Heather should have listened to Alice Mae and quit while she was ahead. She'd found something potentially new and possibly helpful to the mystery surrounding Shadyside, but she'd only had tunnel vision of the glory at the end of it. Now she was questioning her sanity and wishing to return to her mundane life in Sunnyvale, but it felt too late. She was in too deep now. Not only her either; her friends too. Old and new.

Once the trance had worn off, Benji rushed Heather into his car and back to his place. They wanted to get as far away from the graveyard as possible and as quickly as possible. His trailer was about what she'd expect out of a Shadyside home, but it was also much more than that. There was plenty to learn about a person from their home. Heather did her best not to be too judgemental, but it was much different from what she was used to, and he was lucky that she'd already developed a bit of a crush on him before bringing her here. She may have been more open-minded than most of her peers, but she was still a Sunnyvaler accustomed to a particular lifestyle.

"Well? Any luck?" she asked when he reemerged from his bedroom down the hall. He had left her on the couch while he grabbed some weed from his room and called his friends. They were far away from the graveyard and tunnels, but she still felt like they were in danger somehow. Someone had to have been adding to the list of names recently, so what if they'd somehow seen them? Or had secret cameras set up? There was still no logical explanation for the mysterious beating heart unless they'd both had the same hallucination.

"On second thought, I'm already feeling pretty paranoid... maybe weed isn't the best idea," Heather admitted with a nervous smile. She wanted to seem cool and resilient, but it wasn't like she had faced much real danger in her life. Right now, she wanted to hide under her covers with Sir Bobbins of Fluffington and forget everything that had happened in the past month or two. Well... maybe not everything. If she couldn't snuggle her favorite childhood stuffie, perhaps she could snuggle the cute boy sitting next to her instead. "You think you could just hold me for a little bit first?"

Benji had been in plenty of fucked up situations, but none as fucked up as tonight. Whatever was going on in those tunnels was unexplainable. He didn't know what the fuck he saw. It was unnatural. At least he didn't see it alone. Heather saw everything too. Eli didn't want to believe him, but now Benji had Heather to corroborate his story.

After getting in the truck and getting Heather out of whatever the fuck that was, Benji didn't feel any better about what had just occurred. A feeling of dread washed over Benji as he drove away, repeatedly calling Heather’s name, trying to wake her out of the coma-like trance. He felt much better the further they went; Heather finally came to.

Benji hadn't been home in a few days due to getting into a fight with his alcoholic mother. His mom worked at a local bar, and his dad worked in the plastic factory. He was a bit passive and lacked a backbone. It was a very toxic household—one he chose not to speak of. Luckily for them, both his parents worked overnight, and his trailer was empty. Because he hadn’t been home in a few days, he was unsure of the state of the inside. Thankfully, it looked like someone had picked up. He was a tad embarrassed, regardless. Heather was from Sunnyvale. He was from Shadyside. He lived in a fucking trailer, whereas she probably lived in some big fancy fucking house. Yet, she was here. Granted, she was scared to fucking death. Where else was she going to go?

Benji hurried down the hallway, grabbed his box with his stash from his room, and scurried back to Heather, who was waiting in the living room. When he returned, he could see how shaken she was over the whole thing. He frowned and nodded when she asked if he could hold her. Benji sat the wooden box on the coffee table while the other reached out to grab Heather's forearm and guide her towards his couch.

“I’ve been told I’m quite the cuddler,” Benji announced with a smirk before wrapping his arm around Heather and pulling her into him. “Look, I don’t know what happened or what that was. I… I don’t have an answer. Not yet. We can figure this out, though. It’s been done before.” Benji tried to reassure her while his arms protectively wrapped around her. “It’s not the witch. It’s never really the witch. It’s someone controlling the witch, but I don’t understand because Samantha and Deena supposedly broke the curse in 1994. It doesn’t make sense.” If Benji remembered correctly, The Widow’s book went missing after Sam and Deena exposed Nick Goode and murdered him in the tunnels Benji and Heather had been exploring. Fuck! He didn’t know who could be behind the killings this time, but if he knew anything, that person knew what Heather, her friends and himself stumbled upon. This was not good for them. At all.

If she didn’t want to smoke the weed, Benji might have something else that could take the edge off. Without disturbing her, he reached in his front pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. “Want to try this? It’s a bit safer and it will calm you down,” he offered, holding the pack in front of her.

Heather hated this kind of party.

