The scene before him was a sprawling, chaotic thing of pickup trucks and blazing fire. Ryan stood at the edge of the light for twenty minutes, he didn't understand how Riley could move through the crowd, a smile for everyone. Riley waves, a specific, summoning motion meant only for him.

He doesn’t talk much. He leans against the tailgate of Ben’s truck, a red plastic cup of something generic in his hand, and he watches. He listens. The laughter is a foreign language, but Riley is his translator. She pulls him into conversations, her hand sometimes resting on his forearm to punctuate a point. “Ryan thinks so, too,” she’ll say, and all eyes turn to him. He grunts. Nods. Sometimes, he says a sentence. It’s enough.

Ben finds him there later, holding the same full cup. “You nursing that or baptizing it?” Ben asks, clapping him on the shoulder.

“It’s bitter,” Ryan says.

“It’s keg beer. It’s supposed to taste like regret.” Ben grins, then gestures with his chin toward Riley, who is dancing with a group of girls by the fire. “She’s good for you, man. You look less like you’re planning a murder.”

“I’m not planning a murder.”

“See? Progress.”

Ryan attends the next one. And the one after that. He becomes a fixture at the edge of the firelight, a silent, solid shape. He learns the rhythm. The stories get repeated, the jokes get louder, the night gets colder. His cup is always full, rarely drunk.

At the third party, deep in the woods off the Richardson Highway, the dynamic shifts. Ben has brought a bottle of something amber, passing it around the inner circle. When it comes to Ryan, he shakes his head. Ben shrugs, moves on.

Riley, perched on a log beside him, notices. She leans close, her voice a whisper in the pop and crackle of the fire. “You don’t like whiskey?”

“I like whiskey,” Ryan says, staring into the flames. “Just not that whiskey. Tastes like someone filtered it through a burnt tree.”

She laughs, a genuine burst of sound that makes him look at her. “A connoisseur. What’s your whiskey, Ryan O’Connor?”

He hesitates. It feels like admitting a secret. “Jameson,” he says finally. “Neat.”

She doesn’t reply. Just nods, her eyes thoughtful as she turns back to the fire.

A week later, at a bonfire on the gravel bars of the Gulkana, she finds him. He’s watching the river bleed its silty water into the twilight. She presses a cold, square bottle into his hand.

Jameson.

“Don't ask where I got it.”

Ryan looks from the bottle to her face, lit gold by the distant fire. He doesn’t know what to say. The gesture is too specific, too seeing. It’s not a generic red cup. It’s her, listening. It’s her, remembering.

He uncaps it. Takes a sip. The smooth, warm heat of it is a familiar comfort, a taste that holds no ghosts. He offers it to her.

She takes a tiny sip, makes a face, and hands it back with a shudder. “Your medicine is awful.”

“You get used to it,” he says, and takes another. This one is different. This one tastes like her knowing him.

He drinks a little, not much. Just enough to feel a slow, golden warmth unspool in his chest, loosening the tight coil of his shoulders. The noise of the party softens. The vast Alaskan sky, streaked with lingering sunset, feels less like a void and more like a ceiling. He starts to talk. Not a lot. But he tells her about the engine rebuild he’s helping Tim with at the shop. He explains why the gravel here is so uniquely colored. He speaks, and she listens, her knees pulled up to her chin, her eyes on his face.

Ben stumbles over, boisterous and sweaty from dancing. “O’Connor! You’re smiling! Is the world ending?” He spots the bottle in Ryan’s hand. “Whoa. Upgrade. Share the wealth.”

Ryan hands it over. Ben takes a long pull, winces appreciatively, and hands it back. “Smooth. Fancy. I knew you were a closet aristocrat.” Ben sways, pointing a finger between them. “You two. You’re like… the quiet corner of the party. It’s unnerving. Carry on.” He staggers back toward the music.

Riley scoots closer, so their shoulders touch. The contact is electric and steady. “I like this version of you,” she says softly.

“What version is that?”

“The one that’s here,” she says. “All of you. Not just the body leaning against the truck.”

He takes another sip, lets the warmth spread. The firelight dances in her eyes. He feels, for the first time in two years, like he is somewhere he is supposed to be. Not hiding in his room with history documentaries. Not raging against a silent God. Here. On the gravel of a river, with a specific whiskey in his hand and a girl who brought it for him leaning against his side.

