Chapter Text
Natalie Scartoccio never truly recovered from the crash. The nightmares from that time came back to haunt her from time to time, as if the past were all she had left. As if everything in the present somehow kept pushing her back there.
As if every noise, every alarm, were a spark of what she had lived through. As if the sounds of that forest — every patch of ground, every leaf, even the running water of the river that flowed into a nearby lake by the cabin — were still completely real, tormenting her in her dreams, her daydreams, her thoughts.
It was all a blur. And the real world would suddenly turn into that untimely event, that failure, that damn accident that carved an open wound into her being — one that still seemed to run through her veins.
After everything, Natalie was left alone. What home did she even have to return to? Who was there for her to go back to?
While everyone else moved on with their lives — distancing themselves to forget everything that had happened to them, everything they had done, how and why they had managed to survive — Nat stayed behind. Jumping from one rehab center to another, never quite managing to get rid of everything, as if it were the only thing capable of numbing her.
Whenever she was released from a center, she ran straight to the first open bar she could find. She would call the first contact who could get her any kind of drug that might help her deal with everything she carried inside.
And at the same time, she was tired. Tired of living like that. Condemned to a life without even a trace of peace.
[…]
Lottie Matthews, on the other hand, lived in a small apartment in Switzerland — far away from everyone she knew, far from her family, far from any thought that might push her back into a psychotic state.
The truth was that Lottie had never really felt like she belonged to that world. It seemed insane to return, even though it was still better than any other alternative.
Ever since her father had sent her to a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland, she had forgotten whatever meaning faith had once brought her. Sometimes she wondered if her belief had been born from delirium — her mind searching for some trace of meaning, some explanation for why all of that had happened to her.
A search for an answer that could give some kind of meaning to the deaths, to everything they had lost while they were still so young.
She wanted to rebuild herself, to help people who struggled with the same problems she had — and she did. Even so, for some reason, she felt like something was missing. Something not even faith could fill.
Something that might have been left behind in that forest. Or maybe even before that — when everything still seemed normal. When their lives were just about going to parties and school. When the most important things were winning the next game, training, deciding what dress they would wear to prom.
But it had been ten years. And since everything that happened, life seemed to have lost part of its meaning. As if the spark of adolescence had simply disappeared, leaving behind barely functional young adults.
The reality was that they were no longer eighteen. Now they were twenty-eight — and carrying a collection of traumas they tried desperately to forget.
[…]
Natalie sometimes wondered if the same thing had happened to the others, or if they had simply managed to move on — as if it were terribly easy. If they had forgotten what they had done, what they had seen, what they had been capable of doing just to survive a little longer.
Sometimes she wondered if it had been easy for them to move forward. Because for Nat, moving forward felt unreachable, and escaping her own problems felt even more impossible.
The truth was that she was about to give up.
A loan shark was after her. A drug supplier who, for some reason, had become her friend had agreed to let her pay him back by living a normal life — far away from everything that polite society considered wrong. He had given her six months to build a normal life.
And that was almost funny to Nat.
Was he a kind-hearted criminal or a relentless torturer?
Maybe that was the worst punishment. Because she would never be able to live a normal life — and her time was running out. Threats kept coming, and Nat barely even knew what a normal life meant.
[…]
In the mornings, Lottie went to a clinic for mentally ill patients, where she led group therapy sessions that involved breathing exercises, listening, and meditation. She had gotten the job there — a small courtesy from her father, who, since then, had never spoken to her again or tried to contact her in any way.
Sometimes Lottie thought about calling him. But what would she say? What news could she possibly share? What, exactly, would make him proud to hear?
Maybe Lottie’s father no longer expected from her what he once had. Maybe, long ago, she had stopped being the golden girl of the Matthews family and had become nothing more than an uncomfortable memory — a madwoman who, deep down, should have remained trapped in that forest.
The truth was that Lottie was ashamed to return. Ashamed of what she had lived through. Ashamed of what she had become. Ashamed that she had nothing good to tell.
She also knew that her father was aware she had recovered — or at least enough to keep living. He knew that, thanks to his help, she had managed to settle into that center and create a space for herself there.
And yet she had never found the courage to speak to him again.
She would never even have considered going back — until that damn letter arrived.
It invaded her office like a bomb, a missile that doesn’t really choose where it will hit or who it will hit. Opening that invitation from Wiskayok High School made her stomach twist: an invitation to the ten-year reunion of Lottie’s class.
A class that, in truth, had never really had a reunion, a graduation, a party, an official photo, or anything like that. The plane crash — and the years that followed — had ripped all of that out of the story of those teenagers.
She wanted to crumple the letter, throw it away, burn it, forget it. Pretend it had never arrived.
But something in it pulsed. Something called to her. As if, in some crooked way, she needed to be there.
When her eyes dropped to the signatures of some of her former teammates, she felt an almost immediate sense of strangeness.
How could they accept something like that so easily?
[…]
Natalie nearly burned that letter with her eyes. She read and reread every word like someone about to sign a contract with the devil, repeatedly going over each line of fine print before agreeing to make a deal with the devil himself.
Her mind was boiling. How could they think it was that easy? Or better yet — how had they all managed to forget what they had done? Forget what they had promised: to live far from each other, without any information about what had happened in their lives afterward.
Nat’s life seemed to become more difficult every day, almost as if there were some strange pleasure in making her suffer. But with the constant threats hanging over her head, she didn’t have much choice except to accept it as an excuse to disappear somewhere else for a while.
Maybe going back meant she was trying to live a normal life — or whatever the hell that lunatic had invented. The idea was so ridiculous it had taken several threats — and a bullet in her right shoulder — for her to finally take it seriously.
[…]
Matthews had been staring at that letter for minutes. She read and reread it, her eyes passing over each signature as if her mind had jammed — like a set of gears with a stone stuck between them. Everything seemed to spin slowly in her head, trapped in that same point, until someone knocked on the door.
