He settles in, looking thoughtful, his blue eyes studying me in that way that makes me wonder if he sees right through my excuses.

"Fair enough. But if you change your mind, I'll come back and get you."

"How was your day, anyway?" I ask, partly to change the subject, partly to stop my mind from wandering back to Nate.

"Good, actually," Jake begins, leaning forward. "Nate was... different today. Better. Guess getting his ass kicked did him some good." There's a teasing lilt to his voice, but his eyes are serious, watching me like he's waiting for something to crack.

Just hearing Nate's name makes my heart skip a beat—a familiar stumble I've grown to hate. The car ride floods back in vivid detail—his half-apologies hanging in the air like mist, his confusing signals ricocheting off the walls I've built around myself. I feel a sharp pang of longing mixed with frustration. He had said sorry, kind of, but it wasn't enough. Memories of last summer surface unexpectedly—the night that changed everything. I'd needed him, believing with every fiber of my being that he'd be there like he always was.

But he wasn't. That absence, that silence on the other end of the phone, had shattered something inside me I hadn't realized existed until I was holding the broken pieces.

I hadn't told him about that night, how I'd cried into the silence until my throat was raw, feeling foolish and abandoned. He had always been my rock; the one person I believed would be there without judgment. But when I needed him the most, he wasn't there.

The worst part?

He doesn't remember any of it.

Or at least, he pretends not to.

That was the moment it hit me. Life can shatter you into pieces so small you don't recognize yourself anymore, and no one is immune to that pain. Staying open, even when you're hollowed out by hurt is a choice that feels like trying to breathe underwater.

Then, Dad passed away.

Just when I thought I couldn't break any further, the final piece of my heart cracked. I nearly let myself drown in that grief, let it pull me under like a riptide. You hold onto things, onto moments, thinking you've got forever to memorize the sound of someone's laugh or the way they say your name. But everything is temporary.

That includes Nate.

I wanted to confront him earlier today. Sitting in the car with him while his hands were clenched around the steering wheel just added to the thick tension suffocating the air between us. I wanted to scream, demand to know why he abandoned me, then proceeded to act like I didn't exist. But all I managed was to ask why he'd been ignoring me. As if it was just about the distance, the silence from the beginning of this summer. Not about the gaping void his absence had left over the past year.