Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
Elise turned the key and nudged the apartment door open with her hip, the familiar scent of wood polish and lingering lavender-sage incense greeting her like an old friend.
Her messenger bag slipped against her shoulder, pulling down the neckline of her oversized tech-black tee, still dusted with the day's wig powder.
She smelled faintly of hairspray and spirit gum—occupational hazards.
The lights were off, save for one.
In the corner of the living room, casting a warm, amber glow over their tiny couch and even tinier bookshelf, stood an old refurbished ghost light—rescued from a shuttered community theatre upstate and rewired by Graham himself. Its cage bulb buzzed gently, like it knew secrets.
Elise stepped inside and locked the door behind her.
The apartment was small, but lived-in, loved-in.
One wall held a poster from the Pride & Prejudice tour, framed and slightly crooked.
Beside the ghost light, a cluster of taper candles nestled between a stack of scripts and a cracked teacup holding spent matchsticks.
From the shadows, Chaos launched.
The black cat twined between her legs with practiced entitlement, purring like a tiny engine. Elise bent down with a tired grin, scratching behind his ears. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” she muttered, peeling the strap of her bag from her shoulder. “Because you’re a menace.”
Chaos responded by climbing halfway up her calf and meowing in protest, as if to say: late.
A soft clink echoed from the kitchen—ceramic against ceramic, maybe metal against glass. Elise didn’t startle. She just smiled.
Sure enough, Graham’s head appeared around the corner, his curls slightly damp and his expression irritatingly triumphant.
“I win,” he announced. “Got home first.”
His face was freshly washed, and he’d changed into that black sweater—the one with sleeves just a bit too long, snug in the shoulders, and criminally attractive in the lighting from their ghost light.
He looked irritatingly well-rested for someone who’d just sung about unspoken longing under fake rain.
Elise raised an eyebrow as Chaos immediately switched loyalties, padding toward Graham like he was the only person who had ever opened a treat jar.
“You always get home first,” she said, brushing cat hair off her leggings. “I stay behind to set the rain wig. You start prepping our post-show snack situation. That’s the deal.”
“Can’t believe you’re throwing logic at me this late at night,” he sighed, retreating back into the kitchen. “Can’t you just let me have the win?”
“I let you have other things,” she said, following the scent of coffee and whatever faintly herby cologne he’d reapplied. “Just not fake victories.”
He shot her a grin over his shoulder and reached for her favorite mug—the chipped one from a backstage gift swap last year, the one Nick had painted to say Wig Witch Supreme. Graham poured slowly, carefully.
“I caffeinated you,” he said, handing her the mug like it was a peace offering. “That counts as a win.”
She took a sip, eyes narrowing in mock judgment, and let the mug warm her fingers. The city hummed outside their window—distant traffic, some drunken laughter, a car horn cutting through the air. Somewhere around the corner, the others were already waiting at their new favorite neighborhood bar.
She tilted her head. “So... snacks?”
Graham gestured with his own mug toward the front door. “At the bar. Where Nick just messaged me ‘R U DEAD’ in all caps, followed by five rat emojis and a disco ball.”
She blinked. “Why rats?”
“No one knows,” he said, opening the door to the coat closet. “Cici replied with a moon emoji and the word blessed.”
Elise sighed, draining the rest of her coffee. “Okay. We’re going. But if Nick sings ‘Suddenly Seymour’ again, I’m going to have Cici hex him.”
She leaned her hip against the kitchen counter, half watching the city flicker beyond the window, half watching Graham dig through the closet for his scarf like it was some kind of excavation site.
She wasn’t in a rush.
Yes, their friends were waiting at the bar—probably two cocktails in and arguing about something theatrical and deeply stupid—but this moment, right here, was worth lingering in.
The stillness. The hum of the radiator. The scent of coffee and Graham’s cologne and a hint of wig glue that refused to ever fully wash off her hands.
It had been nearly a year since everything changed.
Graham was offered Darcy on Broadway first, the promotion coming so unexpectedly it nearly knocked the wind out of both of them.
Elise had smiled through it, supported him, cracked jokes, sent virtual kisses and good wishes for his Broadway debut.
