Before I could snap to my senses, I clicked on his name. In a blink of an eye, I was staring straight at his profile picture. His olive complexion, his rich, emerald eyes, his warm smile—he looked more handsome than I’d remembered, and he looked happy as his photo smiled back at me. I smiled back and traced the outline of his face with my fingers. For the next hour, I felt myself tumbling down the bottomless rabbit hole as I combed through his Facebook page, looking through every status, every comment, every photo. I tried to soak up everything I could about his life, trying to imagine myself in it, trying to imagine how my life would be if we were still friends—if I hadn’t destroyed our friendship.

“I’m sorry, Jax,” I whispered to his photo. “If I could go back and do things differently, I wouldn’t have hurt you. I would have figured out another way through the mess.”

Against my better judgment, I stumbled over to my bookshelf and riffled through a box of CDs on the bottom shelf. As soon as I found what I was searching for, I pulled it out and pushed it into the CD slot of my sound system. It was a CD Jax had made for me a decade ago when we were in college. I never knew why I hadn’t realized then how he’d felt about me, but every song on the CD made it perfectly clear that he wanted to be more than friends, that he wanted the same thing I’d wanted for us but was too scared to hope for. I fast-forwarded to my favorite track on the playlist, Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” and programmed it to play on a repeated loop.

I slumped down on the couch, suddenly feeling physically and emotionally drained. As the guitar strummed the melancholy melody and Jeff Buckley’s deep voice sang the hypnotic song about young lovers and regret, tears began to stream down my face. I’d tried for a long time to hide from the truth, to ignore my true feelings for him, but tonight, after I’d lost everything that seemed to have had any value to me, there were no more walls I could hide behind.

I missed him. I’d missed him for a very long time now. Deeply. Desperately. Painfully. I missed him to the point where it’d become hard to breathe. I would give anything for us to be best friends again. I would give anything for him to be here by my side right now like he’d promised me years ago when I felt lonely. Tears continued to stream down my face as the song radiated through me and the lyrics hit home, speaking straight to my heart and how I was feeling about him.

Just then I sat straight up on the couch. “Maybe it’s not too late,” I said out loud as I responded to a line in the lyrics. “Maybe we’re like this song and we were just too young for anything good to happen between us? But now we’re older…”

Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled up the number I’d had of his from years ago and pressed the call button before I could change my mind.

After two rings, he picked up and I heard his half-awake voice mumble, “Hello?”

I drew in a deep breath, ready to tell him everything, that I was sorry, that I’d missed him, that I was thirty and single, and the only person I wanted to be with was him. But nothing came out of my mouth. I felt paralyzed by fear.

“Hello?” I heard him say again, this time sounding louder and more awake.

Suddenly, in a moment of clarity, I panicked and ended the call without saying a word. What was I thinking calling him in the middle of the night when I was wasted, reckless, and emotionally unstable? We hadn’t talked or seen each other since that day nine years ago. Nothing good could come out of a late-night drunken phone call right now.

I let out a groan and slumped back onto the couch. It was then that the pile of bills and junk mail I had thrown on the coffee table several days earlier caught my attention. There, in the middle of the stack, was a thick, large, ivory card-stock envelope. I reached over and plucked it from the pile. I didn’t have to open it to know that it was a wedding invitation. I glanced at the return address.

Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery

6843 Lester Court

West Chester, Pennsylvania

West Chester. That was where I grew up with Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom. But who were the Montgomerys?

Then it hit me. Clara Montgomery. The always-bubbly and high-spirited girl from high school. She had been in the same circle of friends with me and Jax. I hadn’t talked to her in over two years, and that was when I had randomly run into her on a quick trip home to visit Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom after I had been abroad for five years and before I’d moved to Los Angeles.

I smiled. She had always been nice to me, the eternal optimist in our group. I was glad to see she’d found happiness. As I read the wedding invitation, I wondered if Jax was going to go to Clara’s wedding this summer. A jolt of anxious nerves shot through me as I imagined seeing him again, after all this time, after everything that had happened. Hundreds of questions invaded my mind. What would I say to him? What would he say to me? Was he single? Did he miss me? Could he forgive me? Was there a way things could go back to the way they were? With all the questions I had, my mind seemed to always return to the same one: Did he remember our pact?

While “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” continued to play in the background, I drifted in and out of consciousness. My living room slowly slipped away and was replaced with a familiar off-white ceiling that glowed with a kaleidoscope of magical lights. I felt his sweaty hand holding mine as he smiled over at me. This is where we made our pact. This is where he first kissed me. This is where I want to be.

And right before I was completely engulfed by sleep, I heard myself mutter, “Jax … I’m single … I hope you are too …”

CHAPTE R FOUR

Summer 1992

Seven Years Old

“You be a good girl, you hear, baby?” My mom brushed through the knots in my chestnut-brown hair, preparing to put it in pigtail braids.

“I will, Mommy.” I tried to turn and smile up at her. I knew she thought I always wanted her to braid my hair because I liked it in pigtails. But that wasn’t it. I thought pigtails made me look like a silly kid, and I didn’t want to look like a kid. I needed to grow up, so that I could take care of us both.

I actually never liked my hair in pigtails at all. But I never told my mom that. The real reason I always wanted her to braid my hair was because it was one of my favorite things to do with her. It was when she would talk to me without being distracted, when she wasn’t on the phone talking about money, when she wasn’t crying or angry. And because she needed to use both hands to braid my hair, she couldn’t smoke or drink either, and I knew that was good for her.

When my mom would braid my hair, she seemed happier as well. She would smile and hum to herself, and I loved it when she smiled. It made her look so beautiful, and it made me feel warm and happy inside.

But today felt different.

I couldn’t see her as she stood behind me, but I could tell that something was wrong today. She wasn’t smiling or humming today. “You don’t have to worry about me, Mommy.” I tried to stay positive and happy for her.

“You need to always listen to what Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom tell you to do, okay?” There was an unusual crack in her voice that made me sad, but I wasn’t quite sure why I felt that way.

“I will. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to fly. Stick a beetle in my pie.”

Suddenly, my mom started to laugh, but it wasn’t her normal laugh. This sounded like she was laughing and crying at the same time.

I turned around and looked up at her in confusion. “What’s wrong, Mommy? Why are you laughing funny?”

“You’re just the sweetest girl any mommy can have, baby.” She beamed at me, and for a brief moment, her normal, blood-shot eyes looked clear and focused. She leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on my forehead, which instantly made me giggle with delight.