“Miss Matthews?”
One of the nurses called, opening the door and stepping inside suddenly. The sound of the voice pulled her back. Lottie immediately lost her focus and set the letter aside, awkwardly hiding it on the desk as if she were doing something wrong.
“Yes?”
She answered almost automatically, not really paying attention. She tried to act natural, as if her mind were not completely occupied with the contents of the letter.
“Uh…”
The woman hesitated, pointing her gaze downward, looking slightly embarrassed.
That was when Lottie noticed.
The nurse was holding a small hand.
When Lottie lowered her gaze, she saw a little boy. He must have been three or four years old. He was a little dirty, messy blond hair falling over his forehead, large cautious eyes as if he were still trying to understand where he was.
In his other hand he dragged a stuffed rabbit that had clearly seen better days — too big for his small arms, with one ear bent from too much use.
The boy said nothing. He just looked at Lottie. He seemed a little frightened.
Matthews bit her lip. She didn’t quite know what was happening, but something seemed to hang in the air, as if that day had been designed to gather every possible unimaginable event together.
She stood up and walked over to them, asking if the child could stay in the room drawing on one of her old patient files while she spoke with the employee. The boy agreed, nodding his head.
Too well-behaved for a child his age.
He seemed withdrawn. Lottie could hardly tell if he even spoke.
“He came here alone asking for help. It seems his mother went into a psychotic episode after her husband left.”
The woman explained, clearly distressed by the situation.
Lottie sighed. She tried to imagine how a little boy that young could have come alone asking for help — and it seemed the woman in front of her had read her mind.
“His mother used to bring him here on Thursdays. Maybe he memorized the way… I’m not really sure.”
Lottie nodded slowly. Now she understood why she had never seen the boy before.
On Thursdays, Lottie usually withdrew to her apartment. It was almost as if she needed time just for herself — to unload her own problems far away from everyone, alone with herself.
“And why did you bring him here? Didn’t you try contacting relatives?”
She asked. Not exactly coldly — just practically. Even so, there was a natural politeness in her voice, something almost inevitable in a Matthews: refined, controlled, as if even the harshest words sounded gentle when they left her mouth.
The woman in front of her looked embarrassed.
“Well… I thought maybe you could keep him here for a while while we try to contact them. His mother is completely out of it. She can’t remember the boy, or anyone. I can’t take him home, I already have children and elderly parents… and we need some time to sort everything out and maybe place him in a shelter.”
She said everything very quickly, like someone who could barely organize her own thoughts. She seemed truly desperate, as if she had no idea what to do.
Well, it wasn’t every day that a small boy showed up asking for help because his mother was in a psychotic episode.
“The doctors went to get her so they could restrain her. We still don’t know what to do with him.”
Lottie sighed again. The situation felt too unusual — almost like it was pulling her out of a zone where she had always felt safe.
A child. With her.
It wasn’t exactly what she imagined for someone carrying everything she carried, even if it were only for a few days.
“All right.”
[…]
Natalie’s brain felt like it was boiling. She was drowning in debt, could barely hold a steady job, two songs she had written never seemed to leave the page, and her gigs in nightclubs paid nowhere near enough. Everything felt like a nightmare.
She had to sell her Porsche to pay the loan shark who threatened her every day. She drank alcohol instead of eating lunch, because everything seemed meaningless — as if now, ten years after everything, she had finally reached the lowest point of her life.
She looked at the letter again.
And caught herself thinking: would it be good to go back to the beginning?
What would it cost her to return to square one after already hitting rock bottom?
Something deep inside made her want to return. As if she needed to retrieve something she had left behind in Wiskayok. Maybe a feeling. Maybe a piece of herself she had forced herself to forget.
Maybe something that needed an ending.
But what?
What had she left there to retrieve?
A group of adults traumatized by their adolescence? A memory of her drunken father beating her equally drunk mother in that old trailer they dared to call home? Or her old — and now nonexistent — feelings for Lottie Matthews?
[…]
When Lottie returned to the room, the boy was still sitting in the same corner, drawing quietly while holding his stuffed toy tightly, as if it were a small safe harbor.
She approached and crouched in front of him, observing him closely. There were a few marks of mistreatment on his neck and cheeks. His blond hair fell over his large green eyes, and he kept pushing it away from his face with impatient little movements.
That made Lottie laugh through her nose.
She had exactly the same habit whenever her bangs got too long.
“What are you drawing, little one?”
She asked, trying to sound gentle. Friendly enough not to frighten the boy even more, since he seemed far too withdrawn for someone his age.
“Bear.”
He answered in a small, soft voice, as if he still didn’t trust himself to speak any louder.
Lottie looked at the drawing. At first glance it seemed like nothing more than a cluster of messy circles and lines — but looking closer, she could recognize a rabbit there.
“Bear? Is that your stuffed bunny?”
She laughed again, quietly. The child’s innocence reminded her of someone. The way he held the plush toy did too.
It was like Laura Lee when she was little.
They used to play together, and Laura Lee always carried around a stuffed bear she had named Leonard. Sometimes she performed small baptism rituals with it — strange rituals, but ones she took very seriously.
“Yes.”
The boy answered again, still stumbling slightly over the words. But Lottie realized it wasn’t exactly fear — just the uncertain speech of a very small child.
“Very well. This is Bear, the bunny. And you? What’s your name?”
She asked, trying a softer approach with the child. Lottie sometimes had a certain way with children — or at least she tried to be careful with those little creatures who still had no idea of the cruel world they belonged to.
“River. My name is River.”
He said, sounding a little more confident now that Lottie had paid attention to his toy.
“River is a beautiful name. My name is Lottie.”
She smiled wider, and the boy finally looked directly at her. He had large attentive eyes, now filled with shy curiosity.
