barbeque (2)

To outsiders, it might look like a neighborhood cookout. To locals, it was a reckoning. Jacob had driven in from Austin that morning. Four hours with nothing but a cup of gas station coffee and a playlist too carefully curated to be spontaneous.

He hadn't planned to come, not really. But something about April, something about the way the light changed as winter slid into memory, made his chest ache in that old familiar way.

He told himself it was nostalgia. Or guilt. Or both. The last time he'd stood on this patch of grass, his father had been alive.