CHAPTERS
1-3
Chapter 1
Again
She didn’t wait. Not for the valet. Not for the door. Not for permission. She moved like a verdict already delivered—one she’d rather die than hear overturned. Heels cracked against pavement. Most nights, that meant control. Tonight, they were warning shots in stilettos.
The Rolls purred behind her, abandoned. Disposable. Nothing mattered except getting to Max before it was too late.
Rain stung her face, slid down her neck, soaked her cuffs. The valet shouted. Let him chase. Let the car idle. Let the whole city burn.
The red ER sign carved through the storm. Angry. Throbbing. She’d promised herself: never again. Not after last time. She’d meant it.
And here she was.
Again.
The hospital doors hissed open. The lobby gleamed, too clean, too quiet, scrubbed free of the truth. But beneath the lemon and bleach, she smelled it—copper-slick blood and fear.
Security stepped forward. Big. Blocky. Built like a vending machine. His eyes said he didn’t want trouble. His posture said he’d start it anyway.
“Name?”
“Stone. Harper Stone.”
His shoulders straightened. Eyes darted past her. He stepped aside—not from choice, but because his paycheck didn’t cover this.
“You’re expected. Eighth floor.”
She nodded. No thanks. No smile. Just noted.
On the way to the elevator, she caught it—a service dog at a woman’s feet, eyes alert but soft. She froze half a breath. Something cracked open. She didn’t look long. Didn’t trust herself to.
The elevator groaned open. She pressed 8. Steel closed around her.
A lie of calm.
Floor 2.
The numbers blinked upward. Slow. Arrogant. She’d built empires faster.
Floor 4.
Max’s voice echoed in her skull: It can’t rain all the time.
They’d been soaked, laughing like idiots, kicked out of a lobby. He’d said it then. Rain in his lashes, smirking.
She opened her eyes. Met her reflection. Hair clinging, mascara smudged. She looked like a clown. A rich, broken one. Almost laughed—the kind that rides shotgun with grief.
Floor 6.
She pressed her knuckles to the mirrored wall. Pain answered. She needed that.
Come on. Come on. Fuck.
Floor 8.
Ding.
The doors slid open. Beige hallway. Plastic. Lifeless. Air that smelled of recycled breath and lost hope.
A doctor appeared—fresh out of med school or already ten years dead inside. Hard to tell.
“Miss Stone?”
“Yes.”
“Come with me.”
She didn’t move. Not until her voice cut.
“What happened?”
“Party that got out of hand. Alcohol. Benzos. Xanax most likely.”
Her hands curled. Nails bit skin.
“Fucking Xanax? Is he—?”
“Stable. Lucky someone called 911.”
Stable. Not okay. Not recovering. Just not dead. Yet.
She glared at him, rage fizzing behind her eyes. This is what you went to school for? To become a human clipboard? To say the words like they don’t mean anything? Maxwell Tate—Maxwell fucking Tate—is slipping away and you sound bored. Then caught it—a tremor in his hand, bloodshot eyes, a coffee stain on his coat. Maybe he wasn’t heartless. Maybe just empty. Burned out from holding back a tide that never stopped coming. Maybe just before this, he was telling a mother her daughter wasn’t coming home.
Her fury stuttered. Just a breath.
“Where is he?”
“You’re not listed as family, but you were flagged as… important. Not our typical policy.”
A beat. “Can I ask—how do you know him?”
She stared, voice cold.
“Take me to him.”
He blinked. Nodded.
“This way.”
Each step echoed louder than the last.
He stopped at a door.
“He’s not conscious. Should come around soon.”
She nodded. Said nothing.
The door opened.
There he was.
Max.
She couldn’t breathe. Something cinched around her lungs. He looked like death was already halfway through the door.
She’d spent years building a fortress—walls thick, doors bolted, windows blacked out. He kicked them in without hesitation. The only one who ever looked at her wreckage and said: Not her. She stays.
And now here he was. Dying. Or some cruel version of almost.
She dragged a chair close. Locked on the weak rise and fall of his chest. Slack hand in hers.
Hospital lights burned overhead, but all she saw was him—the street fighter, the reckless teen, the mogul who hijacked the future. Now he looked emptied. A ghost in his own skin.
None of it mattered. This was the ending. It was fucking obscene.
He wasn’t supposed to go out like this. Not in a bed. Not in a gown. Not with his eyes closed like a coward.
