It’s bright and sunny when Molly gets out of the car. She has no clue where the idea of weather-matching mood comes from. As far as she can tell, it’s a hoax. From a cursory, sweeping glance, Oak Park looks pretty much the same as when she left it behind. A few of the shops have shut down and been replaced, some walls have been repainted and Sammy’s Café has been remodeled and renamed “Beans” but other than that, it looks the same. Nothing is the same as before. But that’s the whole reason she’s come back, isn’t it?

She spots Courtney quickly - she’s waiting in a pair of jeans that look completely alien on her, and she pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head when she sees Molly. Molly raises her hand in acknowledgment, and Courtney waves, crossing the road to get to her.

“Hi honey,” she says, her arms fluttering vaguely around in the air as if she can’t decide whether to move in for a hug or not.

“Hey,” Molly turns away, stooping into her car to retrieve her bags from the backseat.

“How are you doing?” Courtney asks, and Molly must swallow an irritated sigh because Courtney uses the voice. It’s that voice that says, “you know you’re doing terrible, and I know you’re doing terrible, everyone knows you’re doing terrible because that is why you’re here after all, but I want to condescend to you so that I can feel like I’m being somehow nurturing.”

Molly just shrugs. “Can we take these in?” she asks, hefting one of her duffel bags up a little. Courtney looks relieved at the distraction and starts ushering her towards the house, offering to take one of the bags, rambling about having a room cleaned out and how the en suite was redone last year.

The inside of Courtney’s house is modern, by Oak Parkian standards, with big airy windows and an open-plan floor. It makes Molly feel exposed and antsy. Part of the appeal of Oak Park had been the vague memories of nooks and crannies, dark corners to fold yourself away into. Still, Molly’s room is far enough from Courtney’s that it maintains some semblance of privacy, and it faces the garden rather than the street.

“I just put some little stuff in there,” Courtney says, gesturing broadly at the cream carpet, the powder blue curtains, and the bedspread, “I figured you could pick out your decorations and things now you’re here.”

“Sure.”

“Well…” Courtney looks like she wants to say more but decides not to. “I’ll leave you to get unpacked, settle in. I’ll call your mom to let her know you’ve arrived safely.”

Molly slumps on the bed after the door swings shut, the familiar wave of weary, soul-deep tiredness washing slowly over her. She shouldn’t sleep right now - there was unpacking to do, she needs to find a garage to check out the strange flashing light on her dashboard, and she hasn’t eaten since the half-full packet of Skittles she scarfed down as she passed through the Bay Gas Station a couple of hours back - but she’s awake, she’s thinking, and thinking hasn’t led to anything good lately, so she closes her eyes and lets the exhaustion envelope her.

When Molly wakes up, she stares at the ceiling for a moment, trying to remember what day it is. A glance at her phone tells her she’s only been out for thirty minutes, and she heaves herself upright with a groan.

Courtney’s laying dinner out by the time Molly makes her way downstairs, and she braces herself for the inevitable conversation she knows is ahead. She twirls spaghetti around her fork without moving to eat it until Courtney clears her throat.

“I know how difficult this all is for you,” she says, “and that you’ve been…you’ve taken it hard.”

She drops her knife and fork with such force they clatter. “Sorry, should I not have?” Molly snaps, cocking an eyebrow.

“Of course, you - that’s not what I-” Courtney coughs and readjusts her seat. “I just want you to know that we all want you to feel better. To take all the time you need.”

There’s no point in explaining how futile that’s going to be, so Molly just takes a long sip of water. “Is it okay if I finish this later?” she asks, pointing at her plate with the fork. “I’m not feeling very hungry.” She gets up without waiting for an answer.

Two months ago, Molly would still have been in the phase where she would have just given in to the constant urge to scream at someone and ended up saying something undeserved to Courtney. Now though, she just disappears with a mumbled “goodnight” called over her shoulder and starts changing for bed. She rubs her hips where her jeans have dug in, leaving red marks pressed into the soft flesh, crisscrossed like scars. But the imprints start to fade slowly, and she pulls her sleep shorts over them. There’s stuff she has to do tomorrow, and she’ll have to psych herself up to wander openly around Oak Park after this long. But right now, she just wants to sleep.

