The train slid into the station with a low groan, its wheels screeching like it hated stopping in small towns. Julian Rivers stood from his seat and reached for the leather duffel overhead — the same one he'd used to leave this place twelve years ago. Willowmere, Georgia. Population: 2,413. Humidity: unbearable. Memories: too many. He stepped off the train and was immediately swallowed by the heat — thick, sticky, and perfumed with honeysuckle and nostalgia. The kind of heat that clung to your collar and made you remember things you tried hard to forget. A boy with a crooked grin once kissed a girl under an old oak tree here. That same boy ran from everything. Now, he was back. And the tree — and the girl — were still here. Julian dragged his bag through the cracked pavement of Main Street, past the diner that still served peach pie on Thursdays, past the hardware store that hadn’t changed its window display in twenty years. The town looked stuck in time, but he didn’t. ...
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