He had glued her back together once, when she was more ruin than person—cracked, fragile, but beautiful in the way only broken things can be. Made her believe the damage mattered. That glue was failing now. Cracks widening.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Her voice scraped raw. “Don’t you leave me in this goddamn world without you.”
She leaned close, forehead to his. Tears soaked the pillow.
“You break,” she whispered. “I break too.”
“Max…” Her voice cracked.
His eyelids fluttered. Lips parted. Barely human.
“Harp…”
Her name, ash and thread.
“Oh, Max…”
“You look like shit,” he murmured. A frail grin.
It hit her in the ribs—the him of it all. That stupid little smile wired to her heart. But it faded. Her face hardened.
“Why…”
His eyes drifted past her, somewhere far.
“Remember those nights at the lake… when we couldn’t stop laughing…”
She did. The pier lights. Cheap wine. His terrible Christopher Walken impression. The night his company went public. A dream, all promise, no warning.
“Where did those moments go?” he whispered.
“You still have me…”
His eyes met hers—not with recognition, but like a painting before a museum closes. You never owned it. Maybe no one ever could.
He didn’t look at her like he didn’t have her. He looked at her like he didn’t have anything. And that—the fucking irony of it—made her want to scream. The man who had everything. All of it.
Now? Gone. And somehow still losing more.
“This is it,” she said, steel through tears. “Your last shot. No more running. No more Houdini bullshit. I’m getting you help. And you’re taking it.”
He studied her face. No smile. No snark. Just a blink. Then a tear.
He nodded.
“Okay.”
One word. Everything.
She burned it into memory. Then stood. Left the room. But not him. Never him.
She found the doctor. “I trust tonight’s visit will remain discreet?”
He blinked. “Miss Stone… the media already has it. The 911 call’s public.”
Her phone lit up in her hand—notifications stacked, vultures circling. She didn’t need the headlines. She could feel them.
She didn’t turn. Just spoke.
“They’re not headlines. They’re people. Someone’s everything. So are you.”
He blinked. Didn’t answer.
Maybe it landed. Maybe not.
She hit the elevator.
They wanted a collapse?
They picked the wrong goddamn woman.
Ding.
Doors opened.
She stormed out.
Ready for war.
Chapter 2
Clear
The sirens howled, slicing the night.
“Pulse is faint.”
“Get the defib—”
Max’s world tilted, sound pulling thin. Then—snap.
He drifted, balloon string cut. Asphalt cold at his back.
Hands pressed. Heat. Voices blurring.
Nothing.
No tunnel. No choir. Just light.
Not warm. Not cold. Waiting.
And then—running. Bare feet slapping tile. A hallway he almost knew. Flicker of fluorescents, wallpaper smelling faintly of crayons.
“Mom?” His voice cracked. Only his echo came back.
The walls flexed, stretching like taffy, narrowing to a point—until—
***
Sirens warped into waves. Gurney wheels into the tide. Antiseptic into salt.
A voice.
“Max…”
Sara Lynn.
His first love.
Moonlight silvered the sea. Sara in a loose summer dress, wind catching it like it wanted to keep her.
“Come on…”
“I’m good right here.”
“Too cool to run barefoot?”
He grinned, but the smile knew too much—how summers ended, how girls left, how boys like him got stuck.
“Too bad,” she said, and ran.
Of course he followed. The air smelled like her—citrus, sweat, something wild. Freedom in a bottle. He’d never smell oranges again without bleeding for it.
They collapsed in the grass. Stars blinked above—not wonder, warning.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. The stars weren’t stars. They were problems. Nothing lined up anymore. His brain buzzed.
“How much do you miss me when summer ends?” she asked.
He looked through her.
“A lot...”
She bit her lip. “School’s a cage after this. Leaving you stings worse every year.”
“I wish we could be in school together.”
“Just need a spare hundred grand.”
She flinched. Didn’t cry. Sara never cried where people could see.
“That’s not why I—” She stopped. “Just look. Look how big it is.”
***
"Clear!"
Fire slammed him. Back arched. Chest shattered.
No breath. No ground.
"Charging again—"
Another jolt.
World fractured—Salt air.
Night stretched. Endless and infinite.
***
Flash. Back in the yard. The world hadn’t ended. Not yet.
“It’s beautiful,” Sara said.
Max closed his eyes. Tried to memorize the shape of her voice.
