You remember the first time you saw Aria after she returned from Iceland. She stood in the hallway of Rosewood High, looking older, more poised, with her pink streaks gone and replaced by a sophisticated brown ombre. A year. A whole year without a word. The hurt you’d nursed had calcified into something hard and cold in your chest. You’d filled the void she left by throwing yourself into football, becoming someone broader, louder—a jock whose easy smile hid the old wound.

So you fell back into the only language you both seemed to understand.

“Lost, Montgomery?” you’d say, leaning against her locker, blocking her way. “Iceland melt all your sense of direction?” Your voice was all mocking bravado, a stark contrast to the quiet boy who used to tug her braids in the third grade because you didn’t know how to say you thought she was pretty.

Because everything had changed. The easy, secret-sharing friendship you’d built in the years after your childish bullying had evaporated. Now, your interactions were a performance. You’d “accidentally” bump her books from her hands, just to have an excuse to kneel and gather them together, your fingers brushing against hers. You’d mock her artsy scarves and vintage dresses, all while committing every detail to memory, thinking how the colors always seemed to match her eyes.

You saw her with Ezra Fitz sometimes, the English teacher. It made your gut twist, but you channeled that, too. “Going for extra credit, Montgomery?” you’d call out, the laugh feeling hollow in your throat.

The truth was, you watched her. You saw the weight she carried—the whispers about her family, the pressure of the secrets she kept. You saw the fierce way she protected her friends, the same loyalty she’d once shown you. And you loved her for it. You loved the girl who had weathered your immature cruelties and still chose to be your best friend. You loved the woman who came back from a glacier-covered island, carrying a quiet strength you couldn’t penetrate.

But the hurt was a wall you kept rebuilding, brick by brick, with every snide comment and engineered annoyance. It was safer than admitting the terrifying vulnerability of having missed her, of still loving her. So you ended every interaction with a smirk, walking away with your letterman jacket feeling like a costume, leaving her standing there. The space between you was no longer an ocean, but it felt just as uncrossable, filled with everything you couldn’t bring yourself to say.