---
The scent of pine disinfectant clung to Emma’s clothes as she stepped out of the hospital elevator. Her mother’s frail smile lingered in her mind, a ghostly reminder of how much had changed in the six months since her stroke. The doctors said recovery would be slow. *“She needs stability,”* they’d said. So Emma had quit her job in Chicago, packed two suitcases, and returned to her childhood home in Willowbrook, a town so small it still had a single traffic light. Stability, it turned out, felt a lot like suffocation.
She drove past the high school on her way home, its red brick walls unchanged since she’d graduated fifteen years ago. The football field where she’d once watched Liam Carter nearly break his leg attempting a tackle still gleamed under the September sun. Liam. Her best friend for exactly 1,783 days—not that she’d counted—until senior year, when college applications and his new girlfriend had dissolved their marathon gaming sessions and weekend bike rides into polite hallway nods. She hadn’t spoken to him since graduation. Last she’d heard, he’d moved to Denver. Or was it Dallas?
Her phone buzzed. A reminder: *Buy groceries. Check Mom’s prescriptions.* Routine, routine, routine. But instead of turning left toward Main Street, she found herself steering right, tires crunching gravel as she pulled into the overgrown lot behind Sycamore Park. Their park. The one with the crooked oak tree they’d claimed as third graders, hammering plywood and stolen two-by-fours into a lopsided treehouse. A “fortress,” Liam had called it, though it leaned so badly they’d had to weight one side with cinderblocks.
The tree was still there. So was the treehouse—or what remained of it. Time had gnawed at the wood, leaving gaps like missing teeth. One wall had collapsed entirely, and the rope ladder they’d braided from old jump ropes dangled in frayed strands. Emma traced a finger over the initials they’d carved into the trunk: *E + L*, encircled by a lopsided heart. Her throat tightened. She hadn’t thought about this place in years.
“Still standing, huh?”
The voice startled her. She turned, and there he was: Liam Carter, leaning against a silver pickup truck, arms crossed. Older, broader at the shoulders, his dark hair streaked with premature gray, but those hazel eyes still crinkled the same way when he smiled. A faded band T-shirt—The Strokes, she noted—hung loosely over his jeans.
“Liam?” The name felt foreign. “What are you…?”
“Back in town since June.” He shrugged, stepping closer. “Dad’s got early-stage Alzheimer’s. Mom needed help.” His smile dimmed. “Heard about your mom, too. Sorry.”
Emma blinked. Small towns and their gossip pipelines. “Thanks. I didn’t realize you were—”
“Neither did I.” He gestured to the treehouse. “Came by last week. Nearly impaled myself on a rusty nail. Figured I’d tear it down before some kid gets hurt.”
“Tear it down?” The words shot out sharper than she’d intended. Liam raised an eyebrow.
“You’d rather keep it as a death trap?”
“No, it’s just…” She hesitated, staring at the sagging structure. “We built this. Took us all summer. Remember how you stole those boards from the construction site on Elm?”
He snorted. “You were the lookout. Nearly wet yourself when that foreman yelled.”
“You promised me a pack of Starburst for that!” The memory loosened something in her chest. “And then you only gave me *two*.”
“Hey, inflation hit my allowance hard.” He grinned, but it faded as he studied her. “You’re really attached to this thing, huh?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She kicked a pebble. “Everything’s… a lot. Mom, this town. It feels like the only thing that hasn’t changed.”
Liam was quiet for a moment. Then he crouched, snapping a twig in half. “We could fix it.”
“What?”
“The treehouse. I’ve got tools. You’re clearly unemployed”—he dodged her glare—“and I’m free after 3 PM most days. Could be… I don’t know. Therapeutic.”
Emma crossed her arms. “Since when are you into therapy?”
“Since my dad called me ‘that nice mailman’ yesterday.” His jaw twitched. “But hey, if you’d rather brood alone…”
She glanced at the treehouse. At the initials. At Liam, who’d once known her better than anyone. “Starbursts,” she said finally. “The whole pack this time.”
---
They started the next day. Liam arrived with a toolbox, a stack of fresh lumber, and two iced coffees. “You still take yours with three sugars?” he’d asked, and something in Emma’s stomach flipped.
