Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYYMCGWV0VBWETWJ8FT8HQ

The rain had been falling since morning, that particular London rain that neither started nor ended but simply existed, a grey curtain drawn across the city. Aurora pushed through the door of The Raven's Nest at half past nine, her delivery jacket still damp from the last run, the smell of sesame oil and ginger clinging to her hair. She nodded at Silas behind the bar—he acknowledged her with a slight raise of his glass—and made her way to the corner table she'd claimed as her own over the past three years. She'd barely settled into the worn leather booth when the door swung open again, bringing with it a gust of wet air and a woman in a trench coat that cost more than three months' rent at Aurora's flat. The woman paused just inside the entrance, shaking water from an umbrella that looked like it had never known the inside of a Tube station, and her gaze swept the room with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to being noticed. Aurora shrank back against the booth, but it was too late. 'Aurora?' The voice was the same—rounded vowels, that particular Cardiff lilt that turned certain words into questions. But the face above the voice belonged to someone Aurora barely recognized. Genevieve Hughes. Vivi. They'd shared a flat in second year, stayed up until dawn dissecting constitutional law, planned their future careers in chambers that smelled of old books and older money. Vivi had been the one person who understood why Aurora had chosen Cardiff in the first place—close enough to home for Sunday dinners with her parents, far enough to feel like her own life. 'God, it is you.' Vivi approached the table, her heels clicking against the worn floorboards. 'I thought I was seeing things.' Aurora hadn't moved. 'Vivi.' 'Genvieve, now. Only my mother still calls me Vivi.' A smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. 'May I?' Before Aurora could answer, Vivi slid into the opposite seat. Up close, the changes were more pronounced. The roundness that had softened Vivi's face at twenty-one had been carved away, replaced by cheekbones that looked architectural. Her hair, once a wild tangle of curls she'd never quite tamed, fell in polished waves past her shoulders. A diamond caught the light on her left hand—large enough to cast its own shadow. 'I've been in London for two years now.' Vivi settled her handbag on the table, a gesture that seemed calculated to display the ring without appearing to display it. 'Marcus—that's my fiancé—he took a position at White & Case. Corporate law, dreadfully boring but the pay is obscene. We're in Kensington, near the park. You'll have to come round for dinner.' The words landed like small stones dropped into still water. Aurora watched the ripples spread. 'You're engaged.' 'Two months now. The wedding's next autumn—we're thinking Italy. Tuscany, probably. Marcus wants Lake Como, but I've always had my heart set on the rolling hills, you know?' Vivi laughed, the sound bright and practised. 'But enough about me. What are you doing in London? The last I heard, you'd taken that training contract with Clifford Chance. I assumed you'd be a partner by now.' The rain tapped against the window. Aurora's hands rested on the table, and she was suddenly conscious of the delivery ink stains on her fingers, the chipped nail polish, the small crescent scar on her left wrist that caught Vivi's eye for just a moment before flickering away. 'Things changed.' 'Oh?' Vivi's tone remained light, but something in her posture shifted. A waiting quality. 'Changed how?' Aurora could have told her. Could have said: I met someone who seemed perfect until he wasn't. Could have explained the way Evan had crept into the spaces of her life, filling them so completely that she hadn't noticed there was no room left for herself. Could have described the moment she'd realised that love shouldn't feel like walking on broken glass, or the night Eva had shown up at her flat with a packed bag and a one-way ticket to London, refusing to leave without her. Instead, she said: 'I needed a change of scenery.' 'Well, London's certainly that.' Vivi signalled to Silas, who approached with two glasses and a bottle of red that Aurora hadn't seen him open. 'I remember how you used to talk about the City—all those museums you wanted to visit, the shows. Have you been to the National yet? The Tate Modern?' 'I've been busy.' 'With what, exactly? Last I checked, Clifford Chance doesn't keep bankers' hours, but at least you'd have weekends free.' Vivi took a sip of wine, her eyes never leaving Aurora's face. 'What are you doing now, Rory?' The nickname hung in the air between them. No one called her Rory anymore—except Silas, sometimes, and only when they were alone. To the rest of the world, she was Aurora. Carter. Just Carter, most days, a surname stripped of its associations with courtrooms and leather-bound statutes. 'I work for a restaurant. Golden Empress, in Soho. Deliveries, mostly.' Aurora kept her voice level. 'The pay's fine. The hours are flexible.' Vivi set down her glass. The diamond caught the low light from the bar's green neon sign, fracturing it into thin shards. 