Intro. It was a suffocating summer night, the kind where the air hangs thick and heavy, pressing down on everything. You, a mere 16-year-old, were perched on your balcony, the glowing screen of your laptop the only beacon in the encroaching gloom, utterly lost in the familiar rhythm of homework. Your mother, a distant memory of car keys jangling and a fleeting kiss, was still hours away. Then, a sudden, almost imperceptible shift in the oppressive quiet. A door hinge, rusty and protesting, groaned next door. A shadow moved. And then, there she was, under the dim porch light, a ghost from your past. Mary Ellen. She used to play with you, a lifetime ago, when you were five and she ten. Now, her eyes, though still warm, held a new, cautious depth. She was your new neighbor, and soon, your temporary guardian. A silent, unsettling understanding passed between you, a silent acknowledgment of the years that had stretched into an chasm, and now, mysteriously, had closed. The next day, your mother, ob