Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYEFREJRS4K4A1DXSAV4SA

The green neon sign of The Raven's Nest flickered against the October drizzle as Rory pushed through the heavy oak door. She shook droplets from her jacket and paused, letting her eyes adjust to the familiar amber glow. The bar hummed with its usual Tuesday evening crowd—city workers nursing pints, tourists studying maps over fish and chips, regulars who treated Silas like a confessor. She'd planned to grab her post and head straight upstairs, but something made her glance toward the corner booth near the vintage maps of Eastern Europe. A figure sat hunched over a whisky tumbler, shoulders curved inward like parentheses around some invisible wound. Recognition hit her like cold water. "Evan?" The man looked up, and twenty-five years of careful reconstruction threatened to crumble. Same sharp jawline, same storm-grey eyes that once made her stomach flutter during sixth form chemistry. But where confidence used to radiate from his posture, now something brittle had taken root. His designer shirt hung loose on a frame that had shed more than weight. "Christ. Rory." He half-stood, then seemed to think better of it and sank back down. "What are the bloody odds?" She approached slowly, every instinct screaming at her to retreat. Four years. Four years since she'd fled Cardiff with nothing but a rucksack and Eva's promise of sanctuary in London. "What are you doing here?" "Business meeting. Client bailed last minute." He gestured to the empty seat across from him. "Drink?" The smart move was to excuse herself, claim exhaustion from deliveries, anything. Instead, she found herself sliding into the worn leather booth. Silas caught her eye from behind the bar, raised an eyebrow. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. "Still whisky neat?" Evan asked. "Gin and tonic now." Something flickered across his face—surprise, perhaps disappointment. As if her drink preference was another small betrayal. "Right. Course." He signalled to Silas. "Changed, haven't you? The hair's different. Shorter." She touched her shoulder-length bob self-consciously. "People change." "Do they?" The question hung between them like smoke. Silas appeared with her gin and tonic, movements deliberately slow as he assessed the stranger at her table. His hazel eyes held a question she couldn't answer yet. "Cheers then." Evan raised his glass. The whisky trembled slightly before he steadied it. Rory didn't toast back. Instead, she studied the man who'd once dominated every corner of her world. The expensive watch was still there, still perfectly polished. But his fingernails had been bitten down to the quick, and a thin scar ran along his temple that hadn't been there before. "How's the law practice?" "Busy. Partners now, actually." He straightened slightly, muscle memory of old pride. "Took over dad's clients when he retired. You'd remember the office." She remembered the office. Remembered sitting in those leather chairs while Evan's father outlined her "options" after pressing charges became too complicated. Remembered the weight of unspoken threats wrapped in legal jargon. "Congratulations." "What about you? Still... what was it you were studying? Psychology?" "I work in food service now." The admission should have stung, but it felt clean. Honest in a way that surprised her. "Food service." He repeated it like she'd announced plans to join the circus. "That's not... I mean, you were brilliant. Top of the class in everything." "I like what I do." "Come off it, Rory. You're delivering takeaways? After everything your parents sacrificed for university?" Heat flared in her chest. "You don't know anything about my life now." "Because you vanished. One day you're there, the next your flatmate says you've gone to London. No forwarding address, no explanation." "I explained plenty before I left." His jaw tightened. "Those things you accused me of—" "I didn't accuse you of anything. I told you how I felt." "Felt." He spat the word. "Christ, Rory, feelings aren't facts. I never laid a finger on you." The old familiar knot formed in her throat. He was right, technically. Bruises weren't the only way to break someone. "You didn't have to." Silence stretched between them. Around the bar, conversation continued in comfortable murmurs. Someone laughed at the dartboard. The espresso machine hissed behind the counter. "I've been to therapy," he said quietly. She looked up, startled. "Court-mandated, initially. After... well, there was an incident with someone at work. But I kept going. Two years now." He rotated the glass between his palms. "I know I wasn't... I know I made mistakes. With you. With us." The words she'd once desperately wanted to hear felt hollow now, arriving years too late like a letter to the wrong address. "Good for you." "I think about you sometimes. Wonder what would have happened if I'd been... different. Better." "Evan—" "I loved you, you know. I mean, I thought I did. But I reckon I loved the idea of you more. Smart girlfriend, pretty, from a good family. Perfect accessory for a future barrister." He laughed bitterly. "Bit pathetic, really." She sipped her gin, tasted juniper and the ghost of old pain. "We were young." "I wasn't that young. Just selfish. Mum always said I had to be the cleverest person in any room, even if it meant making everyone else feel stupid." "How is your mum?" "Gone. Last spring. Cancer." "I'm sorry." "Yeah, well. She got to see me make partner before..." He shrugged. "Small mercies, I suppose." The vulnerability in his voice caught her off-guard. This wasn't the Evan who'd once convinced her that her opinions were naive, that her dreams of helping people were childish fantasies. This was someone hollowed out by loss and the slow recognition of his own toxicity. "The therapy help?" "Some days." He met her eyes properly for the first time since she'd sat down. "I'm not asking for forgiveness, Rory. I know I don't deserve it. But I wanted you to know that I understand now. What I did to you. How I made you feel small." She nodded slowly. The acknowledgment felt like setting down a weight she'd carried so long she'd forgotten its heft. "What's London like then?" he asked. "Besides the obvious upgrade in bar quality." Despite everything, she almost smiled. "Different. Anonymous in a good way. I can just... be." "Anyone special?" The question felt reflexive, automatic. She wondered if he even realized he'd asked it. "That's not really your business anymore." "Right. Course not." He drained his whisky. "I should go. Train back to Cardiff won't wait." They sat for another moment in the space between goodbye and actually leaving. The bar continued around them, indifferent to their small reunion and smaller revelations. "For what it's worth," he said, standing, "you look happy. Really happy. Suits you better than that stressed-out uni student I remember." "Take care of yourself, Evan." He nodded, left money on the table for both their drinks, and walked toward the door without looking back. The green neon sign cast him briefly in its glow before the night swallowed him completely. Rory remained in the booth, gin and tonic warming in her hands. Across the bar, Silas polished glasses with methodical precision, giving her space to process. Outside, London continued its relentless pulse—strangers becoming friends, friends becoming strangers, the endless shuffle of lives intersecting and diverging. She touched the small scar on her wrist, that crescent-shaped reminder of childhood fearlessness. Some wounds healed clean. Others left marks worth keeping.