
Because I couldn’t leave him. And I don’t truly blame my brother.
He had made time to fly out for a weekend visit a couple of times when he could, and he helped with all of the financial debt that Dad racked up through hospital visits.
She studies me for a second, then flicks ash into the tray again. “You talk to him much?”
“Once a week, maybe. But not since I called him after the funeral.”
Cassidy makes a face, like that answer doesn’t sit right with her. I don’t blame her. It doesn’t sit right with me either. “So, you bury your dad, come back here and he just… stays out there, kissing hands and shaking babies?”
Her purposeful mix up makes both of us chuckle. I grin, “I hope not. But no. It isn’t that simple, really.” I sigh, rubbing a hand over my face.
“Seems pretty simple to me…”
I don’t answer. She’s wrong, but she isn’t wrong. And right now, I’m too bitter from everything to care to understand.
Cassidy exhales sharply, shaking her head like she’s fighting the urge to say something else. Instead, she leans forward, stretching her arms around my neck. “You need another drink. Or ten.”
I laugh, grateful for the subject change. “Sounds dangerous.”
She grins. “Live a little, babe.”
And for tonight, I think I might.
The drinks keep coming, each one easier than the last, and Cassidy is more animated than I’ve seen her. I laugh, I joke, but there’s a quiet buzz in the back of my mind. A feeling I can’t shake.
I glance around the bar, the crowd now thickening as the night stretches on.
The low hum of conversations, the clinking of glasses, but something feels off.
It’s like a flicker in my peripheral vision, like someone’s eyes are on me, watching from across the room.
It’s subtle, barely noticeable, but it sticks to me.
I force my eyes to return to Cassidy as she throws her head back from laughing, but the weight of someone’s gaze lingers. I glance over my shoulder again, but the room is a blur of faces, all strangers. Maybe it’s the drinks. Maybe it’s the grief. Maybe it’s nothing.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling.
“Everything okay?” Cassidy asks, watching me with a curious frown, a cigarette dangling loosely between her fingers.
“Yeah,” I say too quickly. “Just tired. Long day.”
We keep talking, and the night rolls on, but the feeling doesn’t fade.
. . .
The uber ride home is a blur. All I feel is fog.
My eyelids are heavy as I stumble into my apartment, the door clicking shut behind me.
I don’t bother turning on the lights. Instead, I collapse back onto the couch, still in the clothes from the bar, and the world spins just long enough for me to close my eyes.
And then I’m out.
The last thing I think of before sleep takes me is that weird, lingering feeling of being watched.