Jack

I was only 6. Everything from that year feels like flashes—blurry, scattered pieces of a life I barely remember.

Mom was sick.Dad was frantic.And one night we just… left.

I didn’t think about saying goodbye to anyone. At six, you don’t understand the weight of leaving a whole life behind. You just follow the adults because you don’t know anything else.

I vaguely remember a girl named Aliyah. She was always carrying a baby… Sarah, I think. I remember she talked a lot, smiled a lot, clung to me like I was the only stable thing around her.

But that feels like another lifetime—someone else’s childhood. Someone else’s problem.

When we left for New York, I didn’t look back.I didn’t really have the space to.

Now I’m 18 New York hardened me fast. Mom didn’t survive, and grief doesn’t mold you into anything soft. It carves out all the warmth and leaves you sharp.Cold.

I stopped thinking about the past.Stopped thinking about friends, or what I left behind.Stopped thinking about that girl with the baby sister.

Life became survival; survival became power.By sixteen, people followed me. By eighteen, I was leading a crew big enough and dangerous enough that going back home wasn’t sentimental—it was strategic.

Returning wasn’t about memories.It wasn’t about her.It wasn’t about anything except business and territory.

People whispered the town had changed. Some girl—Aliyah—had turned into someone mean, someone who fought like she had nothing left to lose. The name tugged at something in the back of my mind, faint and dusty, like a photo I barely remembered seeing.

But it didn’t matter.

I wasn’t here for childhood friends.I wasn’t here for closure.If she hated me, fine.If she didn’t, fine.The past wasn’t a weight I carried.

I came back because the city is mine now.And this town is just another piece of it.