The neon buzzed. Flickering. Stuttering like a dying heartbeat.
Jake leaned against the bar, his fingers wrapped around a glass that had long gone warm. She was there, across the room, wrapped in smoke and the hum of a song too old to remember. Her eyes met his. A flicker. A moment. Like the end of a match before the burn.
Do you close your eyes?
The words crawled through his head. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear. Just the music. Just the hum of everything he tried to forget.
His stomach clenched. Memory was slow to return. At first, there was only pain. Then the rest came crashing down. The headlights. The scream. The way she had whispered his name before everything turned black.
She smiled, and it wasn’t right. It was too knowing, too cruel. The ice in his glass melted, but he hadn’t touched it. He couldn’t.
“You’re not real,” he whispered.
She laughed. Soft. Almost sad. “Neither are you.”
He turned to the bartender. “You see her?”
The bartender frowned. “See who?”
Jake exhaled. His hands trembled. The song changed, the bassline hitting like a heartbeat against his ribs. He turned back. The chair was empty. The smoke lingered.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Counted to ten. Opened them.
The neon still buzzed. The world still turned.
And her voice was still there, whispering his name like a ghost that refused to leave.
