We say our goodbyes to the rest of the boys before they disappear into the strip club, and the bus stays parked in the lot while we struggle with getting a barely conscious Nash into the waiting Uber.

By the time we arrive back at the beach house, Nash is snoring loudly from the back seat. I look back to see his head flopped against Harley’s shoulder, his mouth hanging open, and I release a sigh of frustration, rolling my eyes. He ruined his own bachelor party by getting plastered, and now Harley and I have to sort him out. Surprisingly, considering how drunk we each are, we somehow manage to successfully get him up two flights of stairs and into his bed without too much damage. I’m pretty sure at one point we may have connected a railing with his head, but he can deal with the pain tomorrow when he wakes up. Something tells me a bump on the head will be the least of his worries.

I sit on the edge of the mattress, removing Nash’s shoes while Harley places the small trash can from the en-suite bathroom onto the floor by the bed, just in case he wakes up through the night to be sick. As I sit there, I take Nash in, from his mess of hair to the wrinkled shirt he’s still wearing, down to his oddly socked feet, and an unexpected sadness comes over me.

I’m not sure what it is, but my mind drifts back to all the nights I used to sit up and watch him sleep beside me. When I’d sneak him past Momma and into my bedroom. When I would stay in his dorm with him when we were at college together, because my roommate was horribly mean to me. All the times I would watch him sleep because it was such a beautiful sight to see. I loved watching his eyelashes flutter with every rapid movement of his eyes; I imagined he was dreaming of something so spectacular, and I envied whatever it was he was imagining in those moments. I loved watching the way his lips would curve up ever so slightly, as if he was privy to a secret he would never tell. But now as I watch him, passed out and almost lifeless, all I feel is a sense of emptiness, because the boy I used to watch sleep is gone.

It’s taken me until tonight to realize that my Nash is gone. Sure, there’s the occasional glimpse here and there of the boy I used to know and love but, for the most part, he’s a changed man and that’s fine because, like Harley said, people change. And I’m trying so hard to convince myself that Nash has changed for the better, that he’s happy and content. But I keep thinking back to the way his hands were on me earlier, to the look so unlike him in his eyes. I’m worried he isn’t happy, and that he might do something he’ll regret, but I quickly blink those thoughts away, reminding myself that despite his change, he’s still Nash Harris. No matter what, he’ll always be the boy who captured my heart all those years ago, and I’ll always love him, even when he’s a drunk jerk.