He doesn’t kiss her. Not here, in the crowd. But he turns his head, and his lips brush her temple, just above her ear. A silent, deliberate thank you. She shivers, and her hand finds his, their fingers lacing together in the space between them, hidden from the firelight. They sit like that until the bottle is empty and the stars are sharp enough to cut.

They carry on like that for the whole summer.

Senior year unfolded as a kaleidoscope of memories, passing in a whirlwind that left only the most vivid moments etched in their minds. Ryan and Riley devoted themselves to securing his placement in a prestigious program in Los Angeles, navigating applications and interviews with determination and hope. He became a constant presence at every event she attended, their lives intertwining more deeply with each passing day. Ryan found himself embracing the school spirit in ways he never had before, his voice joining the chorus of cheers at games as he supported Riley from the sidelines. The culmination of their journey arrived with senior prom, where they arrived together under the shimmering lights of the decorated gymnasium. In a moment that felt like the perfect ending to their high school chapter, they were crowned prom king and queen, their smiles capturing the essence of young love and shared dreams.

The summer of their senior year the bonfires become a rhythm. Ryan drives, Riley navigates. He brings the truck and a reserved silence; she brings the conversation and a six-pack of Coke to mix with the Jameson she now keeps in her purse just for him. The amber liquid in the plastic cup becomes a passport, a gentle key that unlocks the parts of him still frozen shut. He talks more. He smiles, a real one, that starts in his eyes. He even dances with her once, a clumsy two-step on the gravel while Ben whoops from the tailgate, the northern lights shimmering green overhead like a blessing.

The summer was fading, the fireweed gone to cotton, when Ryan finally said it. They were in his truck, parked at the same river overlook, the engine off but the heater humming against the early September chill. He stared at the steering wheel, his thumbs rubbing the worn leather. “I got the letter,” he said, his voice too loud in the quiet cab.

Riley was sipping a Coke. She lowered it slowly. “What letter?”

“From the institute. In Los Angeles.” He swallowed. “The IT program. I got in.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the heater fan. Riley set her drink in the cup holder. She turned her whole body toward him, tucking one leg under herself on the bench seat. She didn’t speak. She waited.

“Full scholarship,” he added, as if that explained everything. As if it solved the knot in his stomach.

“Ryan,” she said softly. Her hand came to rest on his forearm, over his flannel shirt. “That’s… that’s incredible. That’s what you wanted.”

“Yeah.” The word felt hollow. He looked at her hand, the contrast of her delicate fingers against the thick fabric. “It starts in January.”

Another silence, wider and deeper than the first. The implications hung between them, as vast and cold as the basin outside. UCLA. Los Angeles. January.

“You’re not happy,” she observed. It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t know what I am.” He finally looked at her. The dashboard lights cast a soft green glow on her face. “It’s everything I applied for. Everything I thought I wanted. To get out. To do something.”

“But?”

He stared out at the frozen basin. "But at least you'll be there with me," he said, the words rushing out. "In L.A. You'll be at UCLA. We'll be... together."

Riley's hand didn't move from his arm. Her silence stretched a beat too long.

"Ryan," she said, her voice impossibly gentle. "My program starts starts at the end of September. So January is..."

“5 months.” Ryan said directly, he didn’t need to do the math again.

“It's five months of me alone” he continued with a look of exhaustion of his face.

The math was simple. He was a math person. He felt the calculation like a physical blow. Five months. He would be here, in the dark and the cold, alone. She would be there, in the sun, building a new life.

"Oh," was all she could manage.

"It's not forever," she said, her fingers tightening slightly. "It's just a semester. We can call. We can text. You'll come out in January and I'll show you everything."

He gave a sharp, quiet laugh that held no humor. "A semester is forever."

She didn't argue. She just watched him, her eyes seeing too much. He felt the familiar anger rise, hot and sour, but it had nowhere to go. He wasn't angry at her. He was angry at the calendar, at the geography, at the plan he himself had set in motion.

Reaching down, he popped the glove compartment. Inside, next to a stack of maintenance receipts, sat a mostly-full bottle of Jameson. He pulled it out. The amber liquid caught the weak sun.

"Five months," he said to the bottle, his voice low and rough. Not to her. To himself. "I can do five months."