3:30 AM.
The world was dead quiet, save for the rhythmic drip of water still sliding off the roof outside and the faint groan of the old coffee machine sputtering to life.
John stood in his cramped kitchen, barefoot, one hand braced on the counter while the other cradled a chipped mug. Steam curled upward, ghostly in the dim light. He hadn't even bothered turning on the overhead—just the little bulb under the cabinet humming weakly like it might die of exhaustion.
Sleep hadn't come easy. Not for years, really. But tonight was different. Too much on his mind. Too many memories clawing their way out of the cracks. Lilly's voice, her laughter, Mark's too-perfect smile. And then Sarah, sitting beside him in the truck, bruised and hollowed out by something he didn't yet understand.
He took a sip of coffee—bitter, black, and slightly burnt.
Footsteps behind him.
Soft. Hesitant.
He turned.
Sarah stood in the doorway of the hall, one hand rubbing at her eyes. Her hair was still a little damp at the ends, clinging to her cheeks. She looked smaller than she had in the truck somehow, more delicate.
She wore one of his old flannel shirts—faded red and grey. It hung past her knees, sleeves rolled up, swallowing her frame. Like a dress made out of someone else's history.
John blinked, then felt a pang of guilt knot up in his stomach.
"Damn," he muttered. "I'm sorry. I should've—Christ, I didn't even think—you didn't have anything dry."
She blinked at him, confused.
"I mean, that shirt," he nodded. "You must've found it in the spare room. I should've left something out. I didn't even offer to wash your clothes."
She looked down at herself as if she'd just noticed the shirt, then gave the smallest shrug.
"It's warm," she said softly. "Better than sleeping in wet jeans."
"Still," he said, setting his mug down. "Give me whatever you had on. I'll throw it in the dryer."
She hesitated.
"I ain't gonna snoop," he said quickly. "Just figure you'd want something clean for the day."
She nodded and padded back down the hall. When she returned, she handed him the clothes in a small folded bundle—jeans, hoodie, and a faded t-shirt, all damp and cold. He took them and headed downstairs to the dryer.
When he came back up, she was standing in the kitchen now, looking around like she wasn't sure if she was allowed to be there.
"Coffee?" he offered, gesturing toward the pot.
She nodded again, slow.
He poured her a cup and handed it to her carefully, watching as she brought it to her lips and took a tentative sip.
Immediately, her face twisted into a slight grimace.
John chuckled. "Yeah, it's awful. Sorry—I don't keep sugar or cream around. Guess I drink it more outta habit than enjoyment."
She swallowed the mouthful with effort, then gave a tiny shake of her head. "It's okay."
"Soon as Walmart opens, we'll head over," he said. "You can pick out whatever you need. Clothes, shoes, hell—get something fluffy if you want. You've earned something soft."
She stared into her mug, fingers wrapped tightly around it.
"If you don't want to go, you can tell me your size and I'll pick some things up. No pressure either way."
"Thanks," she said quietly.
John leaned against the counter, sipping from his own cup.
"You, uh… having trouble sleeping?"
She nodded.
He expected that. Hell, he hadn't expected her to sleep at all.
"Night's always worse," he murmured. "Everything gets louder when the world's quiet."
She didn't respond, just kept staring at her drink like it held answers.
John cleared his throat. "If you don't mind me asking… what do you like? Clothes-wise, I mean. Colors, maybe a brand?"
She looked up at him then, and her expression cracked.
"I don't know," she whispered, eyes brimming.
John's brow furrowed. "You don't have to answer, just—"
"No," she interrupted, her voice suddenly sharp and broken all at once. "I mean… I don't know. I don't know what I like. Or what I want. Or who the hell I am anymore."
The tears came before she could stop them.
She turned away from him, shoulders shaking, trying to hide her face.
John's chest tightened. He set his mug down gently and stepped closer but didn't touch her. Just stood a few feet away.
"You're safe here," he said softly. "You don't have to figure it out tonight."
"I used to know," she said through the tears. "I used to like books and floral skirts and—hell, I loved making pancakes on Saturdays. I used to dance around the house to stupid pop songs and burn candles that smelled like vanilla. I used to laugh without being afraid someone would ask me what the hell I was so happy about."
She wiped at her cheeks with her sleeves, frustrated. "He took all that. He didn't even hit me at first. It was words. Little things. Said I dressed like a kid. Said my laugh was annoying. Said I was too much. And I believed him. I let him chip away at me."
Her breath hitched.
"And when the hitting started, I thought I deserved it. I apologized to him. For bruises."
John's hands curled into fists at his sides. He felt the heat rise behind his eyes, but he kept his voice steady.
"That's not on you," he said. "None of it. You didn't let him do anything. He did it because that's who he is. A coward. A bully. A man who needed to tear someone else down to feel tall."
Sarah sniffed hard, still turned away.
"I used to be someone. I think I did."
"You still are," he said.
She looked at him, mascara smudged and face red, but with something clear behind the pain. "You don't even know me."
"No," he agreed. "But I don't need to know your favorite color to see you're strong. You got out. That takes guts most people don't have."
She gave a bitter little laugh. "I didn't feel strong. I felt like an idiot with nowhere left to run."
John nodded. "I've been that idiot before."
She raised an eyebrow.
He gave her a tired smile. "Didn't always have this place. Slept in my truck a few nights when the world fell out from under me. Made a lotta bad calls. Got through it. Not clean, not fast, but through."
Sarah looked down at her mug again.
"I don't know how to start over," she said.