Not that she used to—back when everything felt simpler and fitting in was just muscle memory. Back when smiling came easy and she could dance without thinking about who might be watching. But tonight, as music pounded through the polished floors of some Sunnyvale senior’s sprawling McMansion, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was floating above it all. Outside of it. A ghost in lip gloss and platform heels.

The kitchen was crowded. Bottles clinked. Someone spilled vodka into a Solo cup and passed it to her without asking. She took it anyway, sipping the burn and barely flinching. Alice Mae and Caleb were somewhere nearby, probably still trying to hook her into another game of Never Have I Ever or get her to laugh at whatever inside joke they’d recycled for the third time.

They didn’t get it. Not really. The weird dreams. The tunnel map that wouldn’t stop showing up in her head. The names she couldn't stop repeating like they were etched into the back of her teeth.

She didn’t tell them everything. Not anymore.

Heather slipped through the kitchen crowd, cup in hand, and made her way to the side room where coats were stacked haphazardly on a velvet settee. Her fingers found the neck of an unopened bottle—something amber and expensive-looking—and she slid it into her oversized purse with practiced ease. No one saw. No one cared.

A few minutes later, she was backing her car out of the driveway, headlights sweeping across perfect hedges and manicured lawns. Her phone buzzed once—Alice Mae: where r u?—and then again—Caleb: u good? She let both messages sit unread.

The roads blurred into black as she headed toward the outskirts of town, the transition from Sunnyvale to Shadyside marked by cracked pavement and flickering streetlights. Somewhere between one world and the next, Heather felt her lungs expand. Not ease, exactly—but the pressure in her chest loosened just enough to breathe.

Benji trailer sat at the edge of a narrow road, tucked back behind a row of leaning trees and overgrown weeds. It looked the same as always—a little beat-up, windows glowing faintly with warm light, a battered truck parked out front like a loyal old dog.

Heather pulled up beside it, killed the engine, and sat in the quiet for a moment. Her fingers tapped absently against the bottle resting in her lap.

She didn’t know why it felt safer here. Why Benji, with his sardonic grin and flannel shirts, felt more like home than the people she'd grown up with. But he did. And tonight, that was enough.

She got out of the car, her boots crunching on gravel, and walked up the short steps.

Then she knocked on the trailer’s door.

Benji heard the knock before he registered what time it was.

Three slow raps. Not urgent. Not impatient. Just… there.

He unwrapped the headphone wire from around his fingers, pushed off the couch, and padded toward the door. The static hum of the busted TV filled the trailer like background radiation—familiar, constant. He didn’t bother muting it.

When he opened the door and saw Heather standing there, he didn’t say anything at first.

She looked like something out of a dream he hadn’t dared let himself have. Lip gloss smudged, hair wild from wind or motion or maybe just existing too long in a world that didn’t deserve her. That bottle glinting in her hand like a secret.

She looked tired. But not weak.

Like someone who’d walked through hell in heels and dared it to blink first.

“Heather,” he said, and her name tasted like the past—like old secrets and bonfire smoke and the first time he realized she was more than just a pretty face in a perfect town.

“You okay?”

She didn’t answer. Just looked at him with those eyes that always seemed to see through things—people, lies, herself.

Benji stepped aside without another word.

Because she didn’t knock on doors unless something was wrong.

And maybe, just maybe, she knew he was the kind of person who’d believe her when no one else would.

Heather didn’t speak right away. Just stood there on the porch, the quiet settling between them like fog. Then, without a word, she pulled the bottle from her purse and held it up with a raised eyebrow—half challenge, half invitation.

“I brought something,” she said, her voice dry but edged with something else. Something like relief.

Benji stepped aside, and she moved past him into the trailer like she’d done it a hundred times before, even if this was only the third or fourth. The space smelled faintly of cigarettes, pine-scented cleaner, and whatever takeout he’d last abandoned on the counter. She didn’t mind. It was real. Honest. Unlike the house she’d just come from, where everything sparkled too much and everyone pretended not to be exhausted by each other.

She set the bottle on the kitchen counter with a soft thunk and turned to face him, arms crossed, lips pressing together before she spoke.

“I’m okay,” she said, and then shrugged. “In a… matter of speaking.”

Benji raised an eyebrow, and it made something in her chest tighten.

“Define okay.”

Heather huffed out a laugh—low, unsteady, not really amused. She leaned against the counter and glanced down at the scuff on the toe of her boot like it had answers.

