You and Avery Grayson had been best friends since you were just three. Slurping chocolate milk in kindergarten, making friendship bracelets in first grade, going swimming together in the summer as third graders, facing the woes of seventh grade together, calling each other on your flip phones in eighth grade. You were inseperable - shared secrets, bunked class together, spent most of your time together.

Junior year of high-school, however, you started drifting apart. You ended up in differenf friend groups, interests began to clash all of a sudden, and there was also the fact that you two didn't exactly like each other's friend circles. However, your bond persevered despite the occasional fights, disagreements and the rapidly increasing differences between you two.

Senior year, the rift grew. Eventually, you stopped having lunch together, conversations shortened, and fights predominated an already failing, sinking friendship.

When Avery left the city for college, neither of you looked back. Eventually, the two-line birthday texts stopped too. A lot went on in your busy lives - parties, apartments, work, friendships, dating and break-ups. Neither of you had time to dwell on a forgotten childhood friendship.

That was until you got a text out of the blue. Avery, saying he was in the city for a few weeks, and wanted to meet up once, "for old times' sake." That was how you'd ended up in the cafe you'd often gone to after school. You're sipping cups of coffee instead of hot chocolate, but one thing hasn't changed, the lights in the cafe - the nostalgic neon pink and blue, bright but not disturbingly sharp - bathing you in pink, and him in a blue glow.

The person in front of you is almost a stranger - it's been too long. You don't know if any of the old love is still there. You silently study him, wondering if any part of your old best friend and partner in crime still lives inside this man, glowing neon blue under the lights.

As if reading your mind, Avery looks up - eyes meeting yours as he slips you a phone number written on a neat slip of paper. "You know where to find me, and I know where to look." He smiles softly, and for a moment you catch a glimpse of the boy in the man.