“Are you going to kidnap me?”
He said it all a bit jumbled, but with an almost comical seriousness — an innocence that was no longer common for Lottie.
It made her laugh.
“No… but you’re going to stay with me for a little while, until your mom gets better.”
He looked at her for a moment, as if he were trying to decide whether she was someone he could trust. When he received a small smile in return, Lottie understood that, somehow, he had accepted her.
“Alright. We have to go. I don’t have any children’s things at home, so we need to stop by a store first.”
She said it as if the boy were perfectly capable of understanding everything. He simply nodded, holding her hand — which made Lottie feel a little awkward for a moment. Still, she soon got used to that small hand in hers, a gesture of trust she wasn’t even sure she deserved.
She grabbed her bag and left with the boy. He walked while trying to balance the worn-out rabbit in one arm while holding Lottie’s hand with the other, as if he were beside someone he could always trust.
[…]
Going back to New Jersey had never been part of Natalie’s plans. For her, forgetting had always been easier than dealing directly with trauma — although maybe those ten years spent running away had proven the opposite.
With some effort, she managed to find the old trailer where she had once lived. It stood forgotten, abandoned among others just like it, exactly as it had been since her mother died — a miserable inheritance she had preferred to leave behind.
When she opened the door, the place smelled exactly the same as before.
Alcohol.
Mold.
And the dry sound of shattered glass scattered across the floor.
Everything seemed frozen in time. Even the old band poster in Natalie’s teenage bedroom was still there, stuck to the wall.
Being in that place was like reliving very specific traumas from her life.
But deep down, she wondered:
at what point in her life had she not been marked by some kind of trauma?
She walked through the few square meters of that place. Everything felt strangely alive inside her, as if every corner carried some forgotten piece of her own memory.
In the old bedroom, she found an old pack of cigarettes and didn’t waste time lighting one. She didn’t really care how long it had been sitting there.
Digging through the few things scattered around, she found tapes — old mixtapes, relics from the ’90s that no longer made much sense at that moment. Still, they were there. Her old walkmans, a few worn-out jackets, memories of a life that seemed to belong to someone else.
On one of the tapes, there was a phone number written in faded pen.
Kevin Tan.
An old friend of Natalie’s.
Sometimes Nat thought about him. Thought that maybe it would be good to have friends again.
Before she could think too much about it, she dialed the number.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end sounded more mature now — the voice of a grown man.
Could it be Kevin? Would that idiot still have the same number after all these years?
And why the hell had Nat called him so impulsively?
“I’d like to speak with Kevin Tan.”
“What??? You became a fucking cop? Man, what the hell is that?”
Natalie said it as soon as Kevin showed his badge, right there in the middle of the bar.
The two of them had changed a lot. Kevin was no longer that gothic kid who dreamed of having a band. Now he was just a cop — an adult man, educated, with almost no trace of the boy Nat remembered.
Even so, they laughed like old friends who talk all the time, even though they hadn’t seen each other in years.
“Damn, you really managed to disappear. I looked for you in every record… but there was only information about the others.”
He said it casually, but there was a hint of concern in his voice. Kevin looked at Nat with a strange sense of nostalgia.
“I’ve got my tricks.”
Nat replied with her usual sharp smile.
“So… what are you doing here?”
The man asked curiously, crossing his arms on the table.
“Well… you couldn’t find me, but our old school managed to.”
The blonde said it with disdain, as if it were a private joke — the kind of sharp humor only old friends wouldn’t take as an offense.
“No fucking way… you got invited to that shitty reunion?”
He replied, now seeming more interested in that than in his own poorly done investigation.
“And don’t call me a shitty cop, huh?”
He added, not really sounding offended — just playing along.
“I won’t. Tai and Van knew where I was… so I guess that’s how they managed to send me that damn thing.”
He said it, ending the subject without asking any more questions. Kevin knew that Tai held a political position now; it wasn’t hard to imagine she had the means to get that kind of information.
“But tell me… why are you here?”
[…]
The little boy looked at Lottie’s house as if he were standing in front of something surprising. He was always quiet, always hiding behind her legs, as if he were embarrassed by everything — or as if he still didn’t quite know what he could do, or whether he was even allowed to do anything there.
But his big eyes gave him away.
Lottie could see the boy’s fascination in every small shy gesture, in every curious glance he cast around. She smiled, feeling a little more at ease when she realized he seemed to like the place.
“Your house is beautiful.”
He murmured, still holding Lottie’s hand, as if she had become some kind of safe harbor — just like the stuffed rabbit he still hadn’t dared to let go of.
“Do you like it?”
She asked. It was a simple question, almost silly, but Lottie knew nothing was really silly to a child fascinated by the world around him.
Still, she found it curious that the boy wasn’t touching anything. It was as if someone had taken away that restless curiosity so common in children his age.
“Yes. It’s beautiful.”
He repeated, with conviction.
“I’m glad you like it. Now we need to take these things upstairs… and you have to take a bath.”
She said, crouching down to his height, as if the boy could understand her better by looking directly into her eyes.
He nodded, offering no resistance.
“If you need help, I can help you, okay?”
She spoke slowly, carefully, as if the gentleness in her words could make everything easier to understand.
“I already know how to take a bath. I’m a big little man.”
Lottie laughed at the boy’s conviction when he said he knew how to take a bath. It was the only thing he had said with complete certainty so far, as if being independent were something truly important to him.
“Alright, big little man. I’ll show you the bathroom.”
She stroked the boy’s hair, taking the chance to brush away a few blond strands that had fallen over his eyes.
“But first… let me fix this hair.”
She stood up and went to a drawer. Fixing his bangs didn’t seem like an impossible task. They were just a little longer than they should be for his haircut. It shouldn’t be that hard — after all, Lottie cut her own bangs too.
“What are you going to do?”
