EXT. CLOSED ROADSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Sloane stands on a picnic table searching for a bar of signal. Micah watches the road beside two overnight bags, already knowing the headlights they expect will not appear.
Sloane
Still nothing. If I hold it above my head, I get one bar that disappears before the message moves.
Micah
Dani is probably coming around the lake road. It takes longer, but it is less dark and has actual guardrails most of the way.
Sloane
Dani said forty minutes. It has been an hour and twelve.
Micah
Her car makes that noise over fifty. Maybe she is protecting the axle.
Sloane
You do not know what an axle is.
Micah
It is a car bone. I am trying to keep morale alive.
Sloane
Morale can call Em. She was the backup.
Micah
Em had six people in a five-seat car, plus that speaker everyone treated like it had a legal right to a seat.
Sloane
She said she would come back after dropping them at the crossroads. How do you know exactly who was in her car?
Sloane
You were inside looking for my jacket.
Micah
I found it. That part of the system worked.
Sloane
Give me your phone. Mine is at fourteen percent.
Sloane
You charged it in the kitchen for an hour.
Micah
People kept unplugging it for the speaker.
Micah
What are you looking for?
Sloane
A miracle, a map, a message that explains why my sister forgot she has a sister. Pick one.
Micah
Dani did not forget you.
Sloane
Then why are you defending her before I accuse her?
Micah
Because you do that thing where the worst explanation wins by arriving first, and then everybody else has to argue against a story that already feels true.
Sloane
Tonight the worst explanation has a warm house, a working charger, and has left us outside a diner with painted-on windows.
Micah
The ridge is half a mile. We could get signal up there.
Sloane
You said the path was unsafe ten minutes ago.
Micah
It is muddy, not a volcano.
Sloane
You want to walk now because standing here means I keep asking. What do you know?
Micah
I know you leave at six.
Micah
I heard you in the pantry with Layla. Two suitcases, your mother's van, gone before breakfast.
Sloane
You stood outside a door and listened, so you canceled my ride?
Micah
I messaged Dani from the party Wi-Fi. I said Em had room. Then I told Em Dani was already coming.
Sloane
You made both of them turn around.
Micah
I thought we would have twenty minutes under the diner lights, then Dani would come. You always leave when a conversation gets difficult, and I panicked.
Sloane
We are miles from town. The party is over. You stranded me to improve my communication?
Micah
I was hurt. You told Layla, who you met tonight, and not me.
Sloane
Layla asked why I was stuffing bread rolls into my bag. She did not demand a departure briefing.
Micah
We have been friends for nine years. I thought that came with goodbye.
Sloane
It did. I set an alarm for four thirty. I was going to bring coffee to your steps before we left.
Micah
Then why make the move a secret?
Sloane
Because the landlord changed the locks yesterday. Because my mother cried in a supermarket car park. Because I could not survive you making a fundraiser before I had packed.
Micah
Last time your power was cut, the fundraiser paid the bill.
Sloane
It also told the entire school we could not pay it. You help so loudly that I disappear inside the help.
Micah
I did not know it felt like that. I thought making the problem visible meant people could help, but I never asked if visibility was another problem.
Sloane
You did not ask. Tonight you did not ask again. You just removed every exit until I had to explain myself.
Micah
You are right. Give me your phone. Mine has the messages and Dani's number. I will walk to the ridge and tell both of them exactly what I did.
Sloane
We walk together. I am not waiting alone while you perform accountability somewhere with better reception.
Micah
Together. No speech, no fundraiser, no version where this was for your own good.
Sloane
Write the message now. When the signal comes back, the truth goes first.
Sloane
After that, you can listen to the goodbye you almost missed.