But too much had happened.

We were way past that now.

Jacob wasn’t dating anyone, in fact he never dated anyone, so the decision for him was easy. As we got older Jacob still remained single, I mean he dated girls on and off but nothing serious. He said he preferred it that way, and I never pressed him for more information than he willingly shared. Growing up, Austin hated that he was younger than all of us. I think he knew that this day would eventually come, us going off to college together before him. He was a lot like Alex in that sense. Very intuitive and always wanting to be one of the boys. It comforted me knowing that he would still be here to look after her for one more year and then she would really be alone.

For the first time, the future was unknown for all of us. I never imagined that the roads ahead would be as unclear as they were now, assuming they would only get worse as time went on. With each of us taking different paths and going in separate directions that may or may not lead us back to Oak Island. I don’t want to say that my mom was right, but I decided it was wise to follow her advice and expand my horizons. Especially after nothing changed when I poured my heart out to Alex. At least not the way I wanted it to. We became friends again, but we hadn’t been back to our abandoned house in years. It held too many memories for the both of us and it was easier to sweep everything under the rug.

It took us a few months to get used to this new friendship we evolved into. We were the same but different…

I’m not going to try to understand any of it. She was in my life again and that was good enough for me. I think we were all just ready to try something new and different. I guess you could say things went back to normal.

With all of us.

“Oh my God, will you stop fucking texting Cole for two seconds?” I snarled.

Alex placed her phone in her back pocket and smiled at me. “I wasn’t even texting Cole, thank you very much.”

“Right…”

Oh yeah, and Cole didn’t fucking go away.

“I like the gray sheets, they look better than the black,” she stated, taking the black sheets out of my hand and grabbing the gray ones.

She conned me into going shopping for the apartment. We were leaving after the fourth of July and that was only three weeks away. I hadn’t given much thought about what I would need. I didn’t have to. Alex had done it for me. I could have done this shit in Ohio, I didn’t want to lug around any more stuff than I had to, but it made her happy and at the end of the day.

That’s all that mattered.

“For the last time, I don’t fucking care, Half-Pint. Get what you want, I’m over this.”

“We just got here, do you see this list?” She placed the paper in front of my face.

“I’ve only crossed off two things from the sixty on the list,” she informed me, assuming that I would give a shit.

I didn’t.

“Oh my God, I’m going to die here.”

She rolled her eyes. “Bo, I took off work for this.”

“Good. You work too much anyways,” I grinned, glancing at her.

“I thought you loved it when I fed you.”

I smiled. “Yes. When you feed me.” I didn’t have to say his name for her to know what I implied.

She reminded me often that she and Cole were still just friends. I believed her because what other choice did I have?

“Why couldn’t you and Aubrey do this?”

She sighed. “Aubrey is having a hard time with all of this.”

We walked down the aisle and I looked over at her while she dumped more random shit into the shopping cart.

Did she honestly think I would dust?

“What do you mean? Dylan said she’s been fine with everything.”

She shrugged, grabbing a broom and dustpan that I grabbed from her and placed back on the rack.

“No,” I ordered, rolling the cart to leave the goddamn cleaning aisle.

She placed the same dustpan and broom that I just took out of her hands back into the shopping cart, completely blowing me off with a great big smile on her face and a scowl on mine.

See? I told you things were somewhat back to normal.

“Alex,” I warned.

“What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

She placed her hand on her hip, cocked her head, and looked right at me. “You’re going to need a broom and dustpan, I know how messy you boys are. I don’t want to have to go buy one when I come and visit.”

I loved that she was already thinking about coming to visit and we hadn’t even left yet, so I disregarded the smartass comments that I really wanted to say.

“I can’t believe you boys are leaving me in three weeks,” she softly spoke not meeting my eyes.

“We’re not leaving you.”

“I know.”

“We will come back all the time. Ohio isn’t that far away.”

“It’s over a ten-hour drive.”

I nudged her with my shoulder as we walked side-by-side. “Look at all the practice you can get at driving. Maybe I won’t fear for my life when I’m in a car with you anymore.”

She smacked my chest and shoved me away from the cart, rolling it to the next aisle.

I subconsciously looked up at the number above our heads, three. How many fucking aisles does this store have?

“I’m a cautious driver,” she stated, pulling me away from my thoughts.

“No, you’re a scary one.”

“How would you know? You never let me drive your truck.”

“That’s because you can barely see over the steering wheel, and the first time I let you drive it, you popped a curb and scratched my rim.”

She scoffed, placing her hand on her chest. “That curb came out of nowhere.”

“Right… because that happens all the time. Curbs popping out of nowhere and shit, I’m constantly hearing about it on the news.”

She glared at me and I laughed. “I drive in your car enough to know that you can’t drive worth shit.”

“I just got that car.”

“Exactly,” I stated with wide eyes.

Her parents had bought her a white Honda Civic a few weeks ago. They thought if they waited until she was almost seventeen to buy her a vehicle, that she would have more time to practice. That she would somehow develop some sort of awareness for driving.

She didn’t.

We stayed in the store for the next three hours. I drew the line when she tried to buy accent pillows for the couch and my bed. She tried to play it cool when she added some of her own toiletries and other stuff that I knew were only for her. I didn’t call her out on it because I didn’t want her to take them out or make her feel like she wasn’t welcome or wanted. As much as she tried to pretend that she was excited for us, I knew deep down she was scared of another change in our short lives. Not just with me this time.

With all of us.

I wanted to reassure her that everything would be all right and tell her anything else I had to say to ease her concern. Except this time I didn’t want to lie to her, it’s what started our complicated chaos in the first place.

Things were changing again.

It was inevitable, just like the days changing and time moving forward.

But I never imagined it would be to the degree that it did.

I hated that we grew up.

I hated that we still had so much more growing up to do.

I hated that they were leaving me.

I hated that I felt like I was left behind.

It would only be Austin and me for one more year. Then I would be alone, even Aubrey would be gone.

I hated that more than anything.

I tried to pretend that none of it bothered me. That I didn’t lose sleep over it, or that it wasn’t constantly on my mind. But when I was alone with nothing but my thoughts and nothing to distract me, there was no escaping it. The realization quickly followed. I did have a co-dependent relationship with my boys, and I had yet to figure out if that was a good or bad thing.