Dazed after yet another sleepless night—deep notch between her brows, shoulders tight—Stella pads through the lake house, obliged to leave her comfortable cocoon of blankets by the loud, jarring echo of the doorbell bouncing between its walls.

Stood on the front porch is Jessica, Jake's friend from the farmers' market, cheeks flushed pink as she beams: showing off a toothy, dazzling—slightly crooked—smile. Her red-rimmed sunglasses are perched atop her head, her black hair falling everywhere and, just like the last time Stella saw her, she's wearing a tank top spelling out 'Paige's berries' on its front. A mysterious purple stain is smudged across the 'b', though considering Stella's currently sporting a distressed t-shirt adorned in splotches of spilled iced tea, she's in no place to judge.

If Jessica's phased by Stella's 'I haven't washed my hair for the past four days and I'm not planning on starting now'-look she doesn't show it, instead—as the door swings open, her smile only grows wider as she sings, "Hi!"

She doesn't waste any time shoving two bags filled to the brim with paper boxes of berries into Stella's embrace. "We are absolutely overflowing in these," She says, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. "And I was already passing through on my way to my grandparents, so I figured: why not bring some to you guys? Free of charge, of course."

"Oh," Stella smiles tightly, a headache brewing at the back of her mind, suppressing the urge to grimace as she balances the bags in her arms. "Thank you."

Jessica peers into the house over Stella's shoulder, a light sway to her feet. "Is Jake here?"

Stella's heart drops deeper in her chest, her cheeks sucked in as she takes a step back—foot coming to rest against the door, ready to close it. "No. He's back home. His home. In Acebridge."

"When is he coming back?"

"I don't think–," Stella presses her lips together as something seizes her throat. She blinks. Once, twice—collecting herself. "He's not. Coming back."

"Oh that's too bad," Jessica lifts her shoulder in half-a-shrug. "I was going to invite you guys to this film screening tomorrow at The Primrose. My friend's hosting it."

"The Primrose? The Bed and Breakfast?"

"Yeah, they have a movie theater in the basement. Which is not as creepy as it sounds. I promise. I guess we can count on Jake being a no-show."

Stella holds back a sigh, very much ready to have this conversation be over and done with. "I guess, yeah."

"But you should come!"

Before she can stop herself, Stella winces. "I don't know."

"It's going to be really fun. Last year was great!"

"You know, I would but I... It's just that I think I'm coming down with a cold."

Stella tilts her chin to the side and fakes a small cough for emphasis, taking yet another step back into the house. If her hands hadn't been full with berries she hasn't asked for, she would have reached up to gently rub at her throat as well—just for show. Stella hardly, ever, gets sick. But Jessica doesn't know that.

"Okay," Jessica's lips form a small sympathetic smile. "Maybe another year."

"Yeah," Stella says, unconvinced. "Maybe another year."

"Well, I won't be keeping you then," Jessica says, finally beginning to retreat from the threshold of the front door. "I hope you feel better soon."

"You too," Stella rushes out before squeezing her eyes shut. "I mean: bye. Sorry."

A small, lighthearted laugh escapes Jessica. "Bye,"

She turns around, only to pause in her step and glance over her shoulder at Stella.

"If you change your mind—or feel miraculously better tomorrow—we'd be happy to have you."

"Mhm, maybe."

Letting the door fall close, Stella exhales a sigh of relief—listening to the engine of Jessica's truck as it sputters awake out front before she makes her way into the kitchen where she dumps the embrace of berries onto the counter.

Resting her head back against a cupboard, she rubs the heels of her palms against her eyes until her vision goes blurry—small twinkling stars adorning her eyelids, a faint dizziness to her head. She's exhausted. Her limps sore, her mind tired. As if she's spent the past four days climbing mountains or swimming for miles. In reality, ever since she left Acebridge—and Jake—behind, she's barely gotten any sleep.

Being back by Blue Windflower Lake is far from the relief Stella had imagined it to be. The house is too big, too empty. The silence too loud without the soft tap of Fizzy's paws against the wooden floorboards. And yet, despite the void, Jake is everywhere.

In the crossword pages of her magazines. In her coffee, the cups they brought together in town stood collecting dust on a shelf, taunting her every time she opens the cupboard door. In the morning shade, sat on the patio—the dining table too big for just one person.

