His steps were heard before anything else, more defined than the breeze passing overhead through the trees. She assumed it wasn’t someone following her but someone else walking the same path, that was until she heard her name, heard the way emotion choked it. And then it came again, the shortened version from someone who was familiar with her, could perhaps have been close with. Friends even. Lucy stopped, staring off a head at the road and not really seeing it. Luce. No one else here had yet to say her name in such a way.

This isn’t real. This is just some fucked up part of my imagination, remnants of trauma. Was that what she’d been hoping?

Her heart was pounding in her chest, throat tight. Part of her wanted to wait and see if they would speak her name for a third time.

Keep walking, she told herself. Don’t turn around. There’s no one else there.

Lucy stole a glance back over her shoulder, caught the glimpse of his figure from the corner of her eye. Slowly, ever so slowly, she began to turn to fully face him; she was staring at a ghost, he wasn’t real. Oh god. Her head shook. She closed her eyes immediately and reached up to dig her fingers in at the inside corners.

“This isn’t...” Needing to try that again, this time there was emotion threatening to choke her. “You’re not really here. This shouldn’t even be happening.” His name nearly slipped out, it took everything in her power to bite it back, finally looking across at him again.