I run a hand through my hair, frustration bubbling up beneath my skin.I’m not supposed to think about her like this.Not supposed to remember the way she used to be—before I screwed it all up.
But my mind won’t let it go.
And I know exactly when it started…
Ethan ditched me that night.
Classic Ethan move—meet up at his house, then disappear the second some girl from the soccer team texted him.Which left me stuck, trying to decide whether to hang out in his basement alone or deal with the fact that my dad was on another one of his self-destructive benders at home.
I picked option C.The back porch.
And that’s where I found her.
She didn’t see me at first.She was sitting on the steps, guitar in her lap, strumming out something soft, something unpolished, somethingreal.
Something that made my chest go tight, like I was hearing a secret I wasn’t meant to know.
Then I stepped on a loose board, and she jumped.
“Jesus, Joel,” she scowled, fingers fumbling over the strings.“Ever heard of knocking?”
“It’s a porch.”I smirked, leaning against the railing.“Not a private recording studio.”
She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t tell me to leave.
And that should’ve been my first warning.I mean, alarm bells were going off, but what harm was there in sitting down?
So, I sat next to her, stretching my legs out.“What are you working on?”
She hesitated.Just for a second.
Then she did something that caught me off guard—she slammed the notebook shut.
“Nothing,” she muttered, shifting so her elbow covered it, like she was shielding it from view.
That was new.
Anna never cared when I saw her notes before.She used to shove them in my face—riddles, puzzles, random facts she found interesting.And whenever Ethan bailed on me—which was often in our teenage years—she’d show up like it was a given, dropping onto the porch beside me with her notebook in hand.She’d toss out lyric ideas, let me mess with chord progressions while she scribbled down adjustments.
It was easy.Effortless.
A game we played without overthinking it.
But this?
This was different.
“Didn’t sound like nothing,” I teased, nudging her shoulder in the hopes of softening her edges.
“Well, it is,” she shot back, still not looking at me.Instead, she stared straight ahead, fingers gripping the edges of her notebook like it might fly away if she didn’t hold tight enough.
I studied her, brow furrowing.“Okay, now I really want to see it.”
She scoffed, shaking her head.“Of course you do.That’s exactly why you won’t.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair, Joel,” she said, but the insult had no bite.If anything, she sounded—flustered.Like she was thinking too hard about something.