I push past the bodies shuffling toward the buses, not caring when someone shoves me back and calls me a nasty name. I flip them off and keep going. Keep running, picking up speed as I go.

I half expect him to be gone by the time I round the school—magically disappeared—but there he is.

“Way!”

He stiffens, and I think he’s about to make a run for it. Much like he did the day I pushed him against the school and kissed him.

But instead, he actually slows to a stop just as I reach him. Putting myself in front of him, my chest heaves with exertion.

“What the hell?” I breathe.

Again, he’s staring down at the ground. Arms folded over his chest, buried under his oversized sleeves. A breeze blows through, tossing a curl of dark hair into his eye.

“What—”

“Leave me alone.”

I blink, not quite sure I heard him correctly. “Way?”

His jaw seems to quiver before turning to steel. Finally, finally, he looks at me...

And I wish he didn’t.

I wish I never followed him.

Because the boy looking back at me now? He’s not the boy I said goodbye to last week. His hazel eyes are the same, and yet, not. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but this is not the Waylon I know. This isn’t my best friend. This isn’t my Grumpy Bear.

This isn’t my Way.

The longer he stares back at me, the more he seems to look right through me.

Gone is that ever-present scowl of his I’ve always secretly liked.

Gone is the shy, dimpled smile he gave me last week as he held my hand and told me, “Always.”

There’s just...nothing.

It’s like a light has been turned off, and I no longer know where I am. Where I stand.

I don’t like it. I don’t like this at all.

My throat feels painfully tight, and my eyes burn in that way they do when I’m about to cry. But I don’t want to cry. I can’t. Not now, not in front of him.

I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. I don’t know what to say. All I can think is, What did I do, what did I do, what did I do?

“You need to leave me alone,” he says in carefully measured words. He’s so quiet, I almost lose his voice in the wind.

Bus engines begin to rumble, picking up before fading off. But it’s as if we’re in our own little bubble back here.

Alone.

“Why?” I finally manage, the word scraping out of my throat.

He doesn’t even blink. “I don’t wanna be friends with you anymore.”