“I see Paw-Paw once a year, and I’ve only seen your mom a few times.” I didn’t know why neither one of them had never mentioned it to him. But they hadn’t. I snuck in and out of conversations that revolved around him, avoiding them so that I could avoid talking about seeing him. More like not seeing him. I didn’t want to talk about it or make it seem like a big deal.

At the end of the day, it had been Zac’s decision not to get in contact with me.

Not in years.

He’d been busy. I understood. Why would he have worried and sat there and wondered how his old friend was doing when he had so many new ones? It wasn’t like I ever wondered what my friends from elementary school were up to.

But that had been different, the voice in my head whispered. And I knew she—that voice—was right. But….

This wasn’t what I had wanted or why I had come over. I didn’t want to talk about it. All I wanted was to move on, to be fine with where we were now.

But apparently Zac did want to talk about it after so freaking long.

“Why haven’t we seen each other?”

You’re just a little kid. Zac has better things to do, honey. Do you understand? He’s in the NFO now. He has more important people to spend time with. Don’t take it personally.

The words echoed in my head once and then twice as Zac’s Adam’s apple bobbed again in front of me.

But that hadn’t been totally it, had it? It had just been the beginning. The tip of the iceberg.

Him ignoring me had happened afterward, after the seed had been planted and watered and germinated.

I couldn’t help it; I got defensive. For the younger Bianca who had loved her friend a little too much. That was the most she had been guilty of. “You’re asking me why?”

That blond-bristled chin dipped.

“Because we hadn’t been in the same city at the same time in years,” I told him, which was also part of it, and also not the whole of it. I’d just made certain we weren’t. Whenever he played in Houston, I made it a point to go visit Connie so that I’d have an excuse not to be around if Boogie came into town to watch. I knew my sister was fully aware of what I was doing, but that was just because she knew me too well.

But that excuse wasn’t enough for him apparently. “But why? I know you had to have come visit.” He took a deep breath, and I could tell, I could tell he was thinking, thinking, and thinking—thinking about me and him and how ten years had gone by somehow and he hadn’t realized it. “We used to see each other all the time,” he said, like I didn’t fucking know that. “Then, one second to the next, you dropped out of my life, moved across the country, and I didn’t see you or hear from you in forever.”

Uh.

Something hot and spiky appeared in my throat, but I ignored it. At least I tried my best to. Because this wasn’t what I wanted to talk about now or ever. “Yeah, back when things were less complicated we saw each other a lot. I’ve been busy. You’ve been busy. I moved to North Carolina because I didn’t have anywhere else to go after I graduated high school, Zac.” Because my parents had decided to leave just as quickly as they’d arrived, and my grandmother had been buried, and I hadn’t wanted to live with my aunts and uncles long-term.

Unlike him, I’d never forgotten him; I’d just kept going with a Zac-shaped hole in my heart.

And it had been the other way around. He’d dropped out of my life. None of this had been my fault.

But his “So?” cut me straight down the center. Deep and unforgiving. “Before you left, I texted you, and you never wrote me back. Then you stopped comin’ over with Boogie, and I know I asked, but I don’t remember what he’d say. I did ask about you. He told me you moved. Not you.”

More like, he thought he’d texted me, but he hadn’t. And if he had asked about me, then maybe Boogie had given him some bullshit answer he’d accepted, and he’d moved on with his life. Not wanting details. Not caring about more.

Dear God, that kinda hurt. But it was bullshit. Straight-up, stinky bullshit.

And it sure as hell didn’t belong to me.

“I tried reaching out to you. Over and over again. Friendships go both ways,” I told him in a voice that sounded so small it hurt me even more.

I could see it on his features. In his eyes. Him still thinking. Processing. Trying to remember what? If I was lying? Or trying to piece together his fault in all this?

Why couldn’t we just… move on? I’d fucking talked myself into it. I’d told myself this was fine the way it was. That I could go forward, but all this was doing was hurting me. Making me feel small and forgotten—two things I hadn’t ever wanted to feel again. Like I hadn’t mattered enough, and maybe I still didn’t… even though the reasonable part of my brain knew that wasn’t true.

But the happy, smiling man was still totally gone as his eyes roamed mine, searching and searching. “I tried.” He cleared his throat. “I tried textin’ you. I swear, darlin’. I know I did. I—”

Whatever was in my chest blew up, taking up more and more space, and this wasn’t what I had wanted… but that was life. Giving you what you wanted and didn’t want without a single shit.

“You didn’t.” Ah, shit. Well, here we were. “You didn’t text me back for years, Zac. You never answered my calls either. I never got anything from you, and I tried.” And it was a lot harder than I ever could have imagined to lift my shoulder and make it seem like when it had happened, it hadn’t bothered me. But I wasn’t lingering on this, damn it. I wasn’t. I wasn’t forgotten. I did matter. “Look, it was a long time ago. It’s not important anymore.”

“No.” He stood up even straighter, making our height difference that much more apparent when he had to tip his chin down to look at me. “This does matter. I know I texted you. I wouldn’t have ignored any of your messages.”

I raised both my eyebrows at him as my chest ached. Because I had missed him. Because I knew without a doubt that I had tried. I hadn’t been the one to disappear. To forget.

He had, and he was reminding me. Hurting me.

Without meaning to.

But he was still doing it.

I had loved him, thought the world of him, and he’d left me behind—to follow his dreams, sure.

But he’d still forgotten.

After all the times he would roll his eyes at my parents when they would barge into mine or Connie’s lives once a year, acting like they were so happy to be around and that it didn’t matter they never were… he had done the same thing in a way.

“No,” he repeated himself, staring at me with those soft blue eyes. “I wouldn’t have. Maybe I would’ve taken a minute textin’ you back, but I would’ve—” His mouth opened and closed. Even his nostrils flared. Pink tinged his cheeks, and he shook his head aggressively. “I would have gotten back to you, darlin’. I wouldn’t have forgotten—”

He shut his mouth.

That instant, he shut his mouth.

Because he realized it then. He had. Maybe not ten years ago, but along the way he had.

Because he had stopped asking about me at some point.

Maybe in his imagination he’d texted me back or messaged me. Maybe once, maybe twice. But it had happened. Maybe he’d had every intention of calling me back, but that hadn’t happened either. I had stopped reaching out but only after he had.