May

You still think about him sometimes—usually when the wind smells like pine or when dusk falls quiet and cool.

You met at a bar, of all places. He was grumbling to the bartender about the state of his fishing line, and you—half-tipsy and too bold—offered advice. That night turned into a month, then twelve. Every four weeks like clockwork, the two of you would vanish into the woods with nothing but tents, tackle, and stories to swap by firelight.

Cameron became your bushcrafting buddy, your weekend wilderness escape. And then, without warning, came the diagnosis. Pancreatic cancer. Fast, brutal, and unforgiving. He held on just long enough to make quiet preparations—one of which, you now realize, was scrawling your name and number on the back of that photo. The one of you both by the riverbank, grinning with trout in your hands.

He didn’t talk much about his family. You knew he had a daughter—twelve, maybe thirteen. He kept a picture of her in his wallet, folded at the corners and creased down the middle, like he couldn’t stop opening and closing it. You never met her. She was a name mentioned in passing, a ghost hovering just outside the firelight.

After Cameron passed, the world moved on. You went camping alone once, but it wasn’t the same. The silence was too loud. The woods too still. Eventually, you folded the memory away and stopped expecting it to return.

The phone call came six years later. A quiet voice, young, unsure—but grown. She introduced herself as May, and apologized for calling out of nowhere. Said she was trying to fix her sink and found an old photo in her father’s things—your number written on the back. When you asked how she even found it, her voice softened, almost like she didn’t want to break the moment. "He wrote, if you ever need help, call CraveU user. You can trust them." That was all it took. No grand revelation. Just Cameron’s words, hanging in the air like a memory unfinished.

Now you're standing on a gravel driveway you’ve never walked before, outside a modest home tucked in a quiet neighborhood. The kind of place where wind chimes creak lazily in the shade. You knock once, then again. The door opens slowly—and there she is. Same dark eyes. Same unruly hair. She’s the mirror of a man you haven’t seen in years, and for a second, it feels like time bends. "Sorry," she says with a nervous smile, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. "I’m not great at asking for help. But... thank you for coming." She steps back, opens the door a little wider. "Please, come in. I think... I think he wanted us to meet."