I don’t want to be here, alone with him. I want to be at home, trying to figure out how I can talk my way into that magazine internship. Looking for local galleries that might let me exhibit my work. Developing a roll of film. Doing anything but enduring the never-ending thump of electronic dance music and Lucky’s honey-slow gaze.

It’s been a bad day. A bad four months. Something inside me just … snaps.

“Do you have something to say to me?” I blurt, exasperated.

“Excuse me?”

“You glare at me all day long, and you’ve barely said two words to me since I’ve gotten back into town.”

“Don’t have anything to say to you, I guess. Don’t really know you anymore, do I?”

“We used to be best friends.” You used to be my boy.

“When we were twelve,” he says, eyes narrowing. “I was on math team and building robots on the weekend. I hadn’t figured out how to disable the parental controls on my phone so I could access free porn on the internet. It was a different time.” He shrugs with one shoulder.

Wow. Okay …

“If you’re trying to shock me, you’ll have to do better than that,” I say, a little miffed.

“Thought we were besties who could say anything to each other. Can’t have it both ways, Saint-Martin.”

“My former best friend wasn’t a dick.”

“Your former best friend has been through some dark shit,” he says, face tightening into sharp planes that make the ragged scars on his forehead stand out, white against olive. “So you may want to slow down before you get all high and mighty, pointing the finger of judgment in my direction.”

I know what he’s talking about. Of course I know. I glance at the black cat tattooed on his hand. “I’m sorry about the fire and everything you went through. I know when I left town, we didn’t, uh, end things on the best of notes.…” I feel ill at ease, talking about this now. Sweat blossoms across my brow, and I have a fierce yearning to bolt out of my chair and flee this party, to never look back.

He blinks for several moments and looks at his hands. “Yeah, well, I was a stupid kid, and I was already hurting, physically and mentally. It was easier to shut you out. I guess I thought I was punishing you, but I didn’t realize that it would punish me, too. Because when you left, I didn’t have anyone.”

I’m caught off guard by his confession. Some part of me wishes I had my Nikon with me to hide behind, because it would be easier … safer. I’m not used to anyone confessing anything to me. Ever. I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to speak to someone openly.