AI The air in The Raven’s Nest was thick with the scent of aged whiskey, damp wool, and the ghost of a thousand conversations. It was Rory’s favourite kind of weather, contained within four walls. She traced the cool, smooth rim of her glass, her thumb finding the familiar , slightly serrated edge of a chip. From her usual stool at the end of the bar, she had a clear view of the door and the green neon glow that bled from the sign outside, casting the patrons in a sickly, otherworldly light. Silas moved behind the counter with a veteran’s economy, his limp a soft, rhythmic scrape against the floorboards, a sound as much a part of the place as the low hum of the cooler.
The door swung open, letting in a sharp gust of rainy London air and a new customer. A man, tall, shrugging off a coat that looked too expensive for the neighbourhood. He hesitated for a moment, his eyes adjusting to the gloom , scanning the room as if looking for someone . Or perhaps just looking for a place to land. They swept past her, then snapped back. Something in his posture shifted, a subtle straightening of the spine, a hitch in his breath she felt more than heard across the room.
“Aurora?”
The voice was deeper, sanded down by time and what sounded like a pack-a-day habit, but the cadence was unmistakable. It was a voice from a different life, one that belonged to sun-bleached afternoons in Cardiff, to stolen pints behind the rugby grounds, to whispered secrets in a university library that always smelled of dust and desperation.
She turned slowly, letting him come into focus. Evan. The years had been generous in a brutal, architectural way. The boyish softness had been planed away, leaving a harder, sharper man. His suit was a severe, dark grey, tailored to perfection, a stark contrast to the worn jeans and band t-shirts he used to live in. His hair was shorter, ruthlessly styled, but his eyes were the same—a deep, restless brown that had once made her feel like the most fascinating creature on earth. Now, they just looked tired.
“Evan.” Her own voice was calm, a flat stone dropped into still water. She kept her hands on her glass, the small crescent scar on her left wrist hidden beneath the cuff of her sweater.
He closed the distance between them, his movements stiff, as if he’d forgotten how to be casual. “My god. I… I heard you’d moved to London. I didn’t think…” He trailed off, his gaze doing a quick, appraising tour of her. The simple sweater, the jeans, the fact that she was sitting alone in a dim Soho bar on a Tuesday night. She could see the calculations flickering behind his eyes, comparing the reality to whatever story he’d been telling himself.
“Small world,” she said, because it was the only thing that felt safe to say.
“Can I…” He gestured to the empty stool beside her. It wasn’t really a question. He was already sliding onto it, the fine wool of his trousers whispering against the worn leather. He signalled to Silas, who was polishing a glass with a slow, deliberate motion, his hazel eyes missing nothing. “Scotch. Neat. Whatever’s best.”
Silas gave a curt nod, his gaze flicking to Rory. A silent question. She gave a minute shake of her head. She was fine.
An awkward silence descended, thick and heavy. The jukebox in the corner clicked over to a mournful Tom Waits song, the piano notes falling like rain against the window.
“You look well,” Evan said finally, the words sounding rote, something you say to an acquaintance at a dreadful work function.
“You too.” She took a sip of her drink. “The suit’s new.”
He looked down at himself as if surprised by what he was wearing . “City life. You have to play the part.” He accepted the glass of amber liquid Silas placed before him with a quiet thanks. “What are you… I mean, what brings you to a place like this?”
“I live upstairs,” she said simply.
His eyebrows lifted. “Here?”
“It’s cheap. And quiet. Mostly.”
He absorbed this, his fingers tightening around his glass. “I pictured you in a high-rise. Some modern thing with floor-to-ceiling windows. Partner at some stuffy firm by now. That was always the plan, wasn’t it? Pre-Law Aurora Carter, terror of the moot court.”
The name ‘Aurora’ sounded foreign and overly formal coming from him. He’d only ever called her Rory. She looked past him, at a faded black-and-white photograph on the wall of a woman laughing on a bridge, her head thrown back in a moment of pure, uncomplicated joy. “Plans change.”
“Clearly.” He took a long drink of his scotch, wincing slightly as it went down. “So what do you do? If you’re not terrifying junior barristers.”
“I deliver food. For a Chinese restaurant.”
The statement hung in the air between them, stark and ridiculous. He blinked, and for a second, the polished City banker vanished, and the boy she’d known was right there, confused and a little hurt. “You’re joking.”