'Deliveries.' The word came out flat, stripped of judgement but heavy with something worse—confusion. 'You were first in our year, Aurora. First. You clerked for Lord Henderson. You had your pick of chambers, and you're doing deliveries for a Chinese restaurant?' 'Yu-Fei's Cantonese, actually. And it's good work. Honest work.' 'I didn't say it wasn't.' Vivi leaned forward, and for a moment, the mask slipped. Beneath the polish and the diamonds, Aurora caught a glimpse of the woman who'd once cried in their shared kitchen because she'd gotten a first instead of a distinction, who'd told Aurora at two in the morning that she felt like she was drowning in expectations she'd never agreed to carry. 'I'm trying to understand. Three years ago, you were the most driven person I knew. You had everything mapped out—pupillage, tenancy, silk eventually. What happened?' The question was too large for the space between them. Aurora thought of her father's voice on the telephone, the last time they'd spoken—his disappointment a physical thing, pressing against her ear like a hand. She thought of Evan's smile the night they met, how it had seemed like the beginning of something rather than the end. She thought of Eva, gone now to Manchester with a new husband and a baby on the way, and Silas, who asked nothing of her except that she show up. 'I realised I didn't want it.' The lie came easily, practised. 'The law, the chambers, all of it. It was my father's dream, not mine. You remember how he was.' 'Your father who you worshipped? Who you used to quote verbatim?' Vivi shook her head slowly. 'I'm not buying it, Rory. Something happened. Did you—was there someone? Is that why you left Cardiff so suddenly? You didn't even say goodbye. One day you were there, and the next—' 'It's getting late.' Aurora reached for the wine she hadn't asked for, her fingers closing around the stem of the glass. 'I'm sure Marcus is wondering where you are.' Vivi's expression flickered—hurt, perhaps, or something closer to recognition. She sat back, the distance between them widening again, filled with all the years and all the words they hadn't exchanged. 'You've changed.' The observation came out quiet, almost gentle. 'And I don't mean the job or the hair. There's something else. Something you're not telling me.' 'We've all changed, Vivi. That's what time does.' Aurora met her gaze directly, and something passed between them—an acknowledgment, perhaps, that the women they'd been at twenty-one no longer existed, that the friendship they'd shared belonged to a version of themselves neither could access anymore. 'You have your Kensington flat and your corporate lawyer and your Tuscan wedding. I have my life here. Maybe that's enough.' Vivi opened her mouth as if to argue, then seemed to think better of it. She reached into her handbag and withdrew a sleek cardholder, pressing a business card onto the table between them. Her fingers lingered on it for a moment. 'If you ever want to talk—or if things change, and you need a reference, or just someone who remembers who you used to be—' She stopped herself, a rueful smile crossing her face. 'That sounded patronising. I'm sorry. I just—I miss you, sometimes. The late-night study sessions. The way you used to make me laugh until my ribs ached. I know we've grown apart, but I'd like to think there's still something there.' Aurora looked at the card. Genevieve Hughes, Barrister at Law, followed by a chambers address in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The same path Aurora had been meant to walk, now Vivi's to travel alone. 'Maybe.' The word came out softer than she'd intended. 'I'm busy most evenings, but—' 'You know where to find me.' Vivi rose, gathering her umbrella and her bag, the diamond winking one last time in the dim light. At the table's edge, she paused. 'He must be quite something, this man who convinced Aurora Carter to give up her career and disappear to London without a word to anyone who loved her.' The observation landed precisely where it was aimed. Aurora's hand found the scar on her wrist, her thumb tracing the crescent shape without conscious thought. 'He's no one. Not anymore.' Vivi held her gaze, and for a moment Aurora thought she might push further, might ask the questions that had been gathering weight since she'd walked through the door. But she simply nodded, adjusted the collar of her trench coat, and turned away. Aurora watched her cross the room, watched Silas's eyes follow Vivi's retreat with the careful attention of a man who'd spent decades reading exits. The door opened and closed, and the rain continued its patient assault on the city beyond the glass. Silas appeared at her table a moment later, refilling her wine without being asked. 'Old friend?' 'Something like that.' Aurora picked up the business card, turning it over in her fingers. 'We were at university together. She thought I'd be someone different by now.' 'Aren't we all.' He didn't phrase it as a question. His silver signet ring caught the light as he collected the empty bottle. 'The past has a way of making promises the present can't keep.'