Darcy's fingers curled tightly into his palm until his knuckles turned pale. Without allowing himself another moment of hesitation, he pushed the door open with a firm, deliberate motion.
The hinges creaked softly in the silence. It was the same bar he had stepped into countless times before.
However, unlike those nights filled with noise, laughter, and the suffocating weight of hidden intentions, the place now stood eerily silent in the middle of the day. The absence of people did not make it feel peaceful. Instead, it made everything worse.
The emptiness amplified the memories. Every corner, every shadow, every faint scent lingering in the air carried fragments of the past that Darcy had tried, unsuccessfully, to bury.
This place disgusted him. His gaze swept slowly across the interior, and with each passing second, the images in his mind grew sharper, more vivid, more unbearable.