Molly would, in all honesty, have probably been okay procrastinating on her car problems for a few more weeks, but Courtney starts fretting when she finds out, offering to give Molly rides wherever she needs to go.

“It’s fine,” Molly says, “I was going to get it looked at today anyway.”

It isn’t hard to find a mechanic - there’s only one in Oak Park, and it hasn’t changed locations - or had a paint job - since the last time she saw it.

The guy behind the desk, whose name tag identifies him as Danny, smiles when she walks in, nodding as she explains that there was a light on her dashboard that wouldn’t stop flashing her whole ride over.

“How long was the drive?” he asks.

She gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I came over from Boston.”

Danny lets out a whistle. “I’m not surprised a cross-country drive took its toll on your ride. What brought you so far?”

“I’m visiting a family friend.”

He eyes her a moment longer but doesn’t ask any more questions. “I’ll get my apprentice to have a look at it just now, bring it over to the garage.”

Molly nods, then immediately stiffens when she opens the door to what looks like a break room and says, “Hey Ray, get out here!”

For one wild moment, Molly wonders if she can slip out of the door and hurry away before she’s spotted, but before she even has time to dismiss the idea, the door swings open and Stacey appears.

“Stacey, I was just telling…”

“Molly,” she supplies when Danny looks at her, trying not to let her voice squeak.

“I was just telling Molly that you could take a look at her car.”

Stacey’s gaze is hard and unmoving but doesn’t betray any recognition. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Danny moves for the break room, “I’ll leave you to it.”

Molly lets herself look at Stacey properly. There’s nothing dramatically different about her appearance that Molly can put a finger on, but her face is older, all angles and edges, and she wears a tight high ponytail instead of a braid now. Her leather jacket is beaten and covered in grease stains.

“So,” Stacey asks, “what are you doing here?”

“There was this flashing light on my dashboard. I think it’s an alert or something, I wanted to get it checked out.”

“Okay,” Stacey says, pressing a button that opens the garage door, “I’ll take a look. But McKenzie, I think you and I both know I meant what are you doing back?” She walks over to where Molly’s car is standing, retrieves the keys, and opens the door.

“You know Courtney Baker? My mom’s friend? I’m staying with her for a while.”

Stacey turns on the ignition, barely giving the dash a cursory glance before announcing “You need an oil change,” and sliding out to get a canister. “You staying until college starts?”

Molly feels her fingernails digging crescents into the heel of her palm. “Oh. I’m taking a gap year.”

She snorts. “I always figured pre-med couldn’t come to you fast enough. You always seemed one of those I’ll rest when I’m dead types.”

The edges of her vision blur and she feels bile surge up her throat. Molly tries to breathe in and out through her nose quietly. Not here, she tells herself, not in front of Stacey. “Yeah, well. My priorities have changed.”

“They’re not the only thing.”

There’s a tense silence as Stacey changes the oil, and Molly can only bring herself to speak by the time Stacey’s wiping her hands down on her jeans.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and her voice comes out rasping.

Stacey turns to look at her. “Are you?”

“Yes,” she swallows, “yes. I am.”

“It wasn’t hard, you get that right? We weren’t expecting you to visit or anything, but it wouldn’t have been hard to pretend you cared and answer our messages.”

“I did care!” she protests “I just…”

Stacey sighs. “You can stop squirming, Molly, I’m not trying to fight you.”

“That seems out of character.” Molly feels the tightness in her chest unclenches slightly when Stacey cracks a grin at that.

“For the record,” she says, “I still think you’re an asshole. But it’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah,” Molly nods, “you too.”

Stacey watches her for another long moment as if she’s waiting for something. She catches Molly’s eye and then shakes her head. “Whatever. Come on, I’ll ring you up at the front desk.”

She pays up and takes her keys from Stacey. Neither one of them moves in for a hug, but Molly raises her hand in an awkward half-wave. “So. I’ll see you round?”

Stacey arches an eyebrow. “That’s kind of up to you, isn’t it?” But she shakes her head again and waves off the jibe. “I’ll catch you later, McKenzie. And welcome home.”

“Thanks.”

Molly doesn’t let herself heave a sigh of relief until she’s back in the car. She’d felt somewhat ambushed seeing Stacey unexpectedly, but it hadn’t been too bad. It wasn’t exactly easy, and not comfortable. But it was fine. It had gone about as well as she’d have hoped for. But then again, Stacey isn’t the one she’s most worried about running into.

