Lucas, tired of being invisible in plain sight, picked up his truck and padded down the hallway barefoot. He didn’t say goodbye—he never did. He knew the drill. He’d play with Lucy for a while, then return when the shouting was over, just like he always had.
He didn’t know this Thursday would be any different. That a quiet decision—to follow a friend down the gangway—would unravel into a nightmare that would stretch across decades. A moment so small, it barely registered. And yet, it would haunt the Harrigans for the rest of their lives…….
The salt air had long faded from Lucas’s memory. These days, his life revolved around late-night case studies, campus coffee, and Rose’s laughter echoing through his apartment. At twenty-four, Lucas O’Hara was a second-year MBA student with a future so carefully built, he barely questioned its foundations.
He’d met Rose during orientation week—just another name in a sea of new faces until she laughed at his joke about the cafeteria coffee. She’d slid into the seat next to him in marketing class, radiant and chatty. By the end of that hour, he had her number. By the end of the week, they were inseparable.