“Seventy-three. It’s been three years.”

I do a quick mental check. What do I know about 1973? We don’t learn much about the seventies in school. Maybe I should have done some research before I left.

But every other time I’d always had Michael by my side. It had been us versus the world or creating our own world.

Not anymore.

“You left,” he seethes. “You left me, and you didn’t care, and you just went off to do whatever it is you went to do. I thought I’d never see you again. Every day, I woke up and felt both happy and furious that I remembered you. Remembered us. I kept waiting to forget you. I wish I could forget you.”

He turns his back to me, walking away with hurried but sporadic steps. And, like always, I follow.

“I went to fix things.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Seriously! Michael. Michael!”

I grab his shoulder, and in that moment, that fraction of a second, that quiver of a heartbeat, I see a side of him I never thought I’d see.

“Don’t. Touch. Me,” he hisses. “Don’t you ever touch me again. Don’t you ever…”

He growls, an animalistic groan that comes from deep within his stomach. He runs his fingers through his shaggy hair.

For the first time since I met Michael, I feel something new: fear.

And I have to push through it.

“What happened to you?”

Slowly, Michael pulls himself out of his own mind and turns to me with a wild fury in his eyes. “What happened to me.” He says it like a statement. “You want to know that badly?”

Michael takes a step forward, and in response, I take a step back.

“After you left, went off to save that boy of yours, I waited to forget you. But I didn’t. And I thought maybe I had lost my mind. And you were never really real. It messed me up. I didn’t want to remember. So I had to try to forget you. And what better way to forget someone than in the bottom of a bottle?”

He doesn’t say it like he’s ashamed.

“One drink turned to two, two turned to four, and well, the past three years started to feel like a blur.”

Just by looking at him, I know he’s been self-medicating with more than alcohol. I don’t know what drugs he’s on, but he’s on something.

I swallow thickly, forcing myself to speak. “What about your family?” I ask.

“Seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

But his posture relaxes, even if just a fraction. He takes half a step back, and I feel my breath return. I let out a breath I didn’t even know I had been holding.

“My parents don’t want anything to do with me.”