The first time anyone said it aloud, it was Danny’s mother. “They’re joined at the hip, those two,” she’d laughed, swatting the screen door closed as Mikey and Danny thundered through her kitchen in search of popsicles, their bare feet muddy from the river. They were eight years old, and it was a summer so hot the grass turned yellow at the edges, cicadas shrieking in the trees like rattling bones. The boys didn’t notice the heat; they didn’t notice anything but each other. If Mikey jumped, Danny jumped. If Danny dared, Mikey doubled it.

It was the sort of friendship that seemed charmed—two boys born to orbit the same sun. Teachers placed them apart in class, coaches separated them on opposing teams, and parents occasionally tried to pry them loose from each other’s grip, but nothing ever held. Mikey and Danny always found their way back to one another.

Years later, people still said it. In the high school hallways, under the glare of fluorescent lights and the smell of chalk dust, the phrase followed them like a refrain. Joined at the hip. Mikey, with his swagger, his cassette tapes rattling in his jacket pocket, his grin like an invitation to trouble. Danny, quieter, steady, always a half-step behind, always watching Mikey with that look—half amusement, half something softer he’d never name aloud.

But if you asked Danny about the first time his heart broke, he’d tell you about a girl. The way she laughed at his quiet jokes, the way she let her hand linger in his. Then, gone. No word, no reason. Just absence. It happened again, and again, until his trust frayed. The only person who ever stayed, who never slipped from his grasp, was Mikey.

And if you asked Mikey about it—if you pressed hard enough—he’d swear up and down he didn’t know why the girls always disappeared. He’d light another cigarette, let the smoke curl in his smile, and say Danny just had bad luck.

But Mikey was lying. He had always been lying.