: Home Isn't a Place, It's a Wound
It's been five years since I left home, and yet the air still smells like late fall—wet leaves, chimney smoke, and something so achingly familiar it makes my chest tighten.
Five years since that night.
Five years since I slept with Eli Carter, my best friend, in a tangle of tequila, heartbreak, and mistaken identity.
Five years since I left without saying goodbye—not to him, not to my parents, not even to myself.
I told everyone I was just transferring schools. That I needed a change. That the university in Boston had a better program. I changed my major from history to business, swapped poetry classes for accounting lectures, buried my heart in spreadsheets and internships.
No one questioned it much. Except my mom.
She asked me every year during Thanksgiving phone calls—gentle but persistent. "Anna, what really happened that week? You and Eli were inseparable."
I'd laugh it off, say we grew apart. She never believed it. But when she saw I wasn't going to open up, she stopped pushing. My dad, on the other hand, never asked. Just hugged me tighter when I visited. Told me he was proud, even when I didn't feel like I'd earned it.
And now I'm back. Five years older. Supposedly wiser. With a degree, a job offer which am still thinking of I would accept, and an emotional landmine waiting somewhere between the front porch and the Carter household.
The car door clicks shut, and I pause, letting the cool November air fill my lungs. I can't even explain why I came back. Maybe I missed my mom's green bean casserole. Maybe I missed my old room, the creak in the hallway, my dad waking me up on Saturday mornings with the aroma of pancakes
Or maybe… I just got tired of running.
"Anna!"
My name slices through the stillness, sharp and unexpected.
I turn—and there he is.
Kelvin
Looking older, broader, hair a little shorter but still messily perfect. His hands are shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket, like he doesn't know whether to wave or run or punch something. His eyes—those same deep brown eyes that used to light up when we'd sneak out for midnight drives—are unreadable.
I swallow hard remembering his scent and the way he moaned my name thinking if I can ever forget that night
Five years ago, he broke my trust
Now I have to decide whether I'm here to pick up the pieces , forget about the most amazing sex I have ever got or finally say goodbye.