The Havenwood Apartments parking lot was dimly lit and felt colder than it should have for early autumn. I eased my beat-up Corolla into a crawl, my headlights sweeping across the cracked asphalt and the familiar, dented bumpers of my neighbors' cars. Then, I saw it: a sleek, silver Toyota Camry, gleaming under the sodium lamps like a freshly minted coin amidst a pile of rusty bottle caps. I didn't recognize it. And I didn't like unfamiliar things. Not around here. Not in this building. Especially not this close to me.

A prickle of unease crawled up my spine. Havenwood was a haven of sorts, alright, a place where things stayed the same, stubbornly clinging to their faded glory. New cars, new faces... they disrupted the delicate balance, the quiet predictability I’d come to rely on.

Gripping the worn leather of the steering wheel, I studied the Camry for another second, cataloging every detail – the tinted windows, the perfectly aligned chrome trim. It was too…clean. Too new. Too out of place. Finally, I pulled into my usual spot, wedging myself next to Mrs. Henderson’s ancient Buick. The plastic grocery bags in the passenger seat crinkled like protestations as I reached over, grabbing the burden of tonight’s dinner: ramen noodles and a can of peaches. My eyes, however, flicked back to the silver car. The temporary tags were crisp and white, a stark contrast to the faded blue of the apartment complex. New. Painfully new.

The air hung heavy with the scent of decaying leaves as I hauled myself out of the Corolla. My shoulder ached from the day at the office, and the weight of the groceries did little to alleviate the discomfort. The stairs creaked under my weight, a familiar soundtrack to my weary climbs. The second-to-last bag, filled with a suspiciously heavy bottle of dish soap, cut into my fingers as I approached my unit – 1B. Just as I reached for the dented doorknob, the door to 2B, across the hall, swung open with a soft, almost hesitant creak. A girl stepped out, struggling to manage a large cardboard box labeled "Kitchen." She paused, adjusting it to get a better grip, her brow furrowed in concentration, and then looked up at me.

I froze, my hand hovering inches from the doorknob.

My breath caught in my throat, a sudden, constricting pressure in my chest.

Her face—God, her face. A wave of memories, long dormant, crashed over me. The shape of her mouth, full and slightly upturned, the faint tilt of her head when she smiled, a gesture I’d watched countless times from across a crowded classroom. She looked like—

No. It couldn’t be. It was impossible.

Her hair was longer now, cascading down her shoulders in soft, chestnut curls, not the short, choppy bob she had back in high school. She was tanner, her face subtly more defined, older—but the eyes… those were Lily’s eyes. The same vibrant green, flecked with hints of gold, that had haunted my dreams for years.

I swallowed hard, forcing the lump in my throat to dissolve, and stepped forward, flashing a warm smile, forcing my muscles to relax. Groceries held up in a lazy, almost awkward wave. “Good evening,” I said, my voice sounding unnaturally even, casual. Friendly. I hoped it didn't betray the storm brewing inside me.

She smiled back, polite and completely unaware of the effect she was having on me. “Hey.”

It was her. It was undeniably her. My heart beat faster, a frantic drum solo against my ribs. Louder.

“I’m Ethan. Ethan Mercer,” I said, extending my hand, a textbook gesture of neighborly greeting. Inside, I was crumbling, a building collapsing under the weight of years of unspoken feelings.

She shifted the unwieldy box to one hip, wincing slightly, and took my hand. Her hand was surprisingly soft, cool against my suddenly clammy palm. “I’m Lily Warrens. Nice to meet you, Ethan.”

Her name fell from her lips like a forgotten melody, each syllable resonating deep within me. Lily. Lily. Lily. The name I had whispered into the dark so many times.

I stood there, momentarily paralyzed, barely managing to hold my carefully constructed smile in place. “Lily,” I repeated, the name tasting strange and unfamiliar on my tongue after all this time. “You, uh… you used to live in Havenwood, right? You look familiar.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but I could hear the tremor in my voice.

“Yeah,” she said, glancing over her shoulder toward the open door, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. “I moved away a few years ago. Just came back from Norman. Needed a change of pace, I guess.”

She had no idea how often I’d thought about her. How many times I’d scrolled through grainy yearbook photos, piecing together fragmented memories. Old posts, glimpses into a life that had moved on without me. Wondering where she went. Why she’d left without saying goodbye. Why she never came back.

Until now. Fate, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor.

“Well,” I said, stepping back, the charming grin still plastered on my face, a mask barely concealing the chaos beneath, “welcome home.”

Later that night, the smile finally cracked.

My apartment was dark and suffocating, the silence broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the rhythmic click-clack of my keyboard. The only light source was the cold, artificial glow of my laptop screen, bathing my face in an eerie luminescence. I sat hunched at my desk, scrolling through her old social media accounts — inactive for months, a digital ghost town, but still there. Still hers. I meticulously cataloged every detail: the way her lips curled into a mischievous grin when she laughed in old photos, how her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled.

I remembered the way she used to sit in the back of English class, always a little apart, twirling her pen between her fingers, lost in her own world. She never noticed me then, not really. I was just another face in the crowd, an invisible observer. But now… now she lived across the hall.

A perfect second chance. A chance to rewrite history. A chance to finally be seen.

I rose from my chair, the floorboards groaning under my weight, and crossed to my window. The cheap blinds were drawn, but through the gaps, if I leaned just right, almost pressing my face against the cool glass, I could see her kitchen.

She was there — her silhouette a shifting dance of light and shadow, moving back and forth, unpacking boxes, arranging her belongings, living her little life as if nothing had changed. As if I hadn’t spent four years haunted by her absence, wondering what happened to her, replaying every interaction, searching for a clue, a hint, anything that could explain her sudden departure.

I watched her for a long time, my breath fogging the glass, a silent observer in the darkness. The world outside faded away, and for a brief, intoxicating moment, it was just me and her, separated only by a thin wall and a pane of glass.

She didn’t lock her windows.

She never did.