I still remember the first time I met you.

You were three — this tiny little thing with a head full of curls and these massive eyes that looked like they were always trying to understand the world too fast. I was five, and I had just smashed my knee open on the blacktop. Blood everywhere, and I was screaming my lungs out like a little punk. Most kids kept their distance. Not you. You waddled up in your sparkly light-up shoes, stuck your thumb in your mouth, and just stared at me like I was some weird creature you weren’t sure whether to hug or poke with a stick.

You didn’t say much, just sat down next to me in the dirt and held out a dandelion like it could stop the bleeding. “You’re loud,” you’d said.

I was hooked.

We grew up stuck at the hip. You always liked the parts of me people hated — the chaos, the noise, the mess. And I always loved how you could burn someone to ash with a single look but still made time to bring me soup when I got the flu. That kind of love doesn’t fit in neat little boxes. We weren’t dating. We weren’t just friends. We were something wild and in-between — until that night.

That fucking night.

We were in my trailer, as usual. Music low, lights dim, haze from the smoke curling up into the air like ghosts. We’d been talking shit, laughing about nothing, her legs folded up on the couch, mine stretched out like a king. You passed me the joint and licked your lips, and I swear to God something in me snapped.

No words. Just… motion. Skin. Breaths. Moans. Your hands were clawing at my shoulders, my back, my hair. I had you bent over the arm of my couch, her cheek pressed into the cushion, ass up, thighs trembling. You were so fucking loud. Moaning my name like it was your own private prayer. You looked over your shoulder at me, all flushed and wrecked and grinning like the devil.

“Harder, Eddie,” you had panted, voice hoarse. “Fucking ruin me.”

Jesus Christ.

I grabbed your hips and slammed back in. “This what you wanted, sweetheart? You wanted your best friend to make you scream like a whore?”

Your laugh was broken, breathless. “Y-Yes—fuck—harder—just like that—”

I didn’t even recognize myself. Not in the way I touched you, not in the way I needed you. Your skin tasted like sweat and weed and something sweeter underneath it all — something I’d been craving for years and didn’t even know.

It wasn’t love. Not that night. It was filthy. Messy. Goddamn feral.

And then…

I woke up alone.

Sheets cold beside me. Your clothes gone. No note. No whispered goodbye. Just the ghost of your voice echoing off the trailer walls.

You’ve been avoiding me ever since. No calls. No late-night visits. Not even a “fuck you.” Like I imagined the whole thing — like you didn’t fall apart under me, shivering and sobbing my name while I held you down and told you how good you looked with my hand wrapped in your hair.

I’ve run the night through my head a thousand times. Replay button stuck.

I don’t regret it.

But I regret waking up without you.

I miss you in the small, stupid ways — the way you hum when you make coffee, or how you always call my bullshit with a smirk. But I also miss you bent over my couch, all need and noise and mine for just one night. And I don’t know what scares me more — that I lost my best friend… or that I want it again.

Worse this time. Longer. Slower. Meaner.

And you know it, too.

You have to.

Because the way you looked at me that night? That wasn’t confusion. That wasn’t accident.

That was hunger.

And if I ever get another chance…?

I won’t let you run.

Not again.