He asked, curious. Those little eyes watched her with a mix of innocence and mild suspicion.
“I’m going to trim your bangs a little so they won’t keep falling into your eyes.”
Lottie said, crouching down again and kneeling near him. Even so, she still seemed twice his height. Maybe he was just too small — or maybe she was too tall.
“Do you know how to cut hair?”
He asked.
In truth, that child asked a lot of questions. And from the looks of it, he seemed to have learned how to ask them even before he could pronounce every word properly, still swallowing some syllables or stumbling over them in an adorable way.
“Yes, I do. I cut my own, see?”
Lottie moved her own bangs, hoping to give the curious — and slightly wary — boy a little more confidence.
He studied her for a moment and stretched out his little fingers to touch her bangs.
“But it’s crooked.”
He said it with innocent sincerity, clearly not realizing whether or not that might hurt Lottie’s feelings.
She laughed.
“Well… then you’re going to have to stay very still if you don’t want yours to end up crooked too.”
[…]
Nat walked calmly with Kevin through the streets, as if they were back in the old days — as if they were still teenagers smoking and drinking around there, without any real worries.
Scatorccio had found out that Kevin was getting divorced and that he had two young children. Apparently, everyone had moved on. The world she had known before everything happened seemed to have changed overnight, even though ten years had already passed.
And yet, everything still felt like it had happened yesterday.
“So… why did you decide to come back?”
The man asked, taking a drag from his cigarette, as if he hadn’t allowed himself that small pleasure in a long time.
Nat took a drag from hers too, feeling the harsh smoke slowly fill her lungs and relax her muscles. She sighed before letting the smoke drift into the night air.
“What if I say I don’t know why?”
She said, somewhat thoughtfully, which made Kevin grow pensive.
“I just… thought I had to come. It’s like something has to happen here. And I felt strangely tempted to come back.”
She confessed with a sincerity she hardly recognized anymore in that relationship — strange now, but still familiar, even after so many years.
Kevin shrugged, watching the smoke rise.
“Sometimes those things just don’t make sense.”
[…]
That letter still haunted Matthews’ thoughts, as if she were incapable of forgetting it — as if it were anchored to her just as much as the years they had spent lost in that forest.
After settling the boy on the couch and letting him watch some cartoons on TV before falling asleep, Lottie walked to her small office.
The words from that inconvenient little event still lingered in her mind. Something about that invitation had sparked a small flame: the possibility of going back home.
And for some reason, that made sense in her chest.
Even if only vaguely.
Because going back home had never really been something Lottie wanted — at least not all those years ago.
But why? Why did she feel like she had to return? Why was she only now thinking about this turning point?
The truth was that she felt a kind of call she no longer recognized. A call that frightened her — because it sounded far too much like the kind of voice that had once guided her.
It felt like… that.
It felt like the same meaning she had once given to Lottie.
And then, as if a small lapse in time had been cut out of her actions, Lottie realized the phone was already ringing.
She was still staring intently at that paper — at the symbol printed on it, at the signatures.
“Charlotte?”
A tired man’s voice came from the other end of the line. A voice Lottie had known a long time ago, but that now seemed aged even within her memories.
She froze.
Still staring at the letter.
“Charlotte?”
“Dad?”
She said, her voice a little shaky. Hearing that was like reliving everything at once — like a high tide coming in strong, pulling you into the middle of a murky sea.
Lottie froze. She was gripping the paper so tightly she could already see it crumpling between her fingers.
What would she say?
Did he know anything about her? What do you say when you’ve disappeared for so long? What do you say to someone you’ve never even bothered to keep in touch with for years?
“Lot?”
A small voice came from the doorway.
It sounded sleepy, a little embarrassed.
Lottie diverted her attention from the letter and the phone, as if that tide inside her had suddenly calmed to make room for the little boy.
“I’m sleepy.”
He said, rubbing his eyes. His cheeks were slightly marked from the pillows on the couch, and his blonde hair completely tousled. Lottie could imagine he had fallen asleep right there while watching TV.
“I made your bed, River.”
She said gently. She knew he had already seen the room — the guest bed that seemed too big for such a small body. Lottie had surrounded the mattress with pillows, worried he might fall during the night.
“I’m scared. Can I stay with you?”
He said timidly, stumbling over some words while holding the rabbit against his chest, always by the ears.
Lottie sighed.
“Charlotte… you’re talking to a child?”
The man’s voice came from the other end of the phone.
Lottie let out a heavier sigh and gestured for the boy to come closer.
“All right… but just for today, okay?”
The boy nodded, taking small steps toward her, and carefully rested his head in her lap. Lottie sighed, thinking about what to do as her hands stroked his hair.
She picked him up and held him close to her chest, wrapping him gently along with the stuffed rabbit.
“Who are you talking to?”
He asked, sleepy but too curious to let his drowsiness silence his endless questions.
“It’s my father.”
She said, rubbing the little one’s back. He snuggled closer, accepting the comfort, while Lottie returned her attention to the phone — and, of course, to the letter still resting before her.
“Charlotte… you have a child? Married? Had kids? I have a grandson?”
The voice on the other end now sounded excited, almost anxiously curious. But Lottie remained there, staring at the letter, missing something — or rather, someone.
“Charlotte, who is that boy? Do you have someone?”
The voice continued on the other end of the line while Lottie went over the names on the letter again, searching for who was missing — who had been the only one not to sign that paper.
And then, after reading all the names carefully, she knew exactly who was missing.
“Natalie Scatorccio.”
She let the thought slip out loud.
On the other end of the line, there was silence.
And a second later, a short response came, almost indecipherable.
“Okay… bring her here. Along with the boy.”
And then the call dropped.
Lottie let out a sigh — but it was far from a sigh of relief. She felt that, somehow, she had gotten herself into something she would never be able to fix. As if her life had once again turned into a whirlpool of restless seas, something she couldn’t even try to row against.
