Clearwater Ridge Will was already having a bad day when the sign fell.

Clearwater Ridge Will was already having a bad day when the sign fell. Not metaphorically. A real, rusted neon diner sign just gave up on life and hit the gravel with a hollow, metallic Crunch… Gabby stared at the wreckage, her sunglasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. “…that sign just quit,” she said. Will nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah. Honestly? Relatable.” “It’s been there since the seventies,” she added, kicking a stray piece of light fixture. “So it finally retired.” “Or snapped.” Will squinted at the empty sky where the sign used to be. “Same thing if you’re honest about burnout,” Gabby countered. “Don’t start assigning it a LinkedIn post,” Will groaned, turning his attention to the actual establishment. The Freeway Cafe door had a handwritten note taped to the inside of the glass: BACK IN 20 MINs. PROBABLY. Will read it twice. “That’s not reassuring.” “It’s emotionally honest, though.” “It’s a lie with confidence issues.” “Hey—” The voice came from behind them. A kid had appeared out of nowhere, looking way too cheerful for a gravel parking lot where dreams and infrastructure went to die. “Do you know if the bus still stops here?” Gabby looked at the empty, heat-shimmering road stretching out to the horizon. “Do I look like I’ve ever successfully caught a bus in my life?” “There was a bus like… spiritually, yeah,” Will offered. The kid blinked. “So yes?” “No.” “Maybe,” Gabby corrected. “But mostly no.” The kid adjusted his backpack. “Cool. Cool cool cool.” “Where you headed anyway?” Will asked, checking his watch. “Clearwater Ridge,” the kid said. Gabby scoffed. “That sounds fake.” “It’s real.” “That’s what people say about fake places,” Will muttered. “It shut down,” the kid admitted, looking down at his sneakers. “So… fake but retired,” Gabby said. “Today’s the anniversary.” Will didn’t miss a beat. “Of the place, or your emotional instability?” Gabby snorted, smacking Will’s arm. “Will.” “What? I’m asking for context.” “My dad used to take me there,” the kid said quietly. The words hit the hot afternoon air differently. Gabby stopped joking for half a second too long. Will noticed, which meant things had officially crossed the line into actually serious. “He said I should go back someday,” the kid added. “That’s… annoyingly specific advice from a man who’s not here,” Gabby said, her voice dropping an octave. “Dead people are very confident for guys who can’t be questioned,” Will observed. “Will?” “I’m being respectful.” “You’re being loud.” The kid looked between them, desperate but trying to mask it with a shrug. “So… can I get there?” Will looked at Gabby. Gabby looked at Will. “If we say no, he’s still going,” Gabby pointed out. “And?” “If we say yes, we’re involved.” Will sighed, the heavy, defeatist sigh of a man who knew his afternoon was gone. “Also yeah.” Gabby turned to the kid. “Cool. We’re involved.” “Of course we are,” Will muttered, walking back toward the car. Once they were on the highway, the kid leaned forward between the front seats. “I’m Evan, by the way.” “Of course you are,” Gabby said. Evan frowned. “Is that bad?” “No. It’s just… statistically predictable.” “Like rain in movies,” Will chimed in from the driver’s seat. “Or bad decisions in ours.” “We’re consistent.” They pulled into a desolate gas station twenty minutes later for supplies. Evan emerged from the mini-mart balancing three neon-colored slushies in his arms. Will stared at him as he got back in the vehicle. “Why three?” “In case I change my mind halfway through one,” Evan explained solemnly. Gabby immediately reached back and snatched a bright blue one. “That’s actually smart.” “That’s not smart,” Will argued, pulling back onto the blacktop. “That’s emotional stockpiling.” “Don’t care,” Gabby said, taking a massive sip. “Brain freeze is temporary enlightenment.” Will rolled his eyes, grabbed the cup from her hand, and took a massive gulp himself. He immediately froze, gripping the steering wheel as his eyes widened in sheer agony. “Why is pain blue,” Will wheezed. “Because you trusted a gas station,” Gabby replied cheerfully. The landscape grew more desolate as they drove, the highway giving way to cracked two-lane roads swallowed by overgrown weeds. “My dad died last year,” Evan said into the silence of the cabin. The car went dead quiet. “That’s a rough plot twist,” Will said. “Will!!” Gabby hissed. “Yeah? What? It is.” “He told me to still go,” Evan said, missing or ignoring the friction in the front seat. Gabby’s voice went softer now. “Of course he did.” “Parents love assigning quests before disappearing,” Will said, his tone leveling out into something resembling real empathy. Evan looked out the window. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.” “Nobody does,” Will said, catching the kid’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Some people just look louder about it.” Gabby glanced at Will, a small, knowing smile on her face. “He means he’s included in that.” “I absolutely do.” They reached Clearwater Ridge just as the shadows were lengthening. It was blocked by a massive, rusted chain-link gate. A crooked sign was bolted to the center: CLOSED FOR SAFETY “That’s just the place saying ‘don’t text me,’” Gabby murmured, looking through the wire. “Yeah,” Will agreed, killing the engine. “It’s basically an emotionally unavailable theme park.” They went inside anyway, slipping through a gap where the fence had pulled away from the post. The park was a graveyard of faded fiberglass and peeling paint. Rust crept up the skeletal frames of old rides that looked utterly tired of existing. Nature was aggressively taking the land back, vines wrapping around roller coaster tracks like slow-motion pythons. Evan walked ahead, leading them past a hollowed-out arcade to a long, weathered wooden dock overlooking a perfectly still lake. He walked to the very edge and sat down, letting his sneakers dangle over the water. “My dad forgot napkins all the time,” Evan said to the empty air, a small, fragile smile breaking through. Gabby sat down a few feet away, pulling her knees to her chest. “That feels like a consistent man.” Will stood just behind them, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, looking out over the water. “Yeah. Chaos, but with habits.” Evan laughed a little—a clean, genuine sound that cut right through the heavy silence of the abandoned park. Gabby didn’t interrupt it. Will didn’t either. Which, for the two of them, was basically reverence.