Tyler is having a stressful enough day before Stacey walks in. It’s not that he considers Stacey a harbinger of bad news or anything, it’s just they don’t have a close enough friendship that she wanders in to just hang out or have a chat. She always has a good reason for dropping by, and Tyler has had enough of those for today. Mrs. Sanders had a good reason for suspending Bridgette immediately and making him pick her up from school, and Bridgette meanwhile claims that she had a good reason for getting into the fistfight, to begin with, and all of this means he hasn’t had time to process his breakup, which Amy had a good reason for initiating. So yeah, he’s not exactly jumping for joy to see Stacey marching into the bookshop with such purpose. Although to be fair, she hardly looks thrilled either.

“Today’s not been a great day,” he says before she can speak, taking a new stack of books out of the donations box and starting to move through the shelves with them, “so before you say anything can you think about whether you’re going to actively make my life worse or not?”

She throws him a withering stare, and he sighs, because let’s face it, a solid ninety percent of his and Stacey’s interactions are forced by crises of varying degrees of seriousness. “Do you need to sit down?” she asks. “Should I have some smelling salts on standby?”

He scowls at her. “Shut up.”

She rolls her eyes. “Have it your way. Anyway, I’m not saying I have great news or anything, but I do think you’d rather hear it from me than be taken off-guard.”

That gets his attention because if there’s one thing Tyler doesn’t like (although who’s he kidding? There’s more than one, huh) those unexpected curveballs. “What’s up?”

“Remember Molly?”

His hand falters on one of the shelves. Molly McKenzie? His best friend for the first fifteen years on Earth? His favorite person in the world who he trusted more than anyone? Who up and left town one day without bothering to say goodbye and who ignored him like he was nothing until it was clear she’d forgotten him?

Of course, Tyler remembers her.

“What about her?”

Stacey shoves her hands into her pockets. “She’s back.”

He frowns. “You saw her?”

“She came to the garage. Clearly had no idea, I’d be there.”

Tyler picks up another stack of books. “Okay. Thanks for the heads up.”

He can feel Stacey watching him when she asks, “You’re not going to freak out?”

Is he? He lets himself think about it for a moment. A few years back and yeah, this would probably have torn open some raw wounds and set him on edge.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “It’s not like - nothing happened, you know? We haven’t been sitting on years of unresolved drama or anything, the friendship just…phased out.”

Stacey nods but still looks unconvinced.

“Seriously,” he stresses, “it sucked. And it hurts. But that was a while ago. I’m not about to have a meltdown.” And honestly, he isn’t. It’s not like Molly’s really back back, or not back in his life anyway. He has more important things to focus on.

“Thanks again,” Tyler says, and Stacey rolls her eyes.

“That was really selfish. I just didn’t want to have to walk you through the stages of grief or whatever later.”

“I’m touched,” he snipes, “but we all know Kenneth would be the one doing the hand-holding.”

Tyler is relieved when Stacey leaves, if only so he can, for one moment, enjoy the relative silence of the bookshop. The musty air and overstuffed shelves are the closest things Tyler has to peace, and he could use some of that today. Tyler opens the spreadsheet that they use as a catalog and starts entering the title, author, and price of each book. It’s a task he’s carried out a hundred times but never gets sick of - sorting through books is like sifting through little chips of people’s lives. This week’s haul includes a battered box set of The Chronicles of Narnia that looks so well thumbed through they’re almost falling apart, a mass-market paperback edition of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings whose pages are littered with annotations, and a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time whose crinkled, oddly waved pages belie the fact that it was likely dropped into a bathtub at some point.

He’s pulling out the stool he uses to reach the highest shelf when he hears someone coming down from upstairs.

“Tyler, that you?” he hears Aaron ask.

“Yeah! I’m just arranging the new stock.”

Aaron appears in the doorway, his tie still not loosened around his neck. “Thanks for going in for Bridgette today. Sorry I couldn’t make it out of work.”

Tyler grunts. As a guardian, Jack is a good one. He’s responsible about bills, conscientious about signing permission slips and getting everyone vaccinated, and competent in all the ways Ernie Jamison never was. But as grateful as Tyler is to Aaron for everything he’s done, he’s never really managed to progress past his underlying edge of mistrust, the wariness that stems from an inherent suspicion as to why Aaron’s taken in his estranged cousin’s kids, from the knowledge that he could leave them out on their asses if he felt like it.