There was something in her chest that troubled her. How would a father who had spent years without speaking to his daughter approach her like that?
Sometimes she wondered if she was truly capable of going back. Or why the feeling of returning suddenly felt so real inside her after all these years.
She sighed once more.
That was when she finally noticed again the small bundle in her lap — that little boy brought to her by that same unexpected tide. Even so, for some reason, he slept peacefully in her arms.
As if, somehow, even having just met her, he already saw her as a point of support.
Safety.
Trust.
Things Lottie hadn’t felt since the crash. Since she had become a kind of guide for the girls.
Was that a new test?
Was she trying to reach her again?
No.
That didn’t exist anymore.
It was only them.
She stood up with the little boy in her arms and walked to the bedroom. She carefully placed him on the bed, adjusting the pillows around him before grabbing her laptop and sitting down in the armchair in the room, determined to clear up that misunderstanding.
How was she going to explain that the child wasn’t hers?
How was she going to explain that she didn’t even know where Natalie was?
She slowly bit her lip — a habit she thought she had left behind a long time ago.
But how many things had she believed she had left behind?
Natalie Scartoccio was one of them.
[…]
The rain seemed to announce Natalie’s arrival in the city. Drops slid down the small trailer window while she smoked in silence.
How many things had she seen from there — from that narrow little window that looked more like an air vent for her room.
She looked around, and the teenage mess still seemed to fill the place as if time had never passed. Memories began to take up space in Natalie’s mind, a place she had always refused to return to.
And yet, suddenly, it all seemed to make some kind of sense inside her chest.
Even if her mind still couldn’t fully understand the emotional weight of it.
She crouched down and began rummaging through the old collection of tapes she had when she was younger. She remembered each one of them, as if the music were part of the only good memories her brain still allowed itself to recognize.
Her fingers slid over the dusty plastic, one by one.
Until they stopped at a specific spot.
Natalie’s heart beat faster.
Because she knew exactly what that meant.
On the label, written by hand, it said:
From Lottie Matthews to Nat.
How could they have asked for that?
Sometimes Natalie wondered if, at that lost point in the forest, Lottie no longer returned her feelings. She wondered if the way she had been left by her had truly been a deliberate choice — made simply out of a lack of love.
At this point, Natalie no longer felt the pain of the words Lottie had said the day the rescue arrived.
But they still echoed.
How could someone suddenly decide that that relationship — that person — simply no longer appealed to them?
The truth was that Nat had never really been able to understand Lottie. And forgetting her, blurring those feelings that had once been so strong inside her, seemed like the best choice.
There was no sadness anymore. Not even anger.
The questions had stopped circling her mind long ago, and that name had long since stopped appearing in her dreams.
Lottie was a blur.
A blackout in Natalie’s mind.
As it should be.
But suddenly, there was Natalie — looking at old photos, remembering old moments.
[…]
Lottie was still thinking about the letter — but not only about it. She was also thinking about her father.
Her mind, even though it seemed stuck at a specific point in that conversation, could still remember the tone of his voice with precision.
He had been surprised.
For the first time in years, he had been surprised by Lottie.
But not because of something she had done — rather because of something he had imagined.
It was always like that.
Lottie knew it.
It had always been like that.
Even so, something inside her shifted because of that reaction. As if, deep down, she needed someone from her past — anyone — not to see her only as a madwoman.
Still, she couldn’t simply show up at home with that boy and say he was her son — that she had hidden him for years — and, even more than that, that she was married to Natalie.
Someone Lottie had never been able to forget.
Perhaps the only person who still made her look back.
For many years, Lottie tried to move forward. Even so, sometimes she caught herself wondering: if she had one more conversation with Nat, what would she do? What would she say?
Sometimes she thought that maybe she had been wrong to leave her behind.
But back then — in that situation — she couldn’t have done anything differently.
She had promised to stay away from Nat. She had promised Taissa.
For the good of the group.
To protect their secrets.
But now… even that no longer seemed to make sense.
Sometimes she called Nat from unknown numbers just to hear that crooked, rough voice — a voice that, deep down, still carried an almost innocent sweetness.
And that night, she found herself doing it again.
[…]
“Hello?”
Natalie had already lost count of how many unknown numbers had called her. Sometimes it felt like some kind of harassment. There had been a time when she became paranoid — she even asked Taissa to try to trace those numbers — but that woman already seemed tired of the problems Nat carried with her.
It was always like that.
Someone called. She answered.
But on the other end of the line, there was never anything — just a heavy silence, soon broken by the end of the call.
She set the phone aside and went back to looking at the photos stored in her old album. Some were of the team; others were just of Natalie and her friends.
Many of them were of Lottie.
Natalie’s chest tightened, as if the cigarette smoke had gone down the wrong way and hit a specific spot that made her want to cough. She turned the photos over — and there were countless little notes written by Lottie, the same ones that had once made her believe she could truly be loved by her.
But there was no nostalgia there anymore.
Much less that sharp pain in her chest.
Natalie felt her emotions dulled, as if something inside her were telling her that her feelings for Lottie had been left in that forest — trapped in adolescence.
And that now she could finally breathe without it being in the name of Matthews.
[…]
“Hey… Lot? Did you pass out?”
She heard a sweet little voice somewhere in the back of her mind. It sounded a bit desperate, but still very innocent. When she opened her eyes, large green pupils were staring at her anxiously. For a moment, she felt a sense of déjà vu — but those eyes were too small to bring back certain memories.
“Hmm…?”
She murmured, trying to orient herself, realizing she had fallen asleep sitting up.
“Are you okay?”
The little boy asked. He still barely knew how to pronounce some words correctly, but he knew how to ask questions — maybe even too many. Questions filled with far too much concern for a child his age.
“I’m fine. I just fell asleep here.”
