Pets n Story

We’d been visiting Christopher’s headstone every May 26th like clockwork. Same flowers, same flask of coffee, same story about his laugh. But this year, Uncle Terence stopped mid-sentence and just… froze.

He pointed at the bottom corner of the stone. “That wasn’t there before,” he said.

I looked. A small engraving, barely visible unless the light hit right. Three tiny initials: S.L.C.

My aunt went pale. “We never approved that,” she whispered.

I thought maybe it was a stonecutter’s mark, but Uncle Terence shook his head. “That’s not the mason. That’s her initials. From school.”

I didn’t know what he meant until he pulled a wrinkled envelope from his coat pocket. Said he’d gotten it in the mail last week, no return address. Inside: a class photo from 1996. Christopher in the back row. And a girl in the front with “S.L.C.” written on the hem of her uniform sweater.

The photo was torn along the edge. Jagged. Like someone had ripped off whoever was standing next to her.

On the back, someone had written: “Only one of them made it home that night.”

I stared at the photo while the wind kicked up around us. My cousin Christopher had died in 2005 in a hit-and-run. Or at least, that’s what we were told. He was found on the side of an old road near the river, his body cold, shoes missing, no ID on him. Just a lighter in his pocket and a red shoelace knotted tightly around his wrist.

The police chalked it up to an accident. Maybe drunk walking. Maybe mugged. There were no witnesses. The case was quietly closed.

But none of us ever really bought it.

Now this photo brought it all back. My uncle wasn’t the crying type, but that day, he dropped to his knees and cried into his palms. “I knew it,” he whispered. “I always knew there was more to it.”

On the drive back, the car was silent. My aunt clutched the photo like it might vanish if she blinked. I finally broke the silence. “Who’s the girl? S.L.C.?”

Uncle Terence glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “Sarah Lynn Carroway.”

The name didn’t ring any bells. “She a friend of Christopher’s?”

“More than that,” he said. “She was his first love.”

Back in their kitchen, surrounded by the smell of old coffee and lemon cleaner, Uncle Terence opened a drawer and pulled out a bundle of letters. “He kept everything,” he said.

There were folded notes with doodles, movie ticket stubs, even a menu from a diner marked with a heart. One letter stood out—written in green ink, dated May 25, 2005.

“I’m scared,” it read. “Something’s going on with Will. He said if I told anyone, he’d hurt you. Meet me at the bridge tomorrow night. Come alone. – S.”

Will?

“Who’s Will?” I asked.

My aunt sat down slowly, her face white. “Will Haney. He was their neighbor back then. Lived two houses down. Bit odd. Older than the rest, maybe twenty-one at the time.”

“He was obsessed with Sarah,” Uncle Terence said. “Everyone knew it. Christopher once told me he’d caught him watching her through the hedges.”

“Creepy bastard,” my aunt muttered.

“He used to throw parties down by the river,” Uncle Terence went on. “Teens went because he had booze and music. Police didn’t look too close because Will’s dad was a retired sheriff.”

I leaned in. “So you think Christopher went to meet Sarah that night, and… what? Will followed them?”

Uncle Terence looked at the letter again. “Or maybe Christopher never even made it to Sarah.”

My heart raced. For the first time, it felt like we were staring at the truth.

But it wasn’t the truth yet. It was a hunch. A gut feeling. So I asked, “What happened to Sarah?”

They exchanged a look.

“She moved away,” my aunt said. “Vanished, really. Right after Christopher died. Her parents sold their house in a week. Left town in the middle of the night.”

We spent the next two days digging. I called every Sarah Carroway I could find online. Most led nowhere. One hung up. One was eighty-two and ran a quilting blog.

But on the third day, I got a reply. A woman named Sadie Logan replied to my message with a single line: “Did the stone really have the initials?”

I stared at the screen. I hadn’t mentioned the engraving in my message.

I called the number she provided.

Her voice was low, soft, a little cracked like she hadn’t used it in years. “I didn’t think anyone would ever notice,” she said.

I asked if she was Sarah Lynn Carroway.

