“Yeah.” Nash’s wistful smile is enviable as he ruffles a hand through his sandy blond hair. “Murph, you’re gonna love her. She’s great. She’s a lawyer. Well, she will be once she passes the bar. She’s so smart. And funny, and kind, and … Well, she’s just perfect.” His blue eyes actually glaze over for a moment while he gets carried away with himself, and I wince as the bitter taste of bile begins to rise up the back of my throat.

Thankfully, before he can gauge my reaction, Nash turns, continuing to tread the stone path that trails down to the boardwalk at the river’s edge, and I follow, still speechless as he proceeds to talk. “I was coming out of my favorite juice shop. You know, the one on the same block as my dorm? And Anna was walking with her head down, looking at her phone.” He chuckles, scrubbing a hand over his smiling lips. “She collided headfirst with me, and my smoothie spilled all over the both of us.”

I smile, but really, all I want to do is cry. But I swallow the emotion, clearing my throat. “B-but, isn’t it a little soon?” I ask, adding a casual shrug to try to lighten my question. “I mean, when I came up to visit you for New Year’s you were … happily single.” I meet his eyes with a knowing look. He and I slept together after a drunken night of celebrations on New Year’s Eve. It had been a night of promises, the night I thought everything was going to change. I thought this was going to be our year. And now he’s marrying some woman named Anna?

“What’s it been? Like, a few months?” I guffaw, shaking my head in exasperation.

Nash looks at me, and I can see he wants to say something, but he’s hesitating, considering my question. “I guess … when you know, you just know.” He shrugs, looking down to the ground a moment before tentatively meeting my eyes.

Never before have I imagined someone’s words could feel like such a brutal kick to the stomach, but he’s just about crippled me with that.

“Yeah.” I look down at my hands as they twist together. “I guess I wouldn’t know.”

We continue along the boardwalk and, despite the obvious shift in the air between us, Nash keeps talking about his wonderful, perfect Anna, and their impending nuptials. All the while I’m considering whether or not to just jump into the murky water of the Chelmer River and save myself any further torture. He’s killing me, and he doesn’t even know it. Or, worse. Maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing, and he just doesn’t care.

The thing about Nash and me is that we have a past. It’s more than just the occasional New Year’s hookup. He’s not only my best friend, he was my first crush, my first kiss, my first love, my first everything. He and I were childhood sweethearts who actually thought our love would last forever. But life managed to get in the way and, after we left for college to live our happily ever after together in New York City, my mother’s illness brought me back to Graceville, and our love suffered. I literally went from seeing him every single day, to every third weekend of the month, then every other month until we finally ended things and visited one another when we could.