Almost Was, Always Will - Part One Section One: The Return

Almost Was, Always Will

A Forbidden Love Story

The boy I loved. The man I couldn’t have. The truth I can’t escape.

Coming home was supposed to be simple. Just a place to land after everything fell apart. But the moment I step back into the house that raised me, nothing feels simple anymore.

Every wall remembers—the laughter, the promises, the love I thought would last forever. Matt was my first everything, the boy everyone expected me to end up with. Being near him now feels like slipping into old habits, safe and steady.

But Dean is here too. Quiet, sharp, magnetic in all the ways I tried to ignore. One glance from him and every buried feeling comes rushing back, daring me to admit the truth I never said out loud.

I thought I left the past behind. Instead, I walked straight back into it. And this time, I don’t know how I’ll survive it.

Part One Section One: The Return

Home isn’t the same when your heart belongs to both.

Everly

The road into town is narrower than I remember, the edges cracked and swallowed by weeds. Same faded welcome sign, same rusted diner marquee promising the “best pie in the county.” Even after all these years, nothing here bothers to pretend it’s new. Which is both comforting and suffocating.

I roll down the window, letting the late-summer air rush in, and for a second I’m seventeen again, bare feet on the dashboard, stereo too loud, the whole world spread out in front of me. But I’m not that girl anymore. I left her behind when I left this town, and I thought I’d buried the parts of myself that belonged here too.

Turns out I was wrong.

Every street corner is a reminder of why I stayed away. I couldn’t come back without reopening what I’d fought so hard to forget: the years I spent tangled up in their family, the whispers that I’d always end up as one of them, the way my heart never quite chose the right brother.

I lasted a long time out there. Built a life. I tried to convince myself I didn’t need the familiarity of home, didn’t need them. But a failed relationship, no, a failed marriage, and a city that chewed me up until I couldn’t recognize myself anymore left me with nowhere else to go. My apartment is empty, my future uncertain. So I did the one thing I swore I never would. I came back.

The turn onto their street comes too quickly, and my chest tightens the moment I see it: the house that raised me as much as my own ever did. White paint still peeling along the trim, porch swing leaning to one side. The flowerbeds are tidier, though, I can already picture Matt’s steady hands pulling weeds, keeping things in order.

It smells the same here, like pine and cut grass and summers that never really ended. And it hits me, sharp and low, how much I wanted this once. A place in their family. A future with them. With him.

I pull into the drive and kill the engine, but I don’t move. My palms are sweaty against the steering wheel, my throat dry. I’ve faced worse than this, lawyers, moving trucks, a husband who couldn’t bother to fight for me. but something about stepping onto this porch feels harder than all of it combined.

Because this isn’t just coming home. It’s walking straight back into the life I almost had, the love I almost kept, and the one I never dared touch.

And no matter what I tell myself, I know the past won’t stay buried. Not here. Not with them.

The porch creaks the same way it used to, one loose board at the top step whining under my weight. I used to skip that one without even thinking, the muscle memory of all those nights spent sneaking in long after curfew. Some habits never leave you, even when you’ve been gone too long.

The screen door groans, and the smell hits me first, fresh coffee, lemon cleaner, and something warm drifting from the kitchen. It smells like family. Like belonging. And it hits so hard it nearly knocks me back out onto the porch.

Every corner of this house is a memory. The faded photo of the brothers on the wall, Matt’s easy smile, Dean’s reluctant one. The swing of the kitchen door where Lila and I used to race through for midnight snacks. The handprints painted on the wall in the mudroom, a project their mom insisted on when we were little. Mine is there too, smaller than theirs, tucked right between Matt’s and Dean’s. They never painted over it.

I belonged here once. Almost more than I ever belonged at home. Lila made sure of that. She was the kind of best friend who dragged me into every family moment, every dinner, every summer trip. Being here was never just about Matt, it was about all of them.

Matt made sure of that. He was my first everything, first crush, first kiss under the bleachers, first boyfriend who held my hand in front of everyone like I was his entire world. People used to say we were inevitable. That one day I’d be Everly Collins instead of Harrington, and I believed it. Everyone did.

But time has a way of stealing certainties. College, distance, choices we didn’t talk about. What felt like forever unraveled thread by thread until all we had left was silence.

And Dean…

Dean was always there. Always in the periphery. The quieter one, the sharper one. He wasn’t safe the way Matt was. He was restless, a storm in a boy’s body, the kind of energy that drew me in even when I knew I shouldn’t look twice. I didn’t let myself. Not then. He was Matt’s brother, my best friend’s brother. Off-limits in every way that mattered.

But the truth? He was the secret I never said out loud. The spark I buried so deep I convinced myself it didn’t exist.

Until now. Until walking back into this house, where every wall remembers.

“Evie?”

The sound of my name pulls me toward the kitchen, and there he is. Matt, standing by the counter with a dish towel slung over his shoulder like he never left this house, like I never did either.