“I mean… I didn’t lose it at the party. Didn’t scream at Caleb when he said I should ‘just stop thinking about it for a night.’” Her voice pitched higher, mocking lightly. “Didn’t cry when Alice Mae gave me that look like I’d started glowing in the dark.”

She picked up the bottle again, twisting the cap off but not pouring anything yet.

“I know they care,” she added, quieter now. “I do. They’re just… they don’t get it. Not like you do.”

Her gaze flicked up to meet his, something raw shining behind it. She hadn’t meant to say that part. But once it was out, it stayed.

“I don’t know if that makes me crazy or if it just makes them lucky.”

The trailer hummed around them, warm and humming with low static. Heather set the bottle down again and crossed her arms, trying to act like she wasn’t unraveling beneath her skin.

“But I didn’t want to be there anymore,” she finished, finally. “I wanted to be here.”

With you hung silent between the lines.

She didn’t say it.

But she didn’t need to.

Benji watched her step inside like the trailer had been waiting for her. Like it breathed easier when she crossed the threshold.

She looked different tonight. Not in the way people usually mean. Not her makeup or her clothes or her hair—though yeah, the glitter on her cheekbones was smudged and her boots were muddy at the edges. It was something else. Something in the way her shoulders sat—like she’d been holding herself up too long and was just now remembering how to drop her guard.

She moved through the space like she knew it. Like she’d mapped it in her head the way some people map exits and escape routes. Like she could find her way through the dark if the lights cut out.

Benji watched the bottle appear from her bag. Something expensive, stolen maybe—he didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. The thunk it made when she set it on the counter sounded like punctuation. Not a period, but something heavier. Something final.

She leaned against the counter, arms crossed. Her face was calm, almost blank, but her eyes were storming. He could tell. He always could.

There was a tension in her jaw he recognized—like she was holding something back, something sharp and already half-swallowed. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, glanced down at her boot, picked up the bottle again, twisted the cap. Didn’t pour. Just held it like a question she didn’t know how to ask.

Benji didn’t press. He never had. People like Heather didn’t need pressure. They needed stillness. Space.

He moved to the counter, grabbed two mugs—one with a chipped lip, the other with a faded Shadyside High logo—and poured them each a finger of the amber stuff. When he handed hers over, their fingers brushed. Cold.

He nodded toward her mug. “It’s not much, but it burns enough to feel real.”

She didn’t say anything, but her grip tightened just a little.

Benji leaned back, sipped his, and studied her over the rim.

“You don’t have to explain it,” he said. His voice was low, matter-of-fact. “Whatever it is. You’re here. That’s all the explanation I need.”

She looked up, then. Just a flick of her gaze, but it hit him like a pulse.

He held it, quiet and steady. Let her see he meant it.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on in this town,” he said, thumb tracing the edge of his mug. “But I’ve seen enough to know something’s wrong. Always has been.”

He gave a small, humorless laugh. “You ever notice how no one really talks about the bad stuff here? Like the second something horrible happens, it’s swept under the rug and we’re all supposed to move on? Keep smiling. Keep pretending.”

He paused. Sighed through his nose.

“Everyone in Sunnyvale thinks we’re cursed ‘cause we don’t have granite countertops and new cars. But Shadyside’s been sick a long time. The kind of sick that gets in your bones.”

He looked at her again, softer now.

“I believe you,” he said. “Even if no one else does. Even if it doesn’t make sense yet.”

Outside, the wind scraped across the trailer walls like it was trying to listen in. The night felt watchful. Waiting.

Benji raised his mug, just a little.

“To ghosts,” he said. “The kind that don’t stay buried.”

Her eyes met his again, and he saw it—that flicker of something almost like peace. Like maybe she wasn’t alone in the dark after all.

And if that’s all he could give her tonight, he’d call it a win.

Heather raised her mug, but didn’t drink. Not yet.

She stared into the liquid like it might divine something for her—some answer, some absolution. But it didn’t swirl. It didn’t shine. Just sat there, dark and still. Like a secret with no intention of being told.

To ghosts, Benji had said.

And weren’t they all ghosts, in some way? Pieces of themselves left behind in houses they never went back to, nights they didn’t talk about, moments that never stopped echoing.

Heather tilted her head, just slightly. The overhead light caught on the edge of her cheekbone, highlighting the faint smudge of glitter that still clung there like a battle scar from a war fought mostly in silence.

