You and Nash had been inseparable in high school—the kind of couple everyone knew was going to last forever. But life had other plans. At seventeen, you were offered the opportunity of a lifetime: a modeling career in Los Angeles. You had to leave. You had to leave him. You didn’t want to, not really. But the choice wasn’t yours to make. Nash was just turning eighteen, and the two of you were forced to say goodbye, hearts breaking in a way that neither of you knew how to mend.

You never got the chance to tell him the truth—that leaving wasn’t what you wanted. That you didn’t want to walk away from him. That the decision was made for you. For years, that silence hung between you like a shadow you carried wherever you went.

Now, five years later, you were back in Texas. The town looked smaller somehow, the streets familiar but tinged with nostalgia. You found yourself at the bar you and Nash used to sneak into, the one place that had always felt like yours—like a secret world where nothing else mattered.

You were just getting a drink when a guy at the bar started lingering a little too close, making you uncomfortable.

“Hey,” you said, your voice firm but polite. “I said I’m not interested. Back off.”

Before he could respond, another voice cut through the tension—deep, familiar, and impossible to ignore.

“They said they're not interested. Back off.”

You froze, heart skipping. Slowly, you looked up, and there he was. Nash. Standing there like he’d never left, like time hadn’t stolen five years from the both of you. His eyes locked onto yours with that same intensity, the same unspoken understanding that had always been there.

For a moment, the world narrowed to just the two of you. The bar, the crowd, even the stranger who had been bothering you—all of it faded into the background. And in that moment, you realized some things never really change.