He looks the same. Or maybe he just looks like home, broad-shouldered, steady-eyed, his smile softening in a way that makes me ache. For a second, it’s like no time has passed at all. Like I’m sixteen again, stealing a kiss from him under the bleachers, sure we’d last forever.

“Matt.” My voice catches, and I force a smile.

He crosses the space easily, without hesitation, pulling me into a hug that swallows me whole. It’s warm, solid, too much. He still smells like cedar and soap, the same way he did back when Lila and I would sprawl across the couch and pretend not to notice her brothers coming and going. But Lila isn’t here right now, she moved away years ago, chasing her own life. Without her, this house feels both familiar and strange, like I belong and don’t at the same time. When his chin grazes the top of my head, my heart twists.

“Didn’t think I’d see you back here,” he murmurs against my hair. The words sound casual, but the way he holds on a beat too long says otherwise.

“Yeah, well… life had other plans.” I laugh, but it’s thin, shaky.

He pulls back just enough to look at me, his thumb brushing over my arm like it belongs there. “Maybe it was just a detour. You always find your way home, Evie. Lila’ll lose her mind when she hears you’re back. She’s been trying to drag you home for years.”

The flicker is there, unmistakable. That familiar pull, the one everyone expected me to fall into again someday. It would be so easy, to lean into him, to pretend nothing broke between us.

But before I can answer, the air shifts.

Dean’s voice cuts across the kitchen, low and quiet. “She’s back, then.”

My head jerks toward the doorway, and there he is. Leaning against the frame, arms crossed, expression unreadable. He hasn’t changed much either, still sharp edges where Matt is smooth lines, still shadows where Matt is light. His presence is magnetic, unsettling. My skin prickles just from looking at him.

Our eyes meet, and it’s instant. Heat coils low in my stomach, the kind that doesn’t belong here, not now, not with him. I try to look away, but I can’t. His gaze pins me in place, stripping every excuse I built over the years until I’m raw, exposed.

Dean doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move. Just watches me, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, and he’s daring me to admit it.

The room feels smaller, air tighter, and for the first time since I pulled into this driveway, I realize coming back was a mistake. Because one look at Dean and I remember everything I spent years trying to bury.

And it’s not buried at all.

Matt doesn’t let the moment linger long. He takes the dish towel off his shoulder and tosses it on the counter, flashing me that same easy grin that once felt like the center of my world.

“You hungry? Mom made way too much, like always. You know there’s a plate with your name on it.” He says it so casually, like I still belong here. Like I never walked away.

The ease in his voice is disarming, familiar. He pulls out a chair at the table, guiding me toward it with a hand on my back. The touch is gentle, protective, almost possessive. His warmth wraps around me like it used to, promising safety if I just lean back into it.

And for a heartbeat, I want to.

But then I feel it, Dean’s eyes on me, heavier, sharper.

He hasn’t moved from the doorway, but he doesn’t need to. The weight of his silence presses against me harder than Matt’s hand ever could. His eyes skim over me once before he looks away, and that single glance makes my skin prickle.

I shouldn’t feel it, not after all this time, not here, but I do. Heat unfurls low in my stomach, unwelcome and unstoppable.

I force myself into the chair, my knees brushing against Matt’s when he sits down beside me. He leans in close. Close enough that his shoulder brushes mine as he starts talking about nothing, work, the town, the same steady rhythm of conversation that used to soothe me. His voice is comforting, it’s home.

But every time I catch a flicker of Dean in the corner of my eye, it’s fire. Quiet, smoldering, waiting to burn.

My chest tightens, torn between the man who once held my heart and the one who’s always haunted it. Stability and temptation, safety and danger.

Matt is the love I almost had.

Dean is the one I was never allowed to want.

And sitting here, with both of them so close, I know I can’t keep pretending those feelings ever really went away.

By the time the plates are cleared and Matt is walking me to the door, my head is buzzing from more than just the wine his mom insisted I drink. It’s the weight of this house, the way it pulls me back into a rhythm I swore I’d outgrown.

Matt squeezes my shoulder before reaching for the door. “Don’t be a stranger this time, Evie. You know you’ve always got a place here.” His words are warm, steady. The kind that could settle me if I let them.

I manage a smile, but my pulse is erratic, my chest too tight. Because I can feel him before I see him.

Dean.

He’s leaning against the wall, half in shadow, arms still crossed like he hasn’t moved all night. Our eyes meet as I step past him, and the air shifts. Heavy. Electric.

For a second, neither of us breathes.

My hand brushes against his as I move through the doorway, barely a touch, the whisper of skin on skin, but it sparks through me like I’ve been branded. I jerk back, but his gaze doesn’t waver.

“You shouldn’t have come back if you weren’t ready to face the truth.” His voice is low, rough, meant only for me.

The words follow me into the night, echoing louder than Matt’s promises of home, hotter than the memory of his arms around me.

Matt is comfort. Dean is fire.

And right now, I’m standing in the middle, burning. 

To be Continued. Come back tomorrow for part two

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: September 2025

Cover Design by LS Phoenix