“What was the incident the school was calling about?”

Tyler wipes a hand down his face. “She got into a fight. Punched another kid and started a brawl.”

Aaron frowns, and Tyler can sense his trepidation. Criticizing Bridgette around Tyler is something Jack has always been nervous about, knowing Tyler’s tendency to slightly overreact, but in this case, Tyler can hardly blame Aaron for the wariness.

“I need to talk to her about that,” he mutters, half to himself.

The image of Aaron trying to reason with Bridgette using his politically-honed tools of reasoning and rhetoric makes Tyler cringe.

“Okay—” he says.

Aaron sighs. “I know you’re worried about your sister, Tyler. But I’m her guardian. You’re going to have to believe I can look after her.”

He fights down the urge to bristle, to shout that if Bridgette won’t even let him, her brother, look out for her, why would she let Aaron?

“I don’t think it’s going to work,” he says and pauses. “Actually. I know it’s not. And I know you want to think your let’s all be reasonable spiel is going to work. But at some point, you’re going to have to believe I know my sister.”

He moves to shelve some more books before Aaron has a chance to see his face.

Kenneth’s the one who sees her first. He and Tyler are walking down the High Street, debating which of the X-Men is the best, when Kenneth stops for a second, squinting into the window of the convenience store.

“You’re not going to find your arguments to defend Cyclops in there, Kenneth.”

“Shut up,” Kenneth says before turning back to look at him. “I could have sworn I saw someone who looks kind of that blonde you used to hang with.”

Tyler blinks. “Molly?”

“That’s the one. Didn’t she move away?”

“Yeah, but Stacey mentioned she was back. I don’t know if she’s just visiting or she’s back for good, but. It could have been her.”

Kenneth nods over Tyler’s shoulder. “That her?”

He turns around and for a second he’s confused because honestly, he’s looking for Molly as he last saw her, in an ill-fitting paint-splattered t-shirt with flyaway braids and green plastic glasses. But then he registers that the girl he’s looking at is staring at him, and oh god, it’s her.

It’s Molly McKenzie, in the freakin’ flesh.

She’s cut her hair short and dyed the ends pink, so it looks kind of punk and cool. Her glasses are gone, but her eyes are as sharp and blue as ever, and honestly, she’s stunning.

And now, she’s walking straight toward him.

It sets him on edge though; this doesn’t feel like his Molly, this untouchable Ice Dream Girl who’s fixing him with the cold, calculating stare normally reserved for use by morticians on particularly grim corpses.

“Molly,” he says, and it seems strange to be saying her name to her after all these years, “long time no see.”

She’s barely looking at him, her gaze moving past his shoulders like she has places to be and he’s holding her up. “Yeah.” She sounds bored and flat.

“So. You’re back?”

“Seems like it,” And then she walks off in the other direction.

By the time Molly gets home, Courtney’s smiling. It makes Molly wary because it’s that kind of smile people wear when they’re waiting to impart a “surprise.”

And Molly hates surprises.

“Hey.” Courtney hands her a cup of coffee, which she accepts. “How was your day?”

“It was good. I got my car fixed.”

“Good, good! And you met some of your old friends, right?”

Molly stiffens, racking her brain to remember if Courtney had been outside the convenience store and if she’d seen the interaction.

“That nice girl from the mechanic store came by,” Courtney says, and Molly’s chest loosens, “dropped this off for you.’

Molly takes the flyer that Courtney hands her. It’s a flyer of a party being held in The Droptop on Friday night, something to do with electrofunk music.

“Sounds fun!” Courtney says.

“I’ll see how it goes. I’m going to finish unpacking now.”

Molly’s room is what can best be described as an organized mess right now, with clothes and shoes and books and cushions scattered across the floor in piles, a half-empty suitcase still lying open on the floor. The scarce few decorations she thought to bring are still in there, and she starts pulling them out one-by-one. There are a couple of Boston postcards, a mug from the coffee shop near her house that she uses as a pencil pot, her high school pennant, and an envelope of photographs. There aren’t many, just the old family photo with her on her dad’s lap, a couple of photo booth strips of her and her school friends, and then there it is, the one she’s been too scared to look at.