But when the offer came for her a couple months later—Broadway’s new head wig mistress—it had felt like the universe finally catching up to something she already knew she could do.
Since then, they’d been here. Together. Home before eleven most nights, coffee mugs instead of travel mugs, real furniture instead of luggage. A strange, domestic bliss woven from show schedules and shared dressing room gossip and whatever half-dead herb plant Cici had gifted them last spring.
And still... sometimes she missed the road. The unpredictability. The adrenaline of new cities and cramped backstage corners and hastily improvised fixes. But Broadway had offered something she hadn’t realized she needed: time. To breathe. To stay. To go deeper.
She was still adjusting to that part.
For the first time in a long time, she was staying in one theatre long enough to know it.
Its corners. Its moods. Its ghosts. The usual whispers and flickers had started to stretch into something more—feelings, impressions, full glimpses into the lives that had once unfolded in those wings and rafters.
It wasn’t always clear, and it wasn’t always pleasant, but it was undeniably hers now.
Not just something she endured. Something she was learning to navigate.
Kevin had settled in too. Not that he’d admit it.
But she caught him nesting—hovering backstage to whisper unsolicited notes to green room spirits, orchestrating “ghost check-ins” like some spectral stage manager.
He’d even recruited two of the quieter presences to help him reenact old musicals in the trap room.
His version of Oklahoma! had been… ambitious.
Elise smiled into her mug.
She liked that he’d put down roots. She liked that she had. And she liked that, somehow, the life she’d thought might end when the tour did had simply... transformed.
Elise took another sip of her coffee, letting it linger on her tongue before swallowing. The caffeine wasn’t strictly necessary—adrenaline would do the trick once they hit the street—but there was something ritualistic about it. A slow exhale before the next scene.
They’d made new friends here, of course. The Broadway cast had been welcoming in their own big-city, theatre-kid way—birthday drinks, group warmups, inside jokes in the green room.
But it wasn’t the same as the road.
The touring company had been a pressure cooker of chaos and closeness, long travel days and hotel rooms and late-night takeout eaten on dressing room counters.
That kind of connection didn’t dissolve just because the curtain closed.
It lingered. It pulsed. It texted you in all caps at 10:45 PM threatening to monologue if not provided with emotional attention and/or brie.
Nick had stepped into Graham’s old role when the Broadway offer came—full-time Darcy with a flair for dramatic pauses.
Somehow, he and Marco had made the long-distance thing work.
Elise suspected it was because they were both a little feral, in the most compatible way.
Marco traveled often, usually timing his visits with Nick’s dark nights or rare weekends off.
This time, the timing had been perfect.
The Second National tour was only two hours away by train, and Nick had a scheduled off night. He and Marco hadn’t hesitated. They were already in the city, Broadway tickets reserved, opinions locked and loaded.
And as if the universe had decided Elise needed all her favorite people in one place, Cici’s work trip had overlapped. She’d extended her stay through the weekend so they could have some uninterrupted girl time.
They’d spent the afternoon at the Met—Cici in flowing layers and more rings than fingers, Elise in all black and combat boots, both of them completely ignoring the museum map and drifting toward whatever felt most haunted.
She’d gotten a ticket to the show that night too, and Elise swore she could feel her pride radiating all the way from the back of the mezzanine.
Now, the plan was simple: meet up with the full chaos crew at their favorite bar—the one with fairy lights tangled in the rafters and a little gas fireplace tucked into the corner.
The bartender knew their names. They served a surprisingly decent cheese plate.
Once, Graham had convinced the staff to let him read zombie poetry over the sound system while Elise pretended not to know him.
Her phone buzzed against the counter, rattling slightly against her mug.
She swiped a thumb across the new message in the group chat and knew who it was before she saw the name.
The drinks are arriving in five. We can’t be held responsible for your round disappearing.
She snorted, typing back, imagining Nick’s foot tapping as he watched the door for their arrival.
I *just* got home. 10 minutes.
Keep your greedy hands off my margarita.
Elise locked her phone with a satisfied click, the kind that said, “I have won this round of the group chat.” Another buzz. She could already feel the string of gifs loading like a theatrical monologue queued for applause. Nick could wait. Preferably in agony.
Some friendships survived distance. The best ones thrived on it.