He stayed there for a moment just looking at her, as if he suddenly didn’t know what else to say. He moved a little closer and rested his small hands on her leg, as if he needed to make sure she was still there, that she was paying attention to him.
“What are we going to do today?”
Lottie blinked a few times, still shaking off the weight of sleep. Her head was still spinning from everything that had happened so suddenly that she had almost forgotten about the child.
“We need to get ready to go to the clinic. We can see how your mother is doing, hmm?”
The little boy made a small face and slowly shook his head.
“I’d rather stay with you.”
Lottie let out a soft sigh, running a hand through her hair, trying to smooth it back.
“But I have to work, little one.”
He stayed silent for a moment, looking down at the floor. His fingers began to play with the hem of his shirt, twisting the fabric.
“But can I stay with you?”
He said it in a low voice, almost too careful for someone so small, embarrassed, as if it were wrong to ask that. Then he moved a little closer, gently resting his head against her leg, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Lottie placed a hand on his hair absentmindedly.
The boy stayed still under the touch, accepting it but always far too quiet — as if he had already learned that sometimes it was better not to move.
“Alright.”
She finally gave in, even knowing that surrender wasn’t entirely real. She would probably return him later that same day — they might have already found a relative, or at least a good shelter where he could stay until his mother recovered.
But in that moment… in that moment Lottie simply couldn’t say anything else.
What could she possibly say to that small creature clinging to her legs?
[…]
Nat stood for a few minutes in front of that old movie and knickknack shop. She was almost certain it was Van’s store — it wouldn’t be hard to recognize her old friend’s questionable taste in horror movies. Or rather, the one thing Van’s good taste had never quite managed to reach.
She crossed the street and stepped into the small shop, soon spotting an impatient tangle of red hair behind a narrow counter.
Nat froze for a moment.
How long had it been since she’d last seen Van?
“I didn’t think you’d show up here this early.”
Van’s voice — amused, though tired — filled the small space. She seemed a little surprised, but there was another mix of feelings there that Nat could recognize too: the bitterness of a reunion, of memories rising back to the surface, of things they had both tried to overcome and forget.
“Well… blame that shitty invitation.”
Scatorccio replied, rolling her eyes with the sarcastic good humor only she seemed able to maintain.
“Oh, you got one too?”
Van asked, not very surprised. Still, there was something strange in her tone — as if the whole thing were just a minor inconvenience, something she preferred to pretend didn’t really matter.
Natalie shrugged, her eyes drifting over the shelves crowded with tapes and covers too faded to be worth more than five dollars.
“I bet this is Taissa’s doing, huh?”
She said it while picking up a random tape, more to keep her hands busy than out of any real interest. She knew Van and Taissa still kept some kind of contact, even if no one talked much about it.
Van let out a small sigh through her nose.
“Yeah… she’s trying for another political position.”
Nat raised her eyebrows, turning the tape between her fingers.
“And she has to drag us into it?”
Van rested her elbows on the counter, leaning forward a little.
“You know how she is… she does it to keep protecting us.”
There was a small pause before she added:
“Who do you think pulls the strings and controls the narrative about what we did?”
Natalie let out a short, humorless laugh.
“But it’s been ten years.”
Van stayed silent for a moment, looking at some point behind Natalie, as if she were seeing something much farther away than that cramped store — or trying to make sense of something amid all the mess inside Nat.
“Yeah…”
She murmured.
“But people don’t forget.”
“She saw an opportunity in that class reunion thing… to show that, in some way, we’ve already moved past all of this. And to keep pushing the narrative that we’re survivors.”
Van continued, sounding a little impatient with the subject. Maybe because of the contact with Taissa. The two of them had their own history as well — and unlike Lottie and Nat, Scatorccio had never been entirely sure that Van and Taissa had truly managed to disappear from each other’s lives.
“And we are.”
Nat replied, almost automatically.
Because it was true.
But she also knew what Van meant. She knew that, for many people, there were still too many questions about how they had managed to survive eighteen months in the middle of nowhere.
Van nodded slowly.
“Yeah… we are.”
But the way she said it made the word sound heavier than it should have been — as if it carried far more weight, and far more guilt, than it was supposed to.
[…]
When Lottie arrived at the clinic with River, she discovered the boy simply had no one left besides his mother. His father had managed to disappear, leaving behind no contact at all — no one who could take care of him.
So they had to contact a shelter. Lottie promised she would take him there later.
But the truth was, she couldn’t do it.
As soon as they approached the place and a woman came out to take him inside, River clung to her as if she were a lifeline. And that hurt Lottie far more than she expected.
How could she grow attached to a boy at this point in her life?
What was so special about him?
She sighed as she walked through the streets with him, holding that small hand. River was quiet, looking a little frightened. He held the little bunny against his chest as if it were the last thing he had left in the world.
“Do you want to get some ice cream?”
Lottie asked, trying to start a conversation with the small creature. She still felt that, in some way, she had betrayed him.
He stayed silent for a moment, thinking. His green eyes were slightly downcast — and that struck Lottie in a blind spot.
That way of looking reminded her of someone.
And it wasn’t Laura Lee’s bright innocence.
It was someone else’s.
“Can I get chocolate?”
He finally answered, a little shy.
Lottie smiled, taking that as a good sign — a small trace of trust that still remained in him.
River looked adorable with his ice cream. The truth was he was a little clumsy too — his whole mouth was smeared with chocolate, and even the tip of his nose had been hit.
Lottie picked up her phone to take a picture.
But before she could, an SMS appeared on the screen.
[YOU BETTER COME]
Her heart stalled for a second.
Why now?
“Lottie… I made a mess.”
River’s voice pulled her out of that brief trance. He looked guilty — and a little scared of what her reaction might be.