The work was slow. Years of rot had weakened the beams, and they spent hours yanking out nails and arguing over replacements. (“A *slant*? Are we building a treehouse or a modern art installation?”) But between the sawdust and sweat, the years peeled away. They reminisced about Mrs. Henderson’s disastrous chemistry class, the time they’d glued Principal Harris’s chair to the ceiling, the night they’d camped in this very treehouse during a thunderstorm, convinced they’d be struck by lightning.
“You cried when I said we should split up if zombies attacked,” Liam teased, securing a new beam.
“Because your plan was *terrible*! ‘You take the south, I’ll take the north’—we’d have died in minutes.”
“Still mad about that, huh?” He grinned, but then his expression sobered. “Why’d we stop talking, Em?”
The question hung in the air. She focused on sanding a warped board. “You started dating Tara. Got busy.”
“You stopped answering my texts.”
“You stopped sending them.”
He paused. “Fair.”
Silence stretched, broken only by the chirp of sparrows. Finally, Liam sighed. “I’m sorry. I was… scared, I guess. You were applying to all those big schools, and I was stuck here at community college. Felt like you were outgrowing me.”
Emma stared at him. “*I* thought *you* were ditching *me*. Tara hated me.”
“Tara was jealous. You were the only person who knew about…” He tapped his wrist, where a faint scar ran bone-white across his skin. A remnant of his parents’ divorce, a broken bottle, a night he’d only ever told Emma about. “She didn’t get why I needed you.”
The admission stung. All those years of silence, wasted. “We were idiots,” she muttered.
“Yep.” He handed her a hammer. “But we’re here now.”
---
By week three, the treehouse had walls, a reinforced floor, and a new rope ladder courtesy of YouTube tutorials. They’d also fallen into a rhythm: mornings at the hospital, afternoons hammering and bickering, evenings sharing lukewarm pizza on the grass. Liam learned about her failed engagement (“He hated cats. *Hated* them. Red flag.”), and she learned about his two years in Denver working construction before his dad’s diagnosis.
It was on a drizzly Thursday that everything shifted. They’d just installed a salvaged window when Liam’s phone rang. His face paled as he listened. “I’ll be right there,” he said hoarsely before turning to Emma. “Dad wandered off. Again.”
They found Mr. Carter three blocks from home, confused but unhurt, muttering about looking for his old fishing tackle. Liam’s hands shook as he helped his father into the car. Emma drove them back, her own mother’s frailty echoing in every mumbled word Mr. Carter spoke.
Later, sitting on Liam’s porch swing, he stared at his coffee. “He’s disappearing, Em. Every day, a little more.”
She hesitated, then squeezed his shoulder. “He still knows you. Today, when you took his hand? He smiled.”
Liam’s eyes glistened. “What if I’m not enough? What if I—”
“Hey.” She waited until he looked at her. “You’re not alone anymore.”
He exhaled shakily. “Neither are you.”
---
The treehouse was finished on a crisp October afternoon. They’d added a corrugated tin roof, a string of solar-powered lights, and—at Emma’s insistence—a pulley system for snacks. Liam produced a bag of Starbursts (“Fully inflated”), and they sprawled on the floor, legs dangling through the open hatch.
“Remember our zombie plan?” he asked, unwrapping a yellow candy. “We’d need a better strategy now.”
Emma smirked. “I’d still outlive you.”
“Doubt it. I’ve got a crowbar now. Very apocalyptic-chic.”
They laughed, the sound mingling with the rustle of leaves. For the first time in months, Emma felt anchored. The future was still a fog—her mother’s recovery, Liam’s dad, the question of what came next—but here, in this rebuilt fortress, that was okay.
“Thanks,” she said quietly. “For… this.”
Liam bumped her shoulder. “Anytime, Henderson.”
She froze. “You did *not* just call me by my mom’s maiden name.”
“Oh, I did.” His grin widened. “You’re stuck with me now, Thompson. Zombie apocalypses and all.”
Emma groaned, but as the sun dipped below the trees, painting the sky in gold and violet, she couldn’t help but smile. Some friendships, it seemed, were like treehouses—a little weathered, a little rebuilt, but sturdier than they looked.
