Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQQK9QFZ1QZJ2ZEGE7RR3S

The green neon sign of The Raven's Nest cast its familiar glow across the rain-slicked pavement as Rory pushed through the door, shaking droplets from her delivery jacket. The warmth hit her immediately—that particular combination of old wood, whiskey, and the faint musk of leather furniture that had become as much home as the flat upstairs. She'd made three deliveries tonight already, and her shoes squelched against the hardwood floor as she crossed toward the bar. Silas stood behind it, polishing a glass with the methodical precision of a man who'd learned patience in places where impatience got you killed. He glanced up, and something in his expression shifted—not quite concern, but close enough to make Rory pause mid-step. "What?" she asked. He tilted his head toward the corner booth, the one tucked beneath a framed map of Cold War Berlin. "Someone's been asking for you." Rory's stomach tightened. Even after eight months in London, unexpected visitors still meant Evan in her mind—though Evan wouldn't dare show his face in Silas's territory. She turned slowly. The woman in the booth looked up from her gin and tonic. For a moment, Rory didn't recognize her. The hair was wrong—dyed platinum instead of the rich chestnut Rory remembered. The clothes were wrong too, expensive in a way that suggested understated wealth rather than high street fashion. But the eyes were the same: dark brown, almost black in the bar's low light. "Christ," Rory breathed. "Megan?" Megan Hartley—because surely she'd dropped the double-barreled surname by now—smiled. It was a careful expression, the kind that didn't quite reach those familiar eyes. "Hello, Rory." The last time Rory had seen Megan Hartley-Finch, they'd been twenty-one and drunk on cheap cider at Cardiff's Barfly, shouting along to some band neither of them could remember the next morning. Megan had been all sharp edges then—sarcastic wit and a nose ring, perpetually in ripped tights and her ex-boyfriend's oversized band shirts. She'd been reading Philosophy and Theatre, making art installations in abandoned buildings, talking about dismantling capitalism and moving to Berlin. "May I?" Rory gestured to the seat opposite. "Of course." Megan's accent had changed too, softened somehow. The Cardiff lilt had been filed down to something more neutral, more BBC than Brains beer. Rory slid into the booth and caught Silas's eye. He nodded once—a question and an offer. She held up two fingers. Two whiskies appeared on the table moments later, delivered by Silas himself, who retreated without a word. He was good at reading situations. "You're wondering how I found you," Megan said, wrapping both hands around her gin glass. "The thought had crossed my mind." "Eva. I ran into her at a fundraiser in Bristol last month. She mentioned you were in London." Of course Eva would be at fundraisers now. Eva had always been the practical one, the one who'd get her law degree and actually use it. Unlike Rory, who'd fled that particular future like it was on fire. "A fundraiser," Rory said, taking a sip of whiskey. It burned in the good way. "You're doing fundraisers now." Something flickered across Megan's face—defensiveness, maybe, or shame. "I work in arts administration. It's part of the job." "Arts administration." Rory let the words sit between them. "Not making art yourself, then." "No." Megan's fingers tightened on the glass. "Not for a while now." The silence stretched. On the bar's sound system, something bluesy and instrumental played—probably Silas's choice. He had a gift for selecting music that filled space without demanding attention. "You look different," Rory said finally. "So do you." Megan's gaze traveled over Rory's delivery jacket, the wet trainers, the black hair that had been auburn back at university. "Eva said you'd... reinvented yourself." "Eva talks too much." "She worries about you. We all did, after—" Megan stopped, pressed her lips together. "After you left." Rory's thumb found the small crescent scar on her left wrist, rubbing it through habit. "I didn't leave. I escaped." "From Evan, yes. Eva told me." Megan's voice dropped. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it had gotten that bad." "No one did. I got good at hiding things." Rory took another drink. "But we're not talking about me. You came looking for me specifically. Why?" Megan stared into her gin like it might contain answers. The platinum hair caught the light from the wall sconces, and Rory could see dark roots beginning to show. Even the hair dye was temporary, then. Everything about this new Megan seemed like a costume that didn't quite fit. "I got married," Megan said abruptly. "Two years ago. To Marcus. He's an investment banker. We have a flat in Hampstead." "Congratulations." Rory kept her voice neutral. "I hate it." The words came out sharp, almost violent. Megan looked up, and for a second, Rory saw