“Feels like the earth’s trying to pull me through it.”
She laughed. “You’re so dramatic.”
“No, really. Like if I let go, I’d fall right through.”
“What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“It never stops. A chalkboard with no space left.”
She touched his arm. “Maybe you’re just wired different.”
He snorted. “That’s one word for it.”
“I love your brain,” she said. “Even when you overthink kissing me.”
This time, he looked at her.
Took in the way starlight tangled in her hair, the curve of her smile before it became a laugh, the steady calm in her eyes. Like she’d made room for him in the world. The noise quieted.
“I still can’t believe you picked me.”
“What?”
“At the dance. You could’ve picked anyone.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it. “Well... I...”
“You danced with him first.”
Her eyes flickered. She knew who he meant—perfect teeth, family money, the kind of kid born with his name on a building. Max had oil under his nails. Debt in his veins.
“What is it?” she asked.
He looked up instead. Past her.
The moon.
“All that light,” he said, “and not a single shadow cast right.”
“What?”
“What if they never went?”
She groaned. “Not this again.”
“Angles were wrong.... we never went back...”
She climbed to her knees. Hair wild in the moonlight.
“You know what slows your brain down?”
“What?”
She kissed him. It rewired something.
Her fingers in his hair. His hands on her waist.
She pulled back. “See? Lying in the grass isn’t so bad.”
“Not bad at all.”
Then—porch light.
“Sara? You out there?”
She froze. “Shit. My dad.”
“Nowhere to run.”
“Stay still.”
“That’s your plan?”
“Shhh.”
The night held its breath. Two kids in the grass, stars their only witness. For now.
Because summers always end.
Even the strongest memories fade.
Somewhere close, a boy’s heart beat once more.
And somewhere further, a girl let go
***
Blinding white swallowed everything.
Max floated. Unanchored.
No pain. No body. Just drift. Gravity made of silk.
Then—a note. Pure. Hanging.
“Maaa…”
It came from everywhere.
It sharpened. Became her.
A voice he knew better than his own.
Home.
Max gasped. His chest bucked. Lightning surged. Stars vanished.
“Max…”
Harper’s voice.
His eyelids fluttered. Lips parted. Barely human.
“Harp…”
Her name, ash and thread.
Chapter 3
late
One day later.
Preston leaned back and swirled the last inch of tequila. The Irish bar wasn’t a destination—it was where you ended up. A waiting room for people avoiding home. The air reeked of whiskey and old regrets.
The jukebox wheezed out U2. A few old men hunched over their beers, clinging to the hour like a final cigarette.
“Jesus, Vaughn, you look like a fucking funeral.”
Tom lifted his pint of Guinness in a lazy salute. “Loosen up, huh? Ain’t that what this is for?”
Preston shook his head, “Didn’t realize drinking with you required enthusiasm.”
“You’re a real piece of work,” Tom snorted.
The hum of the bar settled—soft conversation, ice clinks, the card game nobody won.
Tom nodded at the jukebox. “Think he ever found what he was looking for?”
Preston tilted his glass, “Who the fuck could find anything if the streets have no names?”
Tom grinned. “Valid.”
Behind the bar, Barb popped a cap without looking. Moved like she’d retired from bullshit years ago.
“Another Guinness, Tom?”
“Yeah, Barb.”
“8,735 years left on their lease,” Preston said.
Tom blinked. “What?”
“Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease in 1759.”
“That’s not a lease. That’s witchcraft.”
“Rent control, baby.”
Truth was, Preston didn’t know how he felt about Tom. He was just there. A college buddy he couldn’t place, wouldn’t miss. Married, mildly miserable, decent dad. But he always showed up. That counted.
And who was he to judge? His own résumé wasn’t worth bragging about. Trust fund, rooftop parties, whatever the adult version of allowance is called.
For a second, he felt a little bad for not letting Tom enjoy the night more. Preston’s eyes flicked to the TV as the red Breaking News banner slashed across the screen.
"Maxwell Tate was released from New York-Presbyterian Hospital this evening..."
Preston’s grip tightened.
Max.
The name hit like a fist.
Tom snorted. “Didn’t you go to school with that rich asshole?”
Preston didn’t answer. He studied the screen—barricades, cameras, flashbulbs—chasing a man who’d spent his life running.
And sudden—sixteen again. Suburbs. Summer. Him and Max with squirt guns reenacting Terminator scenes.
