The wind whispered through the gnarled oaks lining Tylor's street, carrying the faint scent of rain and regret. At fourteen, Tylor sat hunched on the sagging porch of his weathered Victorian home, his hazel eyes fixed on the patchy yard where his sister Amaira had last laughed. Two years ago, her tiny six-year-old frame had darted after a red balloon, its crimson glow bobbing like a taunting specter across the grass. Tylor, then twelve, had been engrossed in a comic book, his promise to watch her forgotten in a moment of childish distraction. By the time he looked up, Amaira was gone, her giggles swallowed by silence.
Now, the yard was a graveyard of memories. Amaira's tricycle lay rusted against the fence, its once-bright streamers faded to gray. Tylor's chest tightened, guilt a constant companion, clawing at him like the thorns of the overgrown rosebush his mother had once tended. His father, a hollow man since their mother's death three years ago, rarely spoke of Amaira, his eyes distant behind the locked door of the basement he forbade Tylor from entering.
A rumble broke the stillness. A moving truck, its sides splattered with mud, groaned into the driveway of the long-empty house next door. Tylor glanced up, his gaze catching on a girl stepping out, her dark hair cascading like a midnight waterfall, catching the late afternoon sun. She wore a faded denim jacket, her green eyes sharp and curious as they met his. She waved, a small, confident gesture that stirred something unfamiliar in Tylor's chest—a flicker of warmth amidst the cold.
"Hi, I'm Kayla," she said later, leaning over the splintered wooden fence, her voice bright but edged with something knowing, as if she could see the weight Tylor carried. "Just moved in from the city. This place feels like it's stuck in a ghost story."
"Tylor," he replied, his voice rough, unused to casual conversation. "It's… quiet here."
Kayla grinned, her smile like a crack of sunlight through storm clouds. "Quiet's fine. I like a mystery." They talked until dusk, her questions about the town weaving through his guarded answers. For the first time in years, Tylor felt a spark of something other than guilt—but Amaira's absence lingered, a shadow he couldn't outrun.