Walking home from Morelli’s, just the two of us, Tess and I didn’t say much. What was there to say? I didn’t belong the way I once had. I had been a part of something, a puzzle piece, and now it was like a bit of me had broken off and I didn’t fit the puzzle anymore.

At my front walk, Tess stopped as I headed up the steps. Any other year, she’d have come in with me. We’d have hung out in my room, or maybe sat under the sprinkler. Probably she’d have stuck around for dinner, and then her parents would have ended up at our place, to grill some chicken. But it wasn’t going to happen today, and we both knew it. I felt sad about that, but also I wanted her to go. It was almost like I was allergic to this, to her. It was hard trying to fake it. Trying to be okay for someone else.

“Well,” said Tess. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right? At the Zyskowskis’ schoolwork burn?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head. “I threw away almost everything at school. I don’t have any papers left to toss in the bonfire.”

“Really?” she said. “But it’ll be the first time without you since kindergarten, and it’s a tradition. . . .” Even as her voice trailed off, I could tell that Tess wasn’t really surprised. Not anymore.

A few years ago, Tess’s favorite necklace had broken off while we were tubing on the Chattahoochee River. There’d been no way to go back and get it. And I remembered watching her as she stared back at the churning water and the rocks, while our boat tumbled on forward into the next set of rapids. The river’s current had been unstoppable, and Tess had seen that and accepted it. Her necklace was gone for good.

The look on Tess’s face that day on the river had been the same one I stared at now. She and I stood there in front of my house, and it was like we were agreeing to something. Neither of us said a word, but I swear we were thinking the very same thought. Together. We were letting go. And we knew it.

Part of me wanted to change my mind, to not be thinking what I was thinking. Part of me loved Tess, and wanted to walk down the porch steps and hug her and make everything okay again. But I couldn’t do it. The river’s current was unstoppable. We had lost something precious, and we knew just where it was, but that didn’t mean we could turn back for it.

Everything was not okay, and I was done pretending.

I shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Well, then . . . see you around, I guess,” said Tess.