“I’ll be back,” Max would growl, fake Austrian accent. Preston cackled till he couldn’t breathe.
They were just boys. Nothing yet. Noise and laughter—the kind you don’t realize you’ll miss until decades later when silence becomes more familiar than sound.
And maybe that was the part that hurt the most. Because Max never really came back. The world had other plans—big, tragic ones. Plans that carved a chasm wide enough to swallow everything that mattered.
Preston had tried—calls, texts, even a letter. Nothing. He thought about going in person. Then life rushed in. Girls, parties, flights on a dare. Adventures that blurred into avoidance. All the beautiful distractions that start to look like purpose if you chase them long enough.
Truth was, only a few things that mattered . And he’d been dodging them.
Max? He became Maxwell Fucking Tate. Satellites in orbit. Rumors in back rooms. But to
Preston, he was still just Max—the weird, brilliant, impossible kid—and fuck, if that hadn’t been true, right up until the day they stopped talking.
The last time they met, they were twenty-two. A cracked couch, cold pizza, Max talked for hours—half-philosopher, half-madman—about a future where everything talked to everything else. Needed the tech to catch up.
And deeper still—school days. A promise buried deeper than memory. The kind that doesn’t expire just because the friendship did. It hadn’t meant much then. But now it meant everything.
The ball had been in his court for years. He knew it. Every time another story of Max unraveling found him, he fucking knew it.
A contract.
Rodimus Prime.
Dumb name. Holy pact. Sworn in blood. Never let the other fall alone.
Dragged up memories he hadn’t thought about in years.
The Zamboni.
Phantom’s Pass.
But some things don’t fade. They wait in the dark, patient as winter.
God was there.
Watching.
Maybe never stopped.
Maybe this was the reminder—reason enough to scrape himself off this stool and move, before the next headline wasn’t a discharge… but a fucking obituary.
The news clip cut to some pretty-boy bartender: “Guess what? Guy didn’t leave a tip. Not a cent. He never does.”
A smirk. A flash. And just like that, the world had another reason to hate Maxwell Tate.
Tom laughed. “Wahh fucking wahh. Poor little rich boy. Send some of that struggle my way.”
Preston squeezed his glass. Just don’t, Tom.
“Hey Barb, another round!” Tom shouted. “And turn that up! My buddy knew that rich prick.”
Barb slid a Guinness across. “That’s why your friend’s drinking fancy tequila. Too good for our beer.”
Preston stared at the bar top—a pew for sad songs and half-spoken confessions. He was tired. Not from the day or the banter. From the easy stereotypes. Rich as villains, poor as martyrs. Everyone bled—some just quieter.
What he hated most was the part of himself that watched, silent, while Max unraveled in headlines.
Not this time.
If Max fell, Preston would follow. Not from debt or guilt. But because somewhere beneath the ruin, the rust, and all the years they lost—he still loved that kid. And love like that doesn’t vanish.
It waits. And when it calls, you answer.
Tom clapped him on the back. “Jesus, lighten up. I’m just messing with you.”
Preston didn’t look up. “You know something, Tom…”
“What’s that?”
“He wasn’t always rich.”
“That so?”
“Yeah. And he’s the farthest thing from an asshole you’ll never meet.”
Tom laughed. “You’re talking like you were friends. You and Maxwell Tate? Keep dreaming.”
The words landed harder than they should.
“I was,” Preston said.
“Was what?”
“His friend.”
Tom scoffed.
“His best friend.”
Barb, balancing a tray, paused. “So why are you here, doll”—she gestured at the stale air, melting ice—“when he’s up there?”
Fuck.
Preston drained the tequila, slammed the glass down. “Great fucking question, Barb.”
He slapped a $100 on the bar.
Tom frowned. “Where the hell you going? We just sat down.”
“Next time, bud. I’ve got something to do.” He nodded at the TV. “And I’m already late.”
He turned to Barb. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
The night swallowed him. Rain misted the air—fine, relentless, indifferent to umbrellas.
Max used to say the city looked different in the rain. Like it was trying to start over.
“Water washes everything clean,” he’d said. “Even the ugly parts. Doesn’t matter if you believe me. Because it can’t rain all the time.”
Preston wanted to believe it. That redemption didn’t always come with a cost.
But some things don’t wash off. They sink deeper.
Time to find out who was right.