It’s the only picture of her and Davis that she could bring herself to pack, and it’s ancient, a shot of the two of them as toddlers on the beach, Molly standing proudly over a sandcastle and Davis distracted by a nearby seagull just at the moment the shutter snapped. Her grin shows that two front teeth are missing, and Davis wears a bucket as a hat. She likes the photo because she has no real memories of the day, no acute recollections of what Davis’ laugh had sounded like or what he’d said when she’d whispered one secret or another to him. She likes it because it’s demure and distant enough that emotionally, it draws a blank in her. Or it should - it did. But now she stares at it in its unassuming plain gilt frame, the only photo of them, of him, that she let herself bring, and feels a familiar tightening in her chest, a pain so sharp her vision goes white, and her throat closes. It seems paradoxical that an absence, a state of not being there, weighs so heavily, but she feels herself crumple under it, wrapping her arms around her knees as though holding herself together. She squeezes harder, until it hurts how much her fingers are digging into her flesh, and then stands up with a shuddering breath. She doesn’t put the picture up.

In all honesty, Molly has no intention of going to the party. It’s not like Stacey’s going to notice whether she’s there or not, and the idea of milling around making small talk with people who will vaguely recognize her and ask questions about what she’s been up to makes her nauseous.

But then again, after the incident with the photo, she thinks what she needs to do is get well and truly drunk. She hasn’t been doing so up until now, contrary to what her teachers believed; at least, not since the night before the funeral. But now she wants to. By the time Friday rolls around, she’s honestly looking forward to it in as much as she can honestly be said to be looking forward to anything these days.

“Is that what you’re going in?” Courtney wonders in a falsely bright voice that suggests she’s strongly hoping the answer is a resounding no.

“Yeah—” It’s her corset jacket, faux-leather leggings, and combat boots, a little too cliché “teenage burnout” to seem rebellious but Molly doesn’t give a shit. “Everyone’s going to be too smashed to care about what I’m wearing, anyways.” She sighs when she sees Courtney’s expression. “What, did you think it would be the ice cream and jello kind of party?”

“I just want you to be safe,” Courtney says, frowning.

Molly just nods. “You don’t have to wait up or anything. I’ll text you when I start heading back.”

The walk isn’t that long, but it’s still far enough away that by the time Molly arrives at The Droptop, the party’s already in full swing. There’s electro-pop music pumping loudly, and a cacophonous thrum of singing and yelling. She weaves her way through the crowd to the bar, fake ID in hand, and doesn’t turn back until she has her drink half-downed.

“Long day at the office?” someone - a stranger, mercifully - next to her asks.

In response, Molly chugs the rest and puts the cup down. She wonders if she should look for Stacey - probably, right? After all, she might as well turn her “drinking to forget” excursion into an excuse to make amends and kill two birds with one stone. Still, the crowd is roiling and unwieldy; it could take forever to find someone specific, especially considering she doesn’t even have Stacey’s number. Instead, she turns back to the girl next to her, who introduces herself to Molly as Nina, and smiles.

“Can’t a girl get wasted without all the drama?”

Nina grins back and turns to face her in a way that lets Molly know that this girl is interested.

“Maybe I just needed a reason to make conversation.”

Molly smirks but finds herself hitting a mental roadblock. A while ago, this would have come to her more easily. Right now, though, she’s not sure what to say. Or why she wants to say anything. Come on, she tells herself, you should have some fun. Have fun. But there’s a funny taste in her mouth now, a sudden desire to end this conversation quickly.

“I’ve just remembered,” Molly says, waving down the bartender, “my friend said she’d be here. I should probably go find her.”

“Oh,” Nina says, and yes, Molly is aware she’s an asshole in this situation, “I’ll catch you later?”

“Sure,” Molly says, taking her drink and slipping off the barstool.

Molly’s just tipsy enough now that she doesn’t really care that she’s alone, but not tipsy enough that she’s approaching other people, which is honestly about the right place to be, as far as states of inebriation go. She sees a couple of people she recognizes - no one catastrophically familiar, just some girls in the grade below her, a tattooed guy she used to take the bus with - and several more she doesn’t. Molly lets herself start to relax slightly, not quite dancing to the music but moving in time to it, swaying slightly, and that’s how Stacey finds her.