“I was,” she said. “But that name died a long time ago.”

She agreed to meet. A diner off the interstate, middle of nowhere, 3 PM.

We drove there together. My uncle in the front, white-knuckling the wheel. My aunt beside him, silent.

She sat at a booth in the corner, wearing sunglasses even inside. Her hair was short now, dyed black, but I recognized the shape of her face from the photo.

When she saw us, she stood. Her hands trembled.

“I’m sorry,” she said, before we even sat down. “I’ve lived with this for twenty years.”

She ordered nothing. Just sat there, wringing her hands in her lap.

She told us the story slowly, like peeling a wound.

Will had cornered her the week before graduation. Said if she didn’t go out with him, he’d tell everyone a lie—that she was sleeping with a teacher. That he had “proof.”

She laughed it off, until he showed her a doctored photo.

“I panicked,” she said. “But Christopher told me not to worry. He was gonna help me. Said we’d meet at the bridge and talk about what to do.”

She showed up. Will showed up too.

Christopher never did.

“I think Will stopped him. Or worse.”

She saw Will later that night, bruised knuckles, muddy shoes.

When she asked where Christopher was, he just said, “Home. Where he belongs.”

Three days later, Christopher was found by the river. Sarah tried to tell the police, but they dismissed her. Said she was grieving, confused.

Her parents got scared. Said they couldn’t risk staying. “They changed our names,” she said. “Moved us to Oregon. Told me never to look back.”

“But I never forgot. Every year, on May 26, I’d carve the initials somewhere. I thought maybe one day, someone would notice.”

Tears ran down her face. “I never stopped loving him. I never will.”

The diner fell into a hush. Even the waitress seemed to be listening from a distance.

My uncle took out the photo. Showed her.

She traced her finger over Christopher’s face. “We were supposed to run away that summer. We were going to California. Start over.”

Then she pointed to the jagged edge of the photo.

“That’s where Will was. I ripped him out.”

The silence around the table was heavy.

“We can go to the police,” I said.

She shook her head. “Statute of limitations. No witnesses. No evidence.”

Uncle Terence looked at her. “What if there was?”

We drove straight to the old house where Will Haney used to live. A real estate sign out front. Empty for years, apparently.

But something drew my uncle around the back.

In the shed, under a rotted floorboard, we found a box. Inside: a pair of worn sneakers, size 11. A red shoelace tied in a loop. And a cassette tape labeled “5/25.”

We took it to a friend of mine who digitizes old media.

That night, we listened.

It was muffled, grainy, but clear enough.

First, Christopher’s voice: “You need help, Will. She said no. Leave her alone.”

Then Will: “If I can’t have her, no one can.”

A scuffle. A scream. Silence.

We took it to the police. It took months, but they reopened the case. The tape was enough to get a warrant. They found more—Sarah’s original letter, Christopher’s broken watch with Will’s fingerprint, buried in the woods behind the shed.

Will was arrested in Arizona, living under a new name.

At the trial, Sarah testified. So did my uncle. I sat in the back row, watching justice slowly do its work.

Will got 25 years.

It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

Christopher’s case was no longer a question mark.

The next May 26th, we visited the grave again. This time, Sarah came too.

She brought a single daffodil. Said it was his favorite.

Uncle Terence had a new engraving added.

Below his name, it now read: “Loved beyond life. Remembered by those who never stopped.”

And next to it, not hidden in a corner, were the initials: S.L.C.

That night, we sat around the porch, coffee in hand, sharing stories. The stars above were bright, and for the first time in years, the air felt light.

Sarah smiled through her tears. “He always said, love doesn’t end. It just changes shape.”

She was right.

Sometimes love leaves a mark. Sometimes justice takes its time. But truth, even buried, has a way of surfacing.

Christopher got his story back. And Sarah got to stop running.

Life isn’t always fair. But sometimes, just sometimes, it finds a way to balance the scale.

If you ever feel like your truth is buried—keep digging. Keep hoping.

Because somewhere, someone is still listening.

Share this story if it moved you. You never know who might need to hear it. And maybe… they’ll find their own initials in the light.