Today marks one year since I lost Evan.

One year since the world split into before and after, with no bridge to cross the chasm that remains. Sometimes, the days blend together in a merciful haze, and I almost forget. My mind slips; memories blur into dreams, whispering the same lie that he's just out of sight, waiting in the next room, his voice on the other side of a door I keep trying to open.

In that quiet, irrational part of my mind, I can still almost believe he's here. The little things bring him back: the creak of a floorboard late at night, the soft sigh of my phone buzzing with a message. Even my own heartbeat becomes his for a second, pounding with the stubborn belief that he's somehow still with me, just close enough that I could reach him if I tried hard enough.

But when the day fades, reality drags me back down, cold and sharp. Among everything I regret, it's the reason he died that weighs heaviest. Like a bruise in my mind, it aches every time I dare let myself remember that night.

It was a year ago when my company scheduled a three-day retreat in Westfall, a quiet town tucked away in the mountains of Colorado. Westfall was small, barely a dot on the map, but it had an odd charm that captured you in ways words couldn't explain. Its cobbled paths wound between narrow, leaning inns and old shops, as if the place had drifted into the present from another time.

The townspeople welcomed us with smiles that felt too wide, like they were practiced. They looked at us as if we were rare curiosities, more like guests in their homes than strangers.

Westfall didn't offer much in terms of entertainment—just a river for kayaking, biking trails, and hikes through the deep, shadowy forests that stretched all around. But there was something alluring about it, something that made it hard to turn away.

I remember thinking it would make a beautiful honeymoon spot, just quiet enough for Evan and me to lose ourselves in.

But there was something else about Westfall, something that felt...wrong.

Westfall had a strange, unspoken rule.

On our first night there, one of the guides told us about the town's "observance." On certain nights, always under a full moon, the town would close itself off. No outsiders could stay, and locals were expected to isolate themselves. "Meditation" is what they called it, though the word felt wrong. It felt more like a vigil, something ritualistic, a memory they honored in the shadows.

When I asked what would happen if a visitor didn't leave by dusk, the guide just smiled—a practiced, knowing smile. She didn't answer, just said that we should be on our way before nightfall if we wanted to avoid any "inconveniences."

But by the last day, I felt something pulling at me, an urge to stay a little longer. So, I called Evan. I remember dialing his number, listening to it ring, imagining him picking up, already smiling because I'd asked him to come get me.

As always, he said yes, though I could tell he'd been asleep from the thickness of his voice. But that was Evan. I could ask him for anything, and he'd do it, no questions, no complaints.

The town started to shift as dusk fell. Doors closed, people disappeared behind heavy curtains, and lights dimmed as if they were letting the darkness breathe.

When I couldn't reach him, I tried everything—calls, texts, even finding the highest spot for a decent signal. But the town held its silence, like it wanted me to leave. Eventually, reluctantly, I climbed onto the company bus, feeling that I was leaving something unfinished.

It was on the road back to the city that I saw it.

A silver sedan, flipped upside down, surrounded by yellow tape and flashing red and blue lights.

It was Evan's car.

Everything around me blurred as I stumbled off the bus, barely aware of the people around me trying to hold me back, of hands pulling me away as I screamed his name.

Evan Graham. Twenty-seven years old. Dead.

The official report would later say he'd been speeding, that the drizzle had slicked the roads and he'd lost control. They said he must have tried to swerve, maybe to miss a deer, but instead, his car had spun out, his tires carving jagged, desperate lines into the pavement.

But all I could see that night was the wreckage, the twisted metal that had once been his car, his life. The air reeked of gasoline and something else, something sharp and final.

I felt people around me, pulling me back, murmuring words I couldn't hear. The sheriffs, it turned out, were from Westfall. Their faces looked like they'd been carved from stone, staring at me with an unreadable, hollow empathy.

They wouldn't let me see him. They said his injuries were severe, that I wouldn't want to remember him like that. But those words—"severe injuries"—were empty, meaningless to me. I only wanted to see him, to touch him, even if just for a moment. I only wanted proof that he'd been here.

One of them pressed something cold into my hand—his watch, cracked and broken, the hands frozen. Time, it seemed, had shattered with him. The weight of it felt like a curse, something I'd carry forever.

They spoke to me, but their words drifted past like smoke, lost in the noise of the sirens and the steady pounding of my heart, which seemed to echo in my ears, louder than the world around me.

They helped me sit on the hood of the patrol car, my arms hugging myself, trembling. I remember staring at the broken glass scattered on the road, glittering under the full moon's harsh light, thinking of how it all looked like stars, like Evan's last breaths had been scattered across the pavement.

I would never see him again. I would never feel his arms around me, his quiet strength pulling me close, his voice murmuring my name like it was the most precious word in the world. I'd never see his soft, hesitant smile at the end of an aisle, the one that would tell me we had forever.

That night stretched on endlessly, until one of the sheriffs offered to drive me home. I went, numb, my body hollowed out and barely aware of the world around me. I left everything else on the bus, even my bags, not caring about the life I was supposed to return to.

The next day, my company delivered the bags to my doorstep, as if returning them could somehow make up for what I'd lost. I brought them inside, feeling the hollow weight settle around me, pressing down like the silence.

The days turned into weeks, and somehow, I forced myself to go on, one aching step at a time. I went through the motions, a hollow shell, clinging to memories, replaying that last phone call, the sound of his voice echoing in the dark.

Then, one morning, a month later, my phone rang.

The screen glowed with an unfamiliar number, and for a fleeting, impossible moment, my heart leapt in my chest.

I stared at the phone, feeling a strange chill slide down my spine. Every part of me wanted to believe, against all logic, that it was him. That somehow, some way, I'd hear his voice, warm and familiar, calling my name just one more time.

I picked it up slowly, my breath catching as I held the phone to my ear.

"Hello?"