In this kitchen, in the memories of the day he wrapped his arms around her and held her close for the first time in a long time. In the evenings, his head slightly bent over the stove—or the chopping board—, t-shirt pulled taut over the flex of his muscles.

Even in the breeze of the early August wind, reminding her of their day on the sea. The water underneath her feet, the joy shaping her features. His knee-buckling smile. The two of them, stood on the deck of the boat, a mere breath apart.

Wherever she looks, there he is.

An unsettling heaviness follows her around, lingers above her like that of a thunder cloud. Through the days and nights, in the evenings and in the mornings. She cannot get rid of it; nothing helps.

That unsettling feeling only grows bigger as her phone begins to buzz next to her on the counter, and she presses her lips together with a sigh as she declines Faye's incoming call. Picking her phone up, she sends her sister a quick text—thumbs flying easily over the screen with yet another excuse as she moves from the counter to the kitchen table, sinking into a seat.

Going for a swim! Talk later? <3

She doesn't wait for Faye's response, simply putting her phone screen down on the tabletop. Sighing again, she rests her cheek in her hand. She hasn't spoken to Faye at all since she left Acebridge. She hasn't spoken to Jake either—and following a few unreturned calls, he seems to have given up on the prospect of talking to her as well. Not that it matters.

She has spoken to her mothers. Both of them, at once, on the speaker phone. Filled her shoes as their dutiful daughter, inquiring about their days while lying about hers—painting them a picture of a wonderful summertime sunbathing on the dock in her bikini rather than spending hours aimlessly wandering around the house in her tea and-tearstained PJs. Telling them Jake stayed behind in Acebridge because he wants to spend some time there before going back to school. Managing a choked out affirmation—a sore burn to her throat—that "Yes, it is nice we got the chance to catch up after all these years". Listening with half-an-ear to details of Kelly's law firm's upcoming trial, assurances promising everything is going to be just fine, a flickering sense that Stella isn't the only one speaking in half-truths.

But she hasn't spoken to Faye. She cannot talk to Faye. Just one audible circle of breath through the phone would have Faye knowing something's gone wrong. And so, until she's found a way around this—whatever this is—, Stella's not talking to Faye.

Her chest rises and falls with a heavy breath. She misses her sister.

And she misses Jake. Misses the stupid back-and-forth, misses laughing until her ribs grow sore. No matter how hard she tries to deny it, that flutter deep in her chest—an annoyed kind of ache.

Pulling her legs up onto the chair, Stella reaches for the magazine lying atop a stack of them. Cosmopolitan. She flips it open with one quick, practiced turn of her wrist, eyes gazing over the pages in an attempt to keep herself—and her mind—occupied, but she loses her interest a few glossy pages in.

Her gaze turns out the window, to the dark green surface of the lake in the near distance, glittering underneath the rays of midday sun. Something rises within her, warm and anxious as it nestles its way into her chest, wrapping around her heart. And so, in an attempt to wash her troubles away, at least for a moment, she pushes away from the table and to her feet.

Stepping out the patio door, she sheds out of her clothes; the tie-straps of her bikini flutters lightly against her goose bumped skin as a soft breeze trickles by. On bare feet, she runs across the sloped lawn.

The wooden planks of the dock creak underneath her weight as she crosses it, her body making a faint curve as her toes push off the edge—letting the water swallow her whole.

━ ♡♡♡ ━

Three days later, Stella's sat at the edge of the dock—legs drawn to her chest, chin pressed against the flat of her knees, ankles crossed—, her phone pressed to her ear, humming along as her mother (Andrea, not Kelly) goes on about the joys of wall climbing.

She gazes out at the lake, the sky a cold, light blue where it meets its dark surface. Rays of sun slip through the clouds, yet not providing much warmth in the windy afternoon. The water laps gently against the edge of the dock, blending with the song of the birds above. Somewhere in the distance, a group of kids are playing soccer—their voices rising into the air in between the occasional thud of a ball hitting the metallic rim of the net.

"Hi."

Startled, Stella's breath catches, her heart ready to leave her chest and skitter across the surface of the lake. Fingers tightening in their clutch around her phone, she whirls her head over her shoulder—gaze landing on Jessica.