She didn’t respond right away.

Didn’t need to.

Sunnyvale girls were raised on politeness and pretend. Heather knew how to say nothing with a smile. How to bite down on a scream and call it composure. But this—this quiet trailer and the boy who never asked her to be less or more than she was—made her forget to play pretend.

“I used to think Shadyside was the sickness and we were the cure,” she said, voice smooth, even. “Back home, the lawns are manicured, the PTA meetings are bloody gladiator rings in pearl earrings, and no one ever dies violently unless it’s off-screen and preferably off-season.”

A pause. She smirked faintly, but it didn’t touch her eyes.

“I thought we were blessed. Turns out we’re just better at burying things before they rot. Not cleaner. Just quieter.”

She took a slow sip, let the burn settle at the back of her throat before setting the mug down again with a gentle clink.

“Shadyside bleeds in the open. But Sunnyvale? We smile through the decay. Pretend we don’t smell the rot.” She looked at him then, eyes sharp and glassy. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t run screaming when the murders started again. I’d already seen what it looks like when something ugly eats a place from the inside out. I just hadn’t given it a name yet.”

Benji didn’t speak. Just listened the way he always did—like silence was a language he understood better than most.

Her eyes dropped to her mug again. Her voice, when it came, was quieter.

“I wish I could go back. To who I was before I climbed down into those tunnels beneath the graveyard. Before I knew what the air smells like where the sun never touches.” Her lip curled, self-directed. “Before I figured out that fate doesn’t care how golden your zip code is. You dig deep enough, even Sunnyvale has bones.”

Another sip. This one deeper.

“But then I wouldn’t have this.” Her eyes flicked toward Benji. She didn’t say it like a confession. Just a fact.

“This whole nightmare—it brought me you.” She smiled, wry and bitter-sweet. “So I guess even a curse knows how to be generous.”

Outside, the wind knocked against the trailer again, louder this time. Heather didn’t flinch.

“To ghosts,” she echoed, finally.

She downed the rest of the amber liquid, a single, clean swallow. A streak of it slipped out the corner of her mouth, trailing down her jaw. She wiped it away with the back of her hand—graceful, deliberate, unapologetic.

Then she set the mug down like she was done with it. Like she was done pretending, too.

She set the empty mug down with a soft clink, the motion precise but final, like punctuation at the end of a sentence she didn’t feel like finishing. Then, wordlessly, she reached for the bottle.

No hesitation this time.

She wrapped her fingers around the neck of it, lifted it clean off the counter, and brought it to her lips. The amber liquid hit harder without the buffer of glass or conversation—but she didn’t flinch. Just let the burn chase the ghosts down.

When she lowered the bottle, her eyes found his.

There was something in the look she gave him—head slightly tilted, one brow arching just enough to make it clear this wasn’t a request. It was an invitation. Join me, it said. Or don’t. But I’m going, with or without you.

Then she turned.

Boots silent on the thin trailer carpet, she made her way to the couch like she owned it. Like she’d always belonged there. Like maybe she was trying to reclaim something soft before the night stole it away.

She sat, legs crossed at her ankles, bottle still in hand, the glitter on her cheek catching the dim light like a war medal. Her free arm stretched across the back of the couch—not quite touching his space, but hovering close enough to leave room for something else. Something unsaid.

She didn’t look at him again.

Didn’t need to.

Benji watched her like a story he wasn’t ready to read aloud yet.

There was something holy in the way she moved—casual, bruised, untouchable. Like a patron saint of the damned, too tired to preach but too stubborn to fall. The bottle dangled from her fingers like a torch in a dark place, and her glitter—the last remnant of that other life—shimmered like blood on porcelain.

She didn’t look at him.

Didn’t need to.

Benji let the silence spool out between them. He’d never been afraid of quiet. Not like the others. Not like the kids who filled every inch of space with noise so they wouldn’t have to hear the truth echo back.

He stood for a moment, mug still warm in his hand, watching her claim the couch like it was a battlefield and she was planting a flag.

And maybe she was.

He didn’t speak as he moved toward her. Just crossed the small space with that same soft-footed steadiness he always carried, like noise might shatter the fragile thing between them. He didn’t reach for her—not yet. Just sat beside her, the cushion sinking slightly beneath his weight, the space between them small but deliberate.

She didn’t lean in. Didn’t pull away.

Good.

