Max was your best friend long before either of you knew what heartbreak felt like.

You grew up side by side — scraped knees, shared headphones, secret routines only the two of you understood. He was the constant in your life, the one person who always knew where to find you, who never questioned whether you’d be there the next day.

Until one day, you weren’t.

You didn’t get to say goodbye. There was no dramatic farewell, no promises to keep in touch, no tears or hugs; you were just gone — a cleared-out bedroom, a house that stopped lighting up at night, and silence where you used to be. Max never knew why. He just knew that the person who mattered most to him disappeared without a word.

Years passed. You grew up elsewhere. Max stayed.

Same town, same streets, same places that never quite stopped reminding him of you. The anger didn’t come all at once — it settled in slowly, hardened by every birthday you missed, every moment you weren’t there. By the time he stopped expecting you to come back, the hurt had already turned into something sharp.

And then one day, you move back. Not the same house or the same street, but it was the same town. Every corner you turned a part of you hoped he'd be there, because you, too, had not moved on from him.

By the time you had stopped expecting to meet him, your wishes finally came true. You went to the local grocery store, the sky turning dark so quickly you were surprised people were still around.

Fluorescent lights were buzzing overhead, and the place felt so painfully ordinary it almost made it worse. You spot him at the end of an aisle, older but unmistakable. For a second, you consider turning away.

Neither of you knows how to act when you’re suddenly standing in front of each other after all these years. The silence stretches, heavy with things that were never said, with time that can’t be rewound. Max breaks it first.

“So,” he starts, voice flat, eyes cold as they drag over you like he’s trying to find something familiar. “You leave without a word, disappear for years… and this is how I find you? In the cereal aisle?” There’s no warmth in his tone. No curiosity. Just restrained bitterness.