Jessica—dressed in a navy fleece sweater, the collar zipped up to her collar, and blue denims today—lifts her palm in an apologetic gesture, eyes flickering to Stella's phone as she mouths, "Sorry."

Brows etching together, Stella tucks an errant strand of her wind tossed hair behind her hear. "Mom? I'll call you back."

"Oh, you didn't have to hang up—now I feel bad," Jessica says as Stella puts the phone aside. "And not only because I scared you—which I didn't mean to do, by the way. Sorry. I tried the doorbell but you didn't answer and..."

Jessica trails off, shifting back on her sneaker-clad feet as if giving Stella room to speak. As she doesn't, she continues.

"Anyways, I just thought I'd pop by. See if you wanted to hang out."

"Hang out?" Stella echoes, the disbelief traceable in her tone. "You and me?"

"Yeah."

"We don't really..." Stella pauses, aware after her brushing-off the other day she's probably already coming off as rude. Impolite. Cold. Graceless. Whatever. She's just so tired. "Know each other."

"I'm aware," Jessica slants her head to the side, eyes kind as she lifts her shoulder in an absentminded shrug. "But you look like you could use a friend,"

Stella's mouth falls open, and she presses her lips together with a small frown. Jessica, unbothered, smiles and lifts the cotton tote held in her hand.

"Also—I brought ice cream."

Turning around, Stella shifts into a crosslegged seat, lips pursing with a hint of consideration. "What kind of ice cream?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Jessica sets the tote down with an over exaggerated gesture, letting its corners fold to reveal five different pints of ice cream. "Figured I'd give you the chance to choose."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"First the berries, now this—why?"

Jessica's lips quirk up. "I can't try to be a good friend?" Then as Stella's eyes remain narrowed, with a small sigh of defeat, she says. "Okay fine. Paisley Andersen saw you at the grocery store last week, looking miserable. It's a small town—people talk,"

She slides a spoon out of her purse, unwrapping it from a paper napkin and hands it to Stella. "And we're nosy."

Unwillingly, the corners of Stella's mouth twitch up. She surveys the pints of ice cream, flickering her gaze to Jessica. "Aren't you going to sit down?"

Jessica's smile widens, and she doesn't waste any time dropping into a seat, folding her legs to her side as she pulls another spoon out of her bag. "I wasn't sure you wanted me to."

Stella twirls the spoon in her hand. "Do you carry these around all the time?"

"No. Special occasions only."

Stella reaches for the pint of strawberry ice cream, her chest a little lighter from the mere act of smiling. "Like when prying on your neighbors?"

"Exactly."

"And I'm guessing you'll be reporting back to the town?"

"Yet do be determined," Jessica picks at an imaginary speckle of dust on her sleeve and as she lifts her gaze, sympathy dances over her features. "So, you and Jake, huh?"

Stella's smile falters, spoon against her lips as the notch between her brows slowly returns. "What?"

"I know a broken heart when I see one."

"I don't have a broken heart," Stella says through a misplaced chortled breath, stabbing her spoon into the ice cream. She stares down at its pink hue as a bitter taste crawls up her throat. "That would be ridiculous."

Jessica purses her lips in thought, eyes narrowing with a hint of curiosity. "Why?"

"Because whatever we did have..." Stella sweeps her hand through the air in an useless gesture that could mean anything. "It lasted about a day. Twenty-six hours, maybe. So, I'm definitely not heartbroken,"

She lets her lips slip into a smile, a twitch in her cheek—as if amused with herself and the way her heart has begun to beat hard in her chest, with how her mind is already spinning. Memories of that day flashes before her eyes: bumping shoulders, strolling around his hometown, his fingertips gently grazing her skin as he tucked her hair behind her ear.

Faintly, she says, "That would be–"

"Ridiculous?"

"Yes."

Jessica raises her brows, her tone airy—almost a little flippant. "Okay."

"So that's that," Stella stabs the spoon into the ice cream again, lips twisting uncertainly as she speaks through a sigh. "It's a long story. Or maybe it's not. I don't know."

"Well," Jessica reaches for another pint of ice cream, butter pecan, popping the lid off. "I know we aren't friends or anything—I heard you. But luckily, say if you were in need of a friend, I do have time."