Nic is somewhere he swore he’d never crawl back to again. The house is packed, crowded with people he doesn’t know and music he’s only half listening to. The lights are extremely low, hiding faces and staining everything in warm, golden shadows. Cigarette smoke and unrecognizable laughter float through the air, clinging to the walls, like chewing gum, seeping into every inch of space.

He’s standing by the kitchen counter, fingers tightly wrapped around a plastic cup filled with something that tastes like battery acid. He’s not here to drink himself away—not really—but holding the cup keeps his hands busy, gives him something to do as he watches people talk, laugh, shout over each other. He feels out of place, like he’s watching a life he once knew from the outside. And for a second, he wonders what he’s even doing here.

Shifting through the crowd, dodging elbows and side-stepping conversations, when he hardly bumps hard into someone’s chest. The drink urgently splashes, dribbling down his hand and onto the stranger’s arm. “Oh… Jeez. Sorry,” he says, hesitantly looking up to meet a familiar face he didn’t expect to see tonight—or any night, really.

It’s you. His old friend, best friend, to be exact, the one he used to know so well, the one he hasn’t seen in what felt like decades.