Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQV11MGZA3XJ98FWN3TRVC

The green neon sign bled color into the wet pavement outside, and Rory had just settled onto her usual stool at the far end of the bar when the door swung open, letting in a gust of November cold and a woman in a camel coat. Rory didn't look up right away. She was busy nodding at Malcolm, the bartender on Tuesday nights, who already knew to pour her a glass of the house red without being asked. But something in the way the newcomer paused just inside the threshold, scanning the room with the practiced wariness of someone who didn't want to be found, made Rory's shoulders tighten. Then the woman stepped fully into the light, and the world tilted sideways. The coat was expensive—Rory could tell that much even from across the room. The heels were Louboutins, their red soles flashing as the woman moved toward an empty table near the window. Her hair was different, swept up in an elegant chignon that exposed the sharp lines of her jaw and cheekbones, but the slight crook in her nose remained. The determined set of her shoulders remained. It was Gemma. Gemma Hartley, who'd sat next to Rory in Contract Law during their first year at Cardiff, who'd shared her notes when Rory missed lectures, who'd once stayed up until three in the morning helping Rory draft an appeal after Evan had— Rory's hand went unconsciously to her left wrist, her thumb tracing the crescent scar there. She should leave. She should grab her wine, nod to Malcolm, and take the back stairs up to her flat. That was the sensible thing to do. The years had taught her that the past was best kept at a distance, preserved in memory like specimens in glass jars—visible, but safely contained. Instead, she watched. Gemma ordered something from Malcolm—whiskey, probably, from the way he reached for the top shelf—and then pulled out her phone, frowning at the screen. She looked tired beneath the careful makeup. There were lines around her eyes that hadn't been there before, and something in the rigid way she held herself suggested a woman performing the role of someone who had everything under control. Rory knew that performance. She'd given it herself, night after night, in another life. She was halfway through her wine when Gemma finally looked up and caught her staring. The recognition was immediate. Gemma's eyes went wide, her hand freezing mid-reach for her glass. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Gemma stood, crossed the narrow space between them, and stopped just short of the bar. "Rory." It wasn't a question. Gemma's voice was different too—lower, more controlled, as if she'd trained herself to speak in measured increments. "Gemma." Rory set down her glass. "It's been a while." A ghost of a smile crossed Gemma's face. "That's one way to put it." She hesitated, then gestured to the empty stool beside Rory. "Mind if I?" "Free country." Gemma settled onto the stool with a practiced grace that made Rory acutely aware of her own ratty jumper and the delivery jacket still slung over the back of her seat. She'd been running late all afternoon—three dropped orders, a flat tire on her bike, and a shouting match with a customer who'd insisted his dumplings were cold. She hadn't even changed before coming downstairs. "You look good," Gemma said, and the lie was so transparent that Rory almost laughed. "Right. I look like I've spent the day biking through London traffic in the rain." Rory signaled Malcolm for another round. "You, on the other hand, look like you're billing at five hundred an hour." Gemma's smile flickered. "Four seventy-five, actually. Firms been rounding down since the recession." She accepted the whiskey Malcolm placed before her and took a long sip. "I made partner last year. At least there's that." "Partner." Rory let the word sit between them. "That's what you always wanted." "Is it?" The question hung in the air. Gemma was staring into her glass now, her shoulders curving inward, and in the dim light of the bar—amber glow from the vintage lamps, shadows pooling in corners cluttered with Silas's old maps—Rory saw past the expensive coat and the perfect hair. She saw the girl who'd once confessed, over cheap pints at the student union, that she was terrified of becoming her mother. Bitter. Trapped. Slowly disappearing into a life she'd never chosen. Rory thought about the years between then and now. About Eva's frantic phone calls, the train ticket purchased at dawn with money she shouldn't have spent, the flat above this very bar that Silas had offered her with nothing but a key and a gruff "take your time." She thought about the quiet satisfaction of a delivery completed, the weight of the empty dumpling containers at the end of a shift, the freedom of being nobody in particular in a city big enough to swallow her whole. She'd lost things along the way. She knew that. The law degree she'd never finished. Her relationship with her parents, fractured beyond repair. Any illusion she'd had about who she was and what she deserved. But she'd gained things too. Her breath was her own now. Her body was her own. Her life, small and unremarkable as it might seem from the outside, belonged entirely to her. "I heard about Evan," Gemma said quietly. "After you left. He came round to my flat, looking for you. He seemed..." "Don't." Rory's voice came out harder than she intended. She forced herself to take a breath. "I don't need you to tell me what he seemed like. I was there." Gemma flinched. "I wasn't going to justify anything. I just— I wanted you to know that I tried. To reach you. After. I called your parents, your mobile, even that restaurant where you used to pick up shifts on weekends. Nobody would tell me where you'd gone." "I know." Rory had seen the messages, eventually. Dozens of them, piling up in a voicemail box she'd rarely checked. She'd never responded. What could she have said? That she was drowning? That she'd finally worked up the courage to run and she couldn't risk looking back, not even for the friend who'd helped her through her first year of law school, not even for the one person who'd made Cardiff feel like something close to home? "I should have tried harder," Gemma said. "I've thought about it a lot. Whether there was something I could have done. Something I should have seen." "You were twenty-two. We both were." Rory turned her wine glass in a slow circle, watching the light refract through the crystal. "I didn't see it either, until I did. And by then..." She shrugged. "I've had three years to make my peace with what happened. I'm not interested in excavating it tonight." "Then what are you interested in?" The question caught Rory off guard. She looked at Gemma—really looked at her—and saw the tightness around her mouth, the tension in her neck, the way she was nursing that whiskey like it was the only thing keeping her upright. "When's the last time you ate something that wasn't from a Pret near your office?" Gemma blinked. "What?" "You look like you're about to fall over. There's a place around the corner that does a decent kebab. My treat." Rory reached for her delivery jacket. "Unless you've got somewhere better to be at—" she checked her phone "—nine forty-five on a Tuesday?" For a moment, Gemma looked like she might refuse. Her jaw tightened, her chin lifted, and Rory caught a glimpse of the woman she'd become—the one who billed at four seventy-five an hour, who'd made partner, who surely had important emails to answer and early meetings to prepare for. Then her shoulders dropped. Just a fraction. Just enough. "Actually," Gemma said, "I don't."