SIXTEEN
His skin was still buzzing, restless and too warm in a way the morning sun couldn’t explain and he couldn’t turn off.
From this morning.
From the way Rory had kissed him goodbye at the door like they’d been doing it for years.
He stared at the sink, hands in soapy water, scrubbing the same mug for the third time. The dogs were asleep in the living room. The house was quiet. His brain was not.
He tossed the sponge and grabbed his phone.
KIERAN: Remember when I said I wasn’t going to do anything stupid?
EMORY: yes
KIERAN: I did something stupid
EMORY: How stupid???
KIERAN: Two times
The three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
EMORY: I need details now
KIERAN: LOL. I’ll call you later
EMORY: Kieran Doyle. You absolute slut. I’m SO proud.
Kieran let out a small, disbelieving laugh that had nowhere to go in the empty kitchen.
Mabel licked the back of his knee, demanding breakfast and attention in equal measure. He fed them, scratched behind their ears, and pulled up his Substack dashboard on his laptop.
Seventy-nine subscribers. He’d gained twenty since last week.
He tried to focus on the draft he’d been meaning to finish, on the emails sitting unanswered in his inbox. None of it stuck. He had pent-up energy with nowhere to go. The good kind. The kind that made sitting still impossible.
He needed to post soon, and he had nothing. Or rather, he had plenty, but it was all tangled up in feelings he wasn’t ready to write about yet. He needed new material. New inspiration. Something that wasn’t I’m sleeping with my neighbor and I think I’m in trouble.
He grabbed his keys.
Time to wander.
Leucadia had the kind of energy Kieran was still learning to trust—unhurried, unpretentious, a little strange. He walked south along the 101 with no particular destination, past murals and taco shops and a yoga studio with a hand-lettered sign that read Breathe, Bitch.
He was half a mile in when a thrift store caught his eye.
Second Wind. The hand-painted sign in the window read Local Art Inside. Probably Weird. Definitely Cheap.
He liked it.
The door chimed when he walked in, and the smell hit him first—old books, worn fabric, something faintly incense-adjacent.
The store was packed but organized, shelves crammed with dishes and picture frames and mysterious kitchen gadgets no one had used since 1987.
“Help you find anything?” A voice called from somewhere near the back.
Kieran turned. A woman emerged from behind a bookshelf, wiping her hands on an apron. She was maybe fifty, with silver hair pulled into a messy bun and paint stains on her jeans.
“Just browsing,” Kieran said. “But I dig the setup.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I try to keep it chaotic but intentional.”
“That’s a motto.”
“It’s a lifestyle.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Vera. I own this disaster.”
“Kieran,” he said, shaking it. “I just moved here. Trying to get to know the area.”
Vera’s eyebrows lifted. “Yeah? What brings you to Encinitas?”
“Change of scenery. I write a little…mostly about places. Neighborhoods. The stuff people overlook.”
“A writer.” She filed the information away as she said it. “Well, if you want to know this town, you came to the right place. I’ve been here over twenty years. I’ve sold half this town’s junk and heard all their stories.”
Kieran grinned. “That’s helpful.”
“Good. Then buy something so I can justify the time I’m spending talking to you.”
He laughed and started browsing.
The store was a goldmine, filled with vintage concert posters, handmade ceramics, a truly unsettling taxidermy fish mounted on driftwood. He wandered slowly, letting his mind drift, until something caught his eye.
A photograph.
It was tucked between a stack of old records and a lamp shaped like a pineapple. Framed simply, the glass slightly dusty. An aerial shot of the coastline, faded, probably 1960s or ’70s based on the color saturation. The Pacific a deep blue-green, the cliffs golden, the houses sparse and small.
Kieran picked it up carefully. The stillness of it caught him first—the way it captured a version of this place that didn’t exist anymore.
“That one’s been here a while,” Vera said, appearing at his elbow. “Estate sale, I think. Nobody wants old photos of places they don’t recognize.”
“I like it,” Kieran said. “Seeing what it used to look like.”
“Twenty bucks,” Vera said. “And I’m being generous because you’re nice.”
“Sold.”
Vera wrapped it in brown paper while Kieran wandered back toward the register. A bright yellow flyer tacked to the corkboard caught his eye, bold black text over a picture of a neon sculpture.
LIGHT/WATER/SOUND an immersive installation by Elena Marchetti—The Basswood Collective
“You should go to that,” Vera said, following his gaze.
She pulled the flyer down and handed it to him.
“Next Friday night. 7 to midnight. Elena’s the real deal.
Moved here from Brooklyn a few years back, does these incredible light installations.
The Basswood is this old warehouse space a bunch of artists converted…
it’s not on any tourist map, which is the point.
” She gave him a knowing look. “If you want to understand this place, that’s where you start.
Not the galleries. Not the arts council meetings. There.”
Kieran took the flyer, studying it. “Next Friday?”
“Bring friends, bring an open mind.” Vera handed him the wrapped photograph. “You got any friends yet, new guy?”
Kieran thought of Rory. The way he’d kissed him goodbye that morning like it was already muscle memory.
“Working on it,” he said.
Vera’s smile had a conspiratorial warmth to it. “Good. Everyone needs someone to drink wine with in a warehouse.”
He got home around six. The dogs greeted him like his return was both expected and deeply overdue.
He gave them fresh water, set the wrapped photograph on the kitchen counter—he’d give it to Rory the next time he saw him, if that wasn’t weird, which it probably was—and stood in his living room, listening to the silence.
No new messages.
He thought about texting Rory. Typed hey and deleted it. Typed thanks for this morning and deleted that too. Typed had a good day and stared at it until the cursor blinked back at him like it was embarrassed for him.
He deleted it.
It was fine. It had been one day. People didn’t text every day. Normal people didn’t need constant reassurance that last night had been real. He knew that.
He showered, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. The fresh sheets smelled like his own detergent, with no lingering trace of Rory. For a second, the absence unsettled him.
But his body was heavy in the good way. From a full day and a night he’d remember for a long time.
His bed was empty tonight.
He’d slept alone most nights for thirty-four years. Another night wasn’t going to kill him.