“You know what I meant, Axel. I know you think of me like a sister. Jacob told me. And I know that you’re just trying to be protective. Or something. But you can’t go around blowing things up to prevent me from living my life.”

He opened his mouth to say something when there was a creak on the ladder beneath us.

Sophie popped her head in. “There you guys are. We’ve been looking all over for you.” She peered down. “Jacob, they’re up here!” She climbed into the treehouse and sat down.

Jacob climbed up next. He sat down next to me.

And for a second...everything felt wrong. Like the four of us were suddenly strangers.

“Why do you always come up here?” Sophie asked me.

I hadn’t realized I’d been so obvious every year. “It’s fun to look at our parents when they were our age.” Although, most of the pictures were of them younger. I hadn’t seen many of them together as teens now that I thought about it. But my dad had probably stopped coming up here.

I guess I was the only one stuck in the past. The only one having trouble moving on. After all, I was sitting in this treehouse like I did every year, apparently. I’d been trying to move on from the past, but now it felt like I was trying desperately to cling on to it. Just me. Not the three of them. It was a sobering thought.

“Yeah.” Sophie turned to stare at the pictures. “My dad was always so much cooler than yours.”

“Hey!”

She laughed and turned back around. “But really. Feeling nostalgic tonight?” She lightly tapped her shoe against mine.

I sighed. “Yeah, a little, I guess. It just feels like everything is about to change. I just want all of us to always be friends. No matter what. The four of us against the world, you know?”

“I don’t think anything will ever change that,” Jacob said as he put his arm around my shoulders.

Axel cleared his throat. “Us against the world,” he said as he stared into my eyes. “Always.”

“Always,” Soph agreed. “And speaking of the four of us...we need to figure out homecoming. Because there is no way in hell we’re not all sharing a limo this year.” She stared daggers at Axel. “It’s our senior year. You can’t ask some rando as your date and ditch us again.”

“Fine by me,” he said.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask.” Jacob looked down at me. “What do you say, Scar? Be my date for homecoming?”