Writing club was only meant to be five minutes from the house.
Five minutes that had never felt long before.
Amy counted them anyway.
One — past Mrs Daley's hedge.
Two — over the cracked pavement by the bus stop.
Three — the corner shop with the flickering sign.
Four — the narrow alley that always smelled faintly of coffee grounds.
Five — the café door.
Safe.
That was what it had been.
Upstairs, the community room glowed softly. Fairy lights along the far wall. Mismatched chairs pulled into their familiar circle. The low hum of the espresso machine below, steady and grounding.
Sarah smiled when Amy stepped in. "Evening."
Easy. Warm. Unchanged.
Rowan was already there.
Notebook open.
Pen resting still.
His phone lay beside it, screen dark — except for a faint notification banner that hadn't quite disappeared.
Amy wouldn't have noticed.
Except the name at the top wasn't his.
R. Hale — 1 file received.
The screen dimmed fully before she could look longer.
He looked up.
His gaze rested on Amy half a second longer than it usually did.
"You okay?" he asked.
Too smooth.
"Yeah," she said, almost before he'd finished.
Jamie lingered in the doorway, uncertain. After a moment, he gave her a small nod and disappeared back downstairs to wait.
The session began like it always did.
Check-in.
Steam curling from tea mugs.
The quiet shuffle of pages.
Then Sarah clapped her hands gently.
"Alright. Today's prompt is a little different."
Amy felt the shift before she understood why.
"I want you to write about something that doesn't belong to you."
The room stilled.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
"Interpret that however you like," Sarah added. "An object. A memory. A secret. Ten minutes."
Pens began to move.
.
Too quick.
Too suspicious.
Amy stared at her blank page.
Something that doesn't belong to you.
Her throat tightened.
Across the circle, Rowan had already started.
Fast.
His handwriting cut sharply across the paper — deliberate, uninterrupted.
Like he'd been waiting for this one.
Amy forced her pen to follow.
She wrote about a library book.
About folded corners that weren't yours to crease.
Fingerprints left in margins.
Notes written in pencil by someone who shouldn't have been there.
Borrowed things that never come back the same.
Her pulse was too loud.
She glanced up once.
Rowan wasn't writing anymore.
He was watching her.
Not openly.
Just enough to know.
His phone lit briefly again beside his elbow.
This time he turned it face down without looking at it.
When Sarah called time, the scrape of chairs felt louder than usual.
"Does anyone want to share?"
Silence stretched.
Then Rowan lifted his hand.
"I can."
Amy's stomach dipped.
He stood, paper loose in his grip.
"It's about a password," he began.
The word prickled against her skin.
"A password that isn't yours. You don't guess it. You don't steal it. You just... already know it."
No one else reacted.
Why would they?
Amy felt her fingers curl into her sleeve.
"It's strange," Rowan continued evenly, "how easy it is to look at something private when the door's been left open."
He lowered his eyes then.
Finished.
Sit back down.
Sarah nodded. "Interesting angle."
Interesting.
Amy focused on breathing evenly.
When the session ended, people drifted toward the stairs in twos and threes.
Rowan fell into step beside her.
"You didn't share," he said.
"Didn't feel like it."
"That's fair."
A pause.
"You wrote about a book, didn't you?"
Her head turned before she could stop it.
"How do you know?"
He gave a small shrug.
"Lucky guess."
They reached the stairwell. The café lights below glowed gold through the railing.
Rowan rested his hand lightly on the banister.
"My sister used to write about things like that," he said.
Amy didn't blink.
"She came here?"
"Not this group. Before. Different thing."
"When?"
"A couple of years ago."
That again.
Amy swallowed.
"Does she still live around here?"
Something in his expression shifted.
Not big.
But real.
"No," he said.
Not moved.
Not left.
Just no.
He stepped down two stairs, then paused.
"You're careful," he added, without turning back.
Amy didn't answer.
Behind her, on the empty table upstairs, Rowan's phone screen lit one last time.
File synced.
Then it went dark.
And for the first time since writing club had begun—
The room didn't feel safe.
It felt aware.