Which, yeah, she’s right. I haven’t actually done that. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been really busy with Drew and—”

“And I don’t need you to finish that. It’s always the same thing with you. Our friendship is always a one-way street, and I just—I just can’t deal with that right now, okay? I need space.”

My heart lurches, and I feel like I’m going to be sick. “So, what? You’re saying you don’t want to be friends anymore?”

“Of course not. I’m just saying—” Becca pauses, her voice fading out. Crackling static comes between us for a moment before she says, “When you told me you were moving across the country, I cried for three days.”

“So did I.” I’m not sure where this is going, but I let her speak.

“But not for the same reasons, okay? I was terrified. It’s like I couldn’t remember who I was before we were friends or who I am without you. I felt like all of me was disappearing.”

“You think I didn’t feel the same?”

“Of course you didn’t, Noah. I mean, yeah, you’ll miss me and you’ll have to make new friends and learn how to navigate a new school, but you know who you are. You’ve always known who you are, and more than anything, I’ve always just been Noah’s best friend.”

I don’t speak. I can’t. How do you respond to something like that?

The idea that Becca’s nothing but my sidekick is honestly so preposterous. She’s been my shield since we became friends, the person jumping in front of me every time something went wrong. She was the one keeping me from doing reckless things and the one guiding me to make the smart decision.

But maybe that’s the problem. I’ve always put myself so far into the spotlight that her only choice was to work the curtains.

“We’re growing up, you know?” Becca says, her voice low like she’s worried I’ll get mad. “You’re moving away, and soon we’ll be going to college. It’s naive to think we could be latched together forever. There was always going to come a day when you didn’t answer the phone.”

“So you stopped answering first?”

“Isn’t that what you would do?”

And of course, it’s exactly what I would do! That’s the problem!

Becca’s supposed to be the mature one, the glue. While I threw a fit and acted like a child, she was supposed to be the foundation making sure I didn’t tumble into some endless abyss. What was I supposed to do when she just stopped being there?