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The file ended.

Then silence. Five seconds. Then a click, like an old tape stopping.

It said: Leah & Sam. 2012. Before the fight.

“We were a cannonball with no cannon / Just two kids in a freefall, baby, what happened?”

She texted her older brother: “Did Taylor and Justin ever record a secret song called Cannonball?”

The file was an MP3, 3.2 MB. She plugged in her crackly earbuds and pressed play.

Mia clicked download.

And under “Album cover,” a grainy thumbnail loaded: two teenagers, maybe 15 and 16, sitting on a driveway in the rain, holding a single microphone between them, laughing like the world hadn’t learned how to break them yet.

“You jumped before you knew the water was gone.”

She knew it didn’t exist. Not officially. Taylor and Justin had never recorded a duet called “Cannonball.” But the internet, in its wild, forgotten corners, sometimes held ghosts.

The bridge came. Justin’s voice cracked: “I drove past your house last week. The swing set’s still there.” Taylor answered, barely a whisper: “I know. I live three blocks away now. We grew up, but we didn’t grow.”

A storm of rain—real, hissing rain—filled her ears. Then a piano chord, out of tune, like a music box left in a flooded basement. A voice, too soft to be Taylor’s, too raw to be Justin’s, whispered: