Rae only meant to delete the playlist.

It was called songs for the drive home, though they had never driven home together without taking the long way. Liam used to make her guess why he chose each track. She was terrible at it. He loved that about her.

Three years after he left, she pressed play while packing for a new apartment. The first songs were familiar. Then a track she had never heard began—quiet guitar, a voice like a room at dawn.

It had been added on the day he disappeared.

Rae searched the lyrics. They were not about leaving. They were about someone waiting at a station with a letter in their pocket, afraid that telling the truth would ruin the only good thing they had ever known.

She called the number she had sworn she would never call. It rang once.

“You found it,” Liam said.

Her breath caught. “You knew I would?”

“I hoped you might.”

She sat among half-packed boxes, suddenly twenty-six again. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened?”

“I tried. Your sister answered the door.”

Rae went still. Her sister had been the one person who insisted Liam never loved her enough to stay.

“What did she tell you?” Rae asked.

Liam’s silence lasted long enough to become an answer. “Ask her why she was wearing your ring.”