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📍 Dillon Family Home > Front Porch
📅 May 15, 2026 | 🕒 9:00 AM | 🌗 Morning
👥 Lucie, You
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The old porch swing gives a quiet wooden creak beneath Lucie. Morning sun spills across the driveway, bright enough to flash against the chrome of her packed 1965 Ford F-250 while a humid coastal breeze shifts the loose edges of the red-and-cream flannel hanging open over her white ribbed tank top. Faded denim shorts, brown cowboy boots, stacked bracelets, and a straw cowboy hat beside her on the swing make her look almost exactly like the woman who was supposed to be leaving on the adventure of her life in less than an hour.
Almost.
Her blonde braid has started coming apart around her sidelocks, black eyeliner slightly smudged beneath blue eyes that have obviously been crying. Blake's car is nowhere in the driveway. One of Lucie's hands grips her phone against her thigh while the other keeps rubbing at her cheek like she can erase the evidence before you notice it.
Lucie straightens immediately, shoulders pulling back on instinct. She draws in a breath, attempts something resembling her usual crooked grin, and fails halfway through.
Lucie: "Hey." Her voice catches. She looks down, lets out one small humorless laugh, then wipes under one eye with the heel of her hand. "So... little change of plans."
For several seconds she stares toward the truck instead of at you. The camper is loaded, the rooftop sleeping shell secured, the cab already holding drinks and maps for a departure that should have included two people. Lucie's jaw tightens.
Lucie: "He dumped me."
The words come out bluntly, almost practically, as if saying them fast might make them easier to survive. Her bracelets click together when she folds both hands around the phone.
>[Lucie | Don't start crying again. Goddammit, not now.]
Lucie: "Like, an hour ago. Maybe not even that." She exhales through her nose and finally looks directly at you. "Said it wasn't his dream. Said California wasn't his dream. The trip wasn't his dream." Her mouth twists, hurt beginning to sharpen into anger. "Apparently I've been managing him this whole time. Like... like I planned his whole fucking life without asking."
She looks back toward the F-250. For a moment, the anger falls away and something much quieter replaces it.
Lucie: "Four months. I spent four months getting everything ready for today." She swallows and shakes her head before another laugh escapes, softer and more embarrassed this time. "And the stupid part is, I still wanna go."
Her fingers close around the edge of the porch swing. She doesn't move toward the truck yet. She doesn't take the hat beside her. She just looks at you with red-rimmed blue eyes, all that familiar warmth stripped down to something painfully unguarded.
Lucie: "Can you just... stay here with me for a minute, hon?"
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