Some of the ice cream had fallen onto his shirt. A new one Lottie had bought for him that very morning. Now he stood there, looking at her as if he were waiting for the worst possible consequence.
“It’s nothing. It’s okay, little one. Let’s clean that up.”
Lottie said, trying to reassure him.
But deep down, the first words seemed more directed at herself than at the little boy in front of her.
River seemed confused by the reaction. He studied her face for a moment, as if trying to understand something.
Then he accepted her help to clean the shirt.
Even so, it took him a little while to relax — as if that gentle response was something too new for him to immediately understand.
…
One week.
It had already been a week since Lottie received that letter. A week since she had heard her father’s voice again after years. And a week since a small boy had been playing in her living room every day.
It hadn’t been an easy decision to keep River with her.
But it wasn’t easy to leave him alone, either.
The truth was that, in a short time, Lottie had grown fond of the quiet, shy little boy who was always trailing behind her legs and ran to hide behind her whenever something frightened him.
Little by little, she got used to his company — and, to her own surprise, it wasn’t one of the worst things.
River was far too well-behaved for a three-year-old.
He usually played with his stuffed bunny or spent time drawing, without making much of a mess. He didn’t touch anything without asking. He didn’t handle things that weren’t his. And when he wanted something, he didn’t throw tantrums.
He would simply walk up to Lottie with those big, silent eyes and rest his head on her lap.
It was always like that.
To say he was sleepy.
To say he was hungry.
River also seemed to have a strange independence for someone so small. He woke up on his own, took baths, put on his own shoes. He dressed himself with some effort — though sometimes Lottie had to fix his shirt because he had put it on inside out.
And even in those moments, he never seemed bothered.
He would just wait quietly for her to straighten it.
But there was still something haunting her — and it wasn’t the company of that child.
It was the call.
Her mind wouldn’t stop thinking about going back. Something was pulling her there, something she tried to ignore, but that seemed to grow stronger with each passing day. As if some old instinct were being awakened. As if, somehow, she needed to be there.
“River… what do you think about us taking a trip?”
The boy lifted his eyes from the drawing he was making on the living room floor.
“A trip? What’s that?”
“It’s when we leave one place to spend some time somewhere else.”
He thought for a few seconds, his small brow furrowing.
“Are we going to travel to the hospital?”
Lottie let out a small smile.
“No. I mean… somewhere far away.”
“Where do you travel?”
“I need to take care of a few things somewhere else.”
River fell silent for a moment. His fingers tightened a little around the stuffed bunny.
“Are you going to leave me here?”
The question came out softly.
“I’ll be quiet.”
Something in Lottie’s chest tightened.
She crouched down in front of him.
“No, little one. You’re coming with me.”
…
It wasn’t easy to take him with her.
But nothing a little money couldn’t solve.
The truth was that Lottie offered a generous amount to the shelter where River was supposed to stay so they would grant her custody of the boy. She had to lie a little — more than she would have liked — but in the end, River was there.
With her.
Unfortunately… or perhaps fortunately.
On the way to the Matthews’ penthouse.
The city was cut through by a loud, relentless rain. The driver who had come to pick her up seemed discreetly impressed by her presence — as if he hadn’t known she had survived, or as if he had never heard her name again.
River fell asleep halfway through the ride.
And Lottie was grateful for that.
It would be easier to deal with her father this way.
She would tell him the truth about the little boy. About the nature of her trip. That she wasn’t there exactly to see him — but because of something beyond that.
Maybe that would disappoint him.
But deep down, disappointing him had always been the only thing Lottie seemed to know how to do.
Arriving there felt like a blow to her own memories.
For a moment, Lottie had the strange feeling that time had folded in on itself — as if the past had merely been paused, quietly waiting for the moment she would step back into that place.
She swallowed hard.
She had never imagined what it would feel like to return. And now she realized the sensation was even stranger than anything her mind could have prepared for.
She entered the house with River in her arms while the staff hurried to collect the luggage. One of them offered to take the boy, but Lottie refused with a small shake of her head.
She didn’t want to wake him.
Or frighten him.
She adjusted the small body against her, letting him keep his head resting on her shoulder. The boy remained asleep, breathing with that deep calm that only children seem to have.
A calm that didn’t exist inside Lottie.
“Charlotte.”
It was the first thing she heard as she crossed the doorway.
The voice didn’t sound as harsh as she remembered. It didn’t carry the usual coldness, nor the weight of disapproval that used to accompany every time he said her name.
It sounded… different.
Almost unfamiliar.
As if the years of silence between them were nothing more than an insignificant detail.
Lottie slowly lifted her eyes.
“Is that my grandson?”
His gaze was fixed on River.
It was shining.
And something cold moved inside Lottie’s chest.
The truth was simple — and cruel.
He had always wanted a boy.
He had always wanted a Matthews heir to carry the family name. Someone who could, in some way, make up for the disappointment Lottie had been to him her entire life.
And now he looked at her as if, finally, she had managed to give him something.
Lottie felt the weight of that look pass through her.
And for the first time since she had stepped into that house…
She didn’t want to contradict him.
“I’ll put him to bed.”
The words came out small, almost suffocated, as if they had to pass through a dense fog pressing against her chest. Each step felt heavier than the last. The weight of the boy in her arms was nothing compared to what she carried inside.
Her father’s gaze on River was overwhelming—focused, intense, as if the boy embodied all expectations, all frustrated dreams, all the pride Lottie had ever failed to uphold. It was the same gleam she remembered, but now strange, stretched by time and the silence of years. Before illness. Before her forgotten burden. Before surviving and returning from the middle of nowhere as someone even she barely recognized.
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
His smile was too wide, but not reassuring. It carved a path, silent, with a weight in his eyes that pierced Lottie. Every step she took seemed to measure her inadequacy, as if she were being judged for every decision, every abandonment, every lie that still lingered between them.
“Where’s the other one?”
