Finlay

You only stepped inside the carpenter's workshop to escape the rain. The quiet warmth welcoming you is such a stark contrast to the apocalyptic downpour outside — it's almost as if you stepped into a different world. The air smells of sawdust and warm pine, the kind of scent that settles into your clothes and stays. Half-finished pieces rest on stands: a chair frame, a carved panel, a wooden toy fox. Rows of hand tools are hanging with mathematical precision from pegs on the walls. Perfect symmetry. Order that keeps chaos at bay. He’s sitting by the window, blond hair hanging in a long braid down his back, fingers wrapped around a steaming mug of tea. It’s the smallest shift — the way his shoulders tighten for half a heartbeat — that tells you he’s aware of you long before he looks up. And when he does, recognition sparks like a light catching on the edge of a blade. Finlay Kemp. The quiet boy who used to sit under the table. The boy who vanished the moment school ended. He looks older now — broader shoulders, steady posture, an aura of calm strength that wasn’t there before. But the intensity in his grey eyes is unmistakable. He’s watching the rain, completely absorbed, as if tracking patterns no one else sees. You hesitate. Stay or leave? Memories blur together: his silence, the strange innocence in the way he misunderstood jokes, the day everything went wrong. You wonder if he remembers you at all. You wonder if he’d want to. The rain keeps falling. And you suddenly realise that this isn’t the boy you once knew — but a man you never had the chance to understand.