"One day at a time," he replied. "First step's waking up. You did that."
She gave the tiniest nod.
John moved to the fridge and opened it. "Alright," he said, trying to shift the mood. "Let's see what we've got. Probably nothing you'd call real food. There's eggs. Bread. A sad-looking avocado. Think I've got pancake mix in the back."
Sarah blinked. "You cook?"
He shrugged. "When I have to. You hungry?"
She considered for a second. "Yeah. A little."
He grinned. "Alright then. Sit. I'll try not to set the place on fire."
She moved toward the small kitchen table, the oversized flannel shirt swaying around her like a blanket as she sat.
For the first time, her shoulders were just a little less tense. And when John cracked the eggs into the pan, she was watching him—not with fear, but curiosity.
Maybe trust.
It wasn't much. But it was a beginning.
And in that tiny kitchen, under weak lighting and between burnt coffee and a battered skillet, John Harper realized something:
He wasn't just helping her rebuild.
He was learning to rebuild too.
John worked in the kitchen with the cautious clumsiness of a man who knew his way around tools, not spatulas. He poured the pancake batter into the skillet a little too thick, muttered a curse as it hissed too loud, and grabbed a spatula that looked suspiciously like it had come from the garage and not the kitchen aisle.
Sarah watched from the kitchen table, hands wrapped around her coffee cup like it might anchor her. The sleeves of the flannel shirt slipped over her knuckles. She looked tired—but no longer haunted. Just quiet. Present.
"You're not bad at this," she said after a while.
John gave her a sideways glance. "You lie well."
She smirked. "They're round-ish."
"High praise," he muttered, flipping the first one. It landed with a splatter, slightly lopsided. "Could be worse. Last time I tried to cook for someone, the smoke alarm screamed louder than she did."
Sarah gave a breathy chuckle. It wasn't much, but it made something in John loosen, just a little.
He slid the finished pancakes onto a chipped blue plate and brought them over to the table along with a half-empty bottle of maple syrup and a fork.
"Bon appétit," he said, setting it in front of her. "Or however the French say, 'these might be edible.'"
She gave a quiet "thanks," then picked up the fork and dug in. After the first bite, her eyebrows rose slightly.
"They're not bad," she said, surprised.
John sat down across from her with his own plate, rubbing the back of his neck. "Don't act too impressed. I've been practicing for a while. Living alone forces you to either learn or accept a lot of burnt toast."
They ate in silence for a few minutes, the soft clink of forks and the hum of the old fridge filling the space.
Then John leaned back, coffee in one hand, and looked at her more seriously.
"When my sister died," he said, voice low, "part of me went with her."
Sarah looked up from her plate. Her eyes didn't widen, didn't shy away. She just listened.
"She was the only person who really got me," he continued. "You know? Grew up in the same storm. Same yelling. Same broken plates, same silent dinners. We got each other through it. Made jokes about it when we could. Promised we'd never let it change who we were."
He paused, staring into his mug like it might show him her face again.
"But it did change us. It changed me."
He took a breath, and the words kept coming, slow and rough like they'd been waiting years to crawl out.
"I didn't handle it well. When she died… I drank. A lot. Lost my job first. Then my apartment. I started sleeping in what I did have—my old pickup from high school. Same one I still drive."
Sarah's fork paused in her hand.
"I don't know how long it went on like that," he said. "Maybe six months. Maybe a year. It's all a blur. Just one long, blurry stretch of nights where I either slept too much or not at all. And every morning I'd tell myself I'd get up, do something, but I'd just sit in that truck and rot."
His voice cracked, just a bit.
"But then one morning," he said, "I don't know… I woke up, and it was like I heard her. In my head. That voice of hers. The way she used to yell at me when I got mopey."
He tried to smile, but it faltered.
"She said, 'Get up, you idiot. Stop throwing a pity party. You've got things to fix.'" He chuckled dryly. "That was her way of saying she loved me. Through insults."
Sarah was watching him now, really watching—eyes fixed on him like the words mattered more than the food or the room around them.
"So I got up," he said. "Found a few day jobs. Fixed some fences. Changed tires. Saved every dime. Slept in the truck still, but I started moving. Kept hearing her voice every time I wanted to quit."
He set down his mug.
"Eventually I got enough together to buy this place. It was half-collapsed. Leaking roof. Bad wiring. Nobody wanted it. But it had this apartment on top, and I figured… hell, if I'm going to be alone, might as well own the walls."
Sarah glanced around the kitchen, then down the hall. "You fixed it all?"
"Most of it. Took a year to stop the leaks. Still working on the wiring."
A long pause stretched between them, but it wasn't uncomfortable.
"I didn't get sober because I wanted to live," he said quietly. "I got sober because she couldn't. I owed her that."
He looked down at his plate, suddenly aware of how much he'd just shared.
Sarah spoke softly. "She'd be proud of you."
John's throat tightened. He swallowed hard and nodded. "Hope so."
She took another bite of pancake and chewed slowly, her gaze distant.
"Sometimes I think about what I'd tell the girl I used to be," she murmured.
John leaned forward. "What would you say?"
Sarah was quiet for a long moment, then whispered, "Run faster."
John didn't push. He just nodded.
"You're here now," he said. "That's what matters."
She looked at him, and her eyes glistened again, but she didn't cry this time.
"Thank you," she said. "For breakfast. For… all of it."
"Any time," he said.
They sat there in the warm quiet, two broken people, one tiny kitchen, and the faint, stubborn sound of rain outside like the world reminding them: storms pass.
Eventually.