“It pays the rent. The bike’s good exercise.” She offered a thin smile. “It’s a living.”
He shook his head, a slow, disbelieving motion. “Aurora. All that potential . The grades, the drive… you were the smartest person I knew. And you’re riding a bicycle around London with noodles in a bag.” There was no malice in it, just a profound , bewildered disappointment.
“And you?” she asked, her tone light, deflecting . “Playing the part seems to be going well. Investment banking?”
“Private equity,” he corrected automatically, and she saw the slightest flush of embarrassment on his neck. He’d always hated people who defined themselves by their jobs. “It’s… it’s money. A lot of it. It’s not exactly changing the world.”
“We wanted to change the world?” she asked, genuinely curious. She remembered wanting to get a first-class degree. She remembered wanting to make her father proud. She remembered wanting to be anywhere Evan wasn’t, in the terrified, frantic months after she left.
“I thought we did,” he said softly , his eyes on the rows of bottles behind the bar. “I thought we were going to be different. You were going to take on unjust laws, and I was going to… I don’t know, write the great Welsh novel or something. Not shuffle numbers for billionaires.” He drained his glass and signalled Silas for another. The silence returned, but this time it was charged , filled with the ghosts of their younger, more hopeful selves.
“Why did you leave, Rory?” he asked, the old nickname slipping out unbidden . He wasn’t looking at her. He was studying his hands, the way they lay flat on the polished wood of the bar. “I mean, really . You just vanished. One day you were there, the next… poof. No note. Your number disconnected. Your mum wouldn’t tell me anything. It was like you’d been erased.”
She felt the old, familiar knot tighten in her stomach . The fear, the shame, the desperate need to run. She flexed the fingers of her left hand, the scar on her wrist a pale reminder of a different, simpler pain. She could lie. She could give him one of the easy, packaged stories she’d perfected for nosy neighbours or well-meaning co-workers. A great job opportunity. A fresh start. But the weight of the years in this quiet, confessional space felt too heavy for a lie.
“I needed to breathe,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper . “You were… the air got too thin, Evan.”
He finally turned to look at her, and she saw the understanding dawn in his eyes. Not the full, ugly truth—the slammed doors, the cruel words that felt like physical blows, the way he’d isolate her from her friends, the constant, grinding anxiety of never knowing which version of him would walk through the door—but a shadow have known.
“Oh,” he said. The word was a sigh, an exhalation of all the air in the room. He looked down at his fresh drink as if he’d forgotten he’d ordered it. “I was… I was a mess back then. I know that. The pressure from my dad, the fear of failing… I took it all out on you. I’m… Christ, I’m so sorry, Rory.”
It was the first time he’d ever said it. The apology was a decade too late, a salve on a scar that had long since healed into tough, numb tissue. It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t give her back those lost years. But it was real. She could hear the regret in it, the weight of the man he’d become looking back at the boy he’d been with a kind of horrified pity.
“It was a long time ago,” she said.
“Not that long.” He finally took a drink from his second glass. “I looked for you, you know. For ages.”
“I didn’t want to be found.”
He nodded, accepting this final verdict. They sat in silence for a long while, two strangers bound by a shared, painful history, listening to the rain and the sad, sweet music. The past was a country they could both remember, but neither of them could ever visit again. He had become this sharp, prosperous stranger in a beautiful suit, haunted by the ghost of the artist he’d meant to be. She had become this quiet woman in a borrowed life, delivering noodles and living above a bar, the ghost of the lawyer she’d never wanted to become.
He finished his drink and pulled out his wallet, laying a fifty-pound note on the bar. “For mine,” he said to Silas, then gestured to her empty glass. “And hers.” He stood up, the movement awkward. He looked older than he had when he walked in.
“It was good to see you, Aurora,” he said, the formal name fitting the man he was now.
“You too, Evan.”
He gave her a last, long look, a final snapshot for the archives, then turned and walked out into the rain, the green neon light swallowing him whole. The door sighed shut behind him, sealing the bar back into its own timeless atmosphere.
Rory looked down at her hands, at the pale crescent moon on her wrist. She picked up her refreshed glass and took a slow sip. The ice had melted, watering the whiskey down. It tasted like time. It tasted like letting go.