The question hit her like a punch. She froze. Her blood seemed to stop in her veins, the floor vanished beneath her feet for a moment. Her breath failed, her heart raced. How could she explain that Natalie wasn’t there? That she and Natalie didn’t exist in this space? That she still knew nothing about her? That this small mistake was just another error? Another failure of hers?
“She had to take care of some things. She’ll come later.”
Even as she spoke, she felt each syllable burn inside her. Each word was both a lie and the truth—false because it omitted Natalie, true because, deep down, she didn’t know what to do. A pang of desperation grew in her chest, a knot forming in her throat. She wanted to scream, vanish, disappear from the gaze of the father who saw her there, whole yet somehow broken.
The boy in her arms seemed too fragile, but suddenly she felt that his fragility magnified her own, making it impossible to breathe without remembering every decision that had led her to this moment.
She swallowed hard, feeling the world spin slowly, heavy, threatening, and for an instant, she believed the ground might open and swallow her whole.
God… what was she going to do? What was she even doing? What could she do now? Just pick up that boy and disappear? No. It wouldn’t be that simple.
And call Natalie after all these years? Say: “Hi… I know I abandoned you, after everything… after everything that happened… but could you play house with me, so I can do what my father wants?” Nat would kill her. And Lottie… she might even hate herself for thinking it. Not to mention… she didn’t even know where Natalie was.
God… she was lost.
She sank onto the bed, pressing her hands against her face, letting silent tears fall. Until she felt a tiny, soft hand resting on her shoulder.
“Are you crying?”
The little voice was curious, sweet, filled with a concern Lottie hardly thought possible for someone only three years old. It was… disarming.
She wiped her eyes and looked at him.
“No, little one. I’m fine.”
She tried to smile, but her heart felt heavy. The boy watched her with those big, attentive eyes, trying to understand. Lottie took a few seconds to gather her thoughts, to respond without lying.
“Can we make a deal?”
He nodded, focused, as if he already knew this was important.
“Can you tell everyone here that I’m your mother… and that I’ve always been your mother? Deal?”
The little boy furrowed his brow for a moment, confused. Then, as if he understood, he smiled and nodded.
Lottie exhaled slowly. The weight in her chest wasn’t gone, only postponed. The world was still chaos—but in that small gesture, for a few fleeting seconds, she felt something like relief.
He stepped closer and hugged her gently, snuggling in, and Lottie accepted the gesture with quiet amusement, even letting out a soft laugh when she heard the little boy’s stomach grumble.
“Alright, let’s find something for you to eat.”
She said, standing up with River in her arms and setting him down. They went downstairs, and the boy seemed enchanted with everything around him. His eyes sparkled at every detail, as if everything were brand new—a kind of innocence Lottie couldn’t quite reach in that moment.
“Oh… look who’s awake.”
Malcolm Matthews appeared suddenly, cheerful and smiling, and the little boy recoiled, hiding behind Lottie. She understood his fear—and felt the urge to hide herself, suffocated by the lie she had helped create.
“It’s alright, sweetheart.”
Lottie said, stroking River’s hair, trying to convey calm while keeping her own composure.
“Say hi to your grandfather.”
She maintained the smile, but inside everything was spinning. Every word felt like a thread ready to snap, and her stomach churned. Slowly, River relaxed, peeking at the man, still cautious, then looking back at Lottie as if sharing their secret.
“Hi… I’m River, and Lot has always been my mommy.”
The man raised an eyebrow, and Lottie felt a chill run down her spine, ready to panic. For a moment, she imagined all the consequences of her lie—but then Matthews let out a light laugh, as if he found the boy’s words the most charming thing he had ever heard.
“He’s got this habit of calling me ‘Lot’ because Nat does.”
Lottie let out a nervous laugh, almost a sigh of relief mingled with guilt. She swore she’d feel like dying on the inside the moment she left. The boy looked at her curiously, trying to understand who Nat was, but didn’t say a word.
“He’s hungry, and we came to ask for something for him to eat.”
Lottie spoke calmly, trying to keep her heartbeat from betraying the unease she felt.
“What a coincidence… Grandpa just asked Rose to make a snack for us.”
Matthews said, clearly delighted with River, as if possessed by an almost childlike joy. Lottie bent down, touching the little boy’s tousled hair, who now pretended to be her son.
“Sweetheart, go have a snack with Grandpa while Mommy takes care of a few things, alright? I promise I’ll be right back.”
She said with all the firmness she could muster, trying to convey security. She knew how desperate he got whenever she had to step away.
“I promise I’ll bring you some drawing stuff, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Lottie smiled genuinely, as if at least that little boy could offer her a bit of peace. She kissed the top of his head, stood up, grabbed her bag, and left. She needed to go, needed to breathe, needed to sort the chaotic thoughts boiling inside her. On impulse, she called Taissa.
“Taissa… I need help.”
[…]
Nat was cleaning the trailer, removing every scrap of trash, every trace of neglect. If she was going to live here, at least she wanted the place not to reek of mold or threaten her breathing. For a moment, everything seemed calm—until someone knocked on the door.
The sound made her heart race. She froze for a second, trying to decipher: Kevin? A curious neighbor? She wished it were. But the knock was insistent, desperate, carrying an urgency that made Nat’s spine chill. She swallowed hard, hesitated, muscles tense, as if everything was announcing something.
When she finally opened the door, the air seemed to vanish. There were those brown eyes she knew all too well, impossible not to recognize after all these years. An invisible weight fell on her shoulders, crushing any sense of security she still had. Every ghost of the past seemed to materialize before her—buried memories, broken promises, too much pain to measure.
“We need to talk.”
The sound of Lottie’s trembling words cut through the silence, carrying a silent threat. Nat felt a cold shiver run through her body, as if time had stopped, and every beat of her shattered heart echoed through the cramped space of the trailer.