Halley: The Echo

Halley knew the after.

The after-party. The after-image. The aftermath.

She was the one who brought the snacks. The one who called you out. The one who held your hand in the trenches and never, ever left. Her life was a monument to the ‘after,’ to surviving.

Her apartment was the physical proof: thrifted art, mismatched plates, a nursing textbook on the floor next to a single sequin from her last DJ set. A candle burned down to the nub on the coffee table, wax dripped over a crystal she’d forgotten had meaning. It was messy and magic and loud with color.

It was hers. All hers.

A life she’d built with her own two hands, a life no one could “manage” or “shape” or “make small.” It was a good life. A full life. She’d been telling herself that for ten years.

Then Mira, her best friend, got happy.

Not just surviving happily, which Halley had mastered. Not “look at us thriving on scraps and trauma resilience” happy.

But steady. Grounded. Soft-around-the-edges happy.

The kind of happy Halley used to toast with a joke, but lately couldn’t swallow without it burning a little.

Halley had been the one to hold the line, to be the “force” while Mira learned to be tender.

And it had worked. Her girl was safe. Her job was done. She was fiercely, truly, “ride-or-die” happy for her.

Until the echo came.

It started in the quiet moments. After the group text went silent. After the dinner party, when she was the last one to leave. After Mira hugged her at the door with a softness Halley had once coached her into.

Halley would stand in her own kitchen —glittery, cluttered, humming with leftover energy —and feel it. A hollow, ringing space under her ribs where all her protection used to be.

Mira’s “Year of Yes” made Halley’s “Decade of No” feel suddenly… small. Outgrown. Like she’d stayed guarding the gate long after the war ended.

And she was… alone.

The armor she’d built to survive the much older managing husband, and then the reckless lovers… was just heavy now. What once felt like self-protection had hardened into a cage she’d decorated to look like freedom.

The first test came at Rowan’s.

A big, messy, blended-family BBQ. Kids yelling, music too low to cover the chaos, someone always shouting, “Where’s the lighter?” The kind of gathering that made people take deep breaths and smile widely.

Halley was “on.” She wore her sparkle shorts and a vintage band tee tied at the waist. She poured the wine too high, and made the joke no one else would, and turned everything into a moment. She was in full, glitter-charged control.

She was crouched at the cooler, the metal edge pressing into her thigh, fishing for a cold beer. Her rings clinked against the bottles when he was just… there.

Theo.

Not shiny. Not loud. Not transient. Just… steady. It reminded her of Mira’s gentleness.

“Hey, Halley,” he said. His voice was quiet, but it cut through her internal noise with ease she did not consent to.

She amped up the charm on instinct, a reflex as practiced as breathing.

“Theo.” She flashed a grin. “You surviving the chaos? Or am I finally scaring you off? I told Mira there should be a liability form for inviting me.”

He smiled. A small one. Not charmed, just… kind. He didn’t just look at her; he seemed to see her.

“I like the chaos,” he said, holding her gaze. “You’re good at it. You make it feel like… home.”

Her breath caught, a tiny, traitorous hitch. A quiet punch beneath the breastbone.

Home.

It wasn’t a compliment. It was a threat. A memory. A trap.

A flicker. The scent of bergamot. A hand on the small of her back, guiding, not holding, her body stiffening so quietly no one noticed. The last man who called her “home” had meant “mine to manage.”

Her skin went cold. She could feel her pulse in her palms. Too much. Too close.

She had to run.

The laugh that came out was sharp and a little too loud.

“Home? Babe, this is a beautiful disaster. Don’t get it twisted.” She tapped the cooler, breaking the gaze, breaking the moment. “Now, are you going to analyze the inventory or just grab a beer?”

He didn’t push. Didn’t flinch. He just nodded, that same maddening, steady calm.

“Got it.”

And he walked away. He didn’t chase. Her armor had done its job.

For a moment, a dangerous one, the noise around her dimmed. The sizzle of the grill, kids laughing, Mira and Rowan clinking glasses. All of it muffled, like someone had pressed their hands over her ears. Halley stood in the middle of the party she’d been powering, and felt outside of it. Just for a breath.

The echo in her chest was deafening now, a frantic panic.

She exhaled too hard, shook her shoulders, cracked her neck… anything to get back into her body.

She needed noise. She needed shiny. She needed to prove she wasn’t ‘home.’

She was free.

Later that night in her apartment, sequins still clinging to her skin and a dull buzz in her veins, she pulled her phone out. She scrolled past the group chat, past the picture of Mira and Rowan under string lights… soft, steady, nauseatingly real.

She stopped at the contact she needed, the DJ she’d met last month. The one with the “transient” eyes and the “loud” smile who’d been texting her.

You up?

He was.
She was running.
She knew it.

It was the only direction she knew how to go.

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This is the beginning of Halley’s Story 

Continue Halley’s Story with Part 2: The Run coming soon.

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Want to meet her best friend? Read Mira’s Story.

Want to know who the “sharp mirror” was? Read Paige’s Story.