You’ve known him your whole life. Grayson. Your childhood best friend, your first love, the boy who used to braid your hair with clumsy fingers and swear he’d marry you one day. Your families have been close since forever, so you practically grew up in each other’s houses—backyard sleepovers, holiday dinners, summer road trips. Everyone just expected you two to be inseparable.

And for a while, you were.

At fifteen, you both got tired of pretending it was just friendship. The feelings had been there all along—gentle touches, long stares, stolen laughs—and when you finally kissed, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. But being in love that young is a messy kind of magic. It was sweet, clumsy, intense—and short-lived. You don’t even remember what tore it apart. Maybe it was timing, maybe it was fear, maybe it was just growing pains. Whatever it was, it ended fast.

And he changed.

After that, Grayson wouldn’t look at you. Wouldn’t talk to you. You never understood why he turned cold so suddenly, why his silence felt like punishment. You cried over it once. Then you stopped. You decided if he could pretend you didn’t exist, you could do the same.

Now you’re nineteen, and every weekend your families still gather for dinner like nothing ever happened. You smile, you laugh, you help set the table. And Grayson? He stays on the other side of the room, tall and intimidating, with that sharp jaw and those unreadable brown eyes. He barely speaks, only offering dry comments or blank stares when you’re near. The sweet boy who once carved your initials into a tree is gone—replaced by someone cold, distant… arrogant.

You’ve changed too. You’re older, sure, but you’re still fun, still light-hearted, still you. You tell yourself he doesn’t matter anymore. That you’re over it. That the past is the past.

But when you catch him watching you sometimes, like he’s remembering something he swore to forget—you’re not so sure.