the girl from the Barfly again—the one who'd stolen traffic cones and written angry poetry on toilet walls. "I hate all of it. The flat, the fundraisers, the dinner parties where everyone discusses property values and school catchment areas. I hate that I straightened my hair this morning and put on this bloody Jaeger coat because I was coming to London and I wanted to look... respectable." Rory said nothing. Sometimes silence was the best gift you could give someone. "I think about Berlin constantly," Megan continued. "About the installation I was planning. The one with the projection screens and the audio of people reading letters from the war. Do you remember? I bored you senseless talking about it." "You didn't bore me. I thought it sounded brilliant." "I never made it. I graduated and Marcus—we'd been dating a few months by then—he suggested I apply for this admin position at the Llantarnam Arts Centre. Just temporarily, you know, while I got my portfolio together. Except the temporary job became permanent, and then Marcus got promoted, and we moved to London, and now I'm thirty thousand pounds a year and a mortgage and a husband who thinks art is something you hang over the sofa." Rory turned her glass slowly, watching the amber liquid catch the light. "Why are you telling me this?" "Because Eva said you'd walked away from everything. Your degree, your family's expectations, that whole life they'd mapped out for you. She said you were delivering takeaway and living above a pub and you seemed... happy." "I am happy." "Are you?" Megan's eyes searched her face. "Really?" Rory thought about the question. She thought about her cramped flat with its temperamental heating, about cycling through London rain with containers of noodles balanced in her basket. She thought about Evan's voice in her head some mornings, about her father's disappointed silence when she'd told him she was leaving university. She thought about Eva's worried texts and her mother's careful neutrality on their monthly phone calls. But she also thought about Silas teaching her to make proper Old Fashioneds. About Yu-Fei's grandmother slipping her extra spring rolls with a conspiratorial wink. About the freedom of days that belonged only to her, shaped by her choices and no one else's expectations. "I'm happier than I was," she said finally. "I'm more myself than I've ever been." Megan looked down at her hands—manicured nails, diamond engagement ring, wedding band that probably cost more than Rory made in six months. "I don't know who I am anymore." "Yes, you do." Rory leaned forward. "You're the person who tracked me down to a Soho bar because some part of you remembered what you used to want. You're the person who still thinks about Berlin." "Wanting isn't enough." "It's a start." Megan laughed, but it came out wrong—bitter and tired. "It's not that simple. There's Marcus, and the mortgage, and I've been at the centre for six years. I have responsibilities." "So did I." Rory finished her whiskey. "I had a degree halfway done, a family waiting for me to become a solicitor, a boyfriend who'd convinced me I couldn't survive without him. I walked away from all of it." "And you don't regret it?" The question hung between them. Rory thought about her mother's face the day she'd left Cardiff, about opportunities she'd closed doors on. But she thought too about breathing freely for the first time in years. "I regret the time I wasted being someone else," she said. "I don't regret becoming myself." Megan was quiet for a long moment. Outside, rain began to fall harder, drumming against the windows. Somewhere in the bar, someone laughed—a group of regulars at their usual table, living their usual lives. "I should go," Megan said finally, but she didn't move. "Marcus will be wondering where I am." "Will he?" "No." Megan's smile was sad and honest. "Probably not." She stood, smoothing down the expensive coat that looked like someone else's life. At the door, she paused and looked back. "If I do it—if I leave—can I call you?" "I'm in the book," Rory said. Then, softer: "Yes. Call me." Megan nodded and stepped out into the rain, platinum hair quickly darkening with water. Through the window, Rory watched her flag down a taxi, watched it pull away toward Hampstead and mortgages and a life that fit like borrowed clothes. Silas appeared at the table, collecting the empty glasses. "Old friend?" "Used to be." Rory looked at the space where Megan had been sitting. "I think she's trying to figure out if she still is." "And you? What do you think?" Rory traced the crescent scar on her wrist, remembering the girl who'd gotten it falling out of a tree at eight years old, too stubborn to admit she'd climbed too high. "I think some people find their way back. And some people just find a way forward." Silas nodded, understanding in the way he always understood things, and left her with the rain and the music and the weight of all the lives they didn't live.