Benji exhaled slowly, letting his head tip back against the cushion. The static of the TV still murmured from the corner, a low, ghostly lullaby that had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with endurance.

He spoke into the hum, voice low, meant only for her.

“You know what I think?” he said. “I think the ones who see the rot are the ones who survive it. Not the ones who hide it. Not the ones who paint over it with matching curtains and graduation speeches.”

A pause. He turned his head just enough to glance at her—not directly, not fully. Just enough to let her know he was still here. Still listening.

“They call this place cursed,” he added. “But maybe it’s just honest. Maybe Shadyside doesn’t pretend. Maybe that’s why the truth shows up here in blood.”

The bottle shifted in her hand. His fingers twitched like they might take it, might lift it for her—but didn’t.

Instead, he looked down at the scar on his thumb, the one from when he was nine and punched a bathroom mirror after his dad called him nothing.

“I used to think we were the leftovers,” he said, quieter now. “The ones who didn’t get out. The ones who stayed because we weren’t strong enough to leave.”

He swallowed.

“But maybe we stayed because we were the only ones strong enough to look.”

Then—finally—he looked at her.

Not just sideways. Not halfway.

All the way.

And whatever he saw in her eyes was enough to pull him closer—not by much, just a fraction, just enough to shift the air.

“You’re not crazy, Heather,” he said, barely above a whisper. “You’re just one of the only people who still sees what’s real.”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t have to.

So he sat there beside her, still and silent and willing.

If she wanted to burn the night down, he’d be the match.

If she wanted to sit in the ash, he’d keep her warm.

And if she wanted to drink until the ghosts grew quiet, he’d pour.

Because whatever this was—curse, dream, truth carved in bone—it had brought her here.

And that was reason enough to stay.

Heather didn’t answer right away. She let the silence wrap around them like velvet—soft, heavy, laced with something dangerous.

She shifted her gaze to the trailer’s living room, eyes dragging slowly across the mismatched furniture and cigarette-burned rug. The off-kilter lamp in the corner, still stained with a ring of someone else’s bad decision. A stack of DVDs by the tiny TV, most missing cases. This place had lived. And it hadn’t asked permission.

It wasn’t pretty. But it didn’t lie.

She liked that about it.

She liked that about him, too—though she’d never admit it out loud. Not yet.

Heather took another sip from the bottle, letting the whiskey burn its way down like it had something to prove. Her lipstick left a faint print on the rim—one more mark on something already ruined.

She glanced at Benji out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t looking. Good. She could study him without it costing her anything. The way he leaned back like he didn’t need to fight for space. The soft fall of curls over his temple. That scar on his thumb he always touched when he got too close to truth.

Heather hated how much she noticed.

How much she felt.

Because this—whatever this was—was dangerous. A boy with a scarred heart and no illusions, who saw straight through her curated sharpness. A boy who didn’t flinch at curses or ghosts or girls who bled glitter and vengeance. A boy from the wrong side of the tracks who made her feel like home and hellfire in the same breath.

She didn’t need more chaos—and yet here she was, curled into a couch that reeked of smoke and stories, sipping whiskey like it might anchor her to something real, and letting him get closer than anyone had in a long, long time.

Heather exhaled, slow and quiet, like releasing a secret. Her gaze flicked to the dark window, her own reflection staring back—war paint smudged, mascara clinging to the corners of her lashes like ghosts that refused to leave. There was grief in her bones. Grief and glitter and fury, all wrapped up in a girl too sharp to hold and too soft to let go.

“You ever think maybe the curse isn’t about what happens to us?” she said, voice low, smoky, as if it might vanish if she spoke too loud. “Maybe it’s about who we become because of it.”

She twisted the bottle in her hand, watching amber light catch on the rim. Her fingers curled tighter.

“Maybe it strips us down until all that’s left is the truth. And maybe that truth is ugly. Maybe it's terrifying. But at least it's ours.” She looked over at him then—really looked. Eyes like a storm right before it breaks. “And maybe that’s the most dangerous thing of all. Not the curse. Us.”

The words tasted too honest. Too close to bleeding. So she chased them with another drink, whiskey sliding over her tongue like sin.

Then, slowly, she extended the bottle toward him, the corner of her mouth tilting into something too sly to be sweet, too practiced to be innocent.

“Your turn, sinner,” she murmured, eyes gleaming. “Take a sip, and tell me what kind of ghost you’re gonna be.”