"That's because we usually skipped straight to the real conversations." His eyes held mine. "We were never very good at pretending to be strangers."
"We're not strangers," I said, and the truth of it hung in the air between us.
"No," he agreed softly. "We're not."
Something shifted then… an invisible wall crumbling, something akin to freedom.
"Do you remember Mr. Greeley?" I asked, desperate to find solid ground. "The vein?"
Miles's face transformed. The careful tension dissolved into something that looked almost like the boy I remembered. "Theactual, visible vein in his forehead. I thought he was going to have a stroke during that pop quiz."
"The one we missed because of the fire alarm?"
"The one someone allegedly pulled to get out of the quiz. They never did find out who did that."
I kept my expression innocent. "A mystery for the ages."
His eyes narrowed. "Charlotte Huston. It was you?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You called the fire department to avoid a calculus quiz."
"Allegedly. There's no proof. The statute of limitations has definitely expired."
His laughter was warm, and the sound of it went through me like sunlight after a long winter. "You hid in the bleachers for an hour. I found you pretending to study."
"We hid together," I corrected. "You were my accomplice."
"I was a concerned citizen ensuring your safety."
"You were ditching calc with me."
"Those things aren't mutually exclusive."
And just like that, the wall between us crumbled.
The words started flowing, tumbling over each other like we were picking up a conversation we'd paused fifteen years ago. We talked about the old diner that had finally closed, the river path where we used to run together, the truly terrible school play senior year where he'd been cast as a tree and had exactly one line that he'd somehow managed to forget.
"I did not forget," he protested.
"Miles. The line was 'the forest grows quiet.' You said, 'The forest goes quiet.' And then you just stood there."
"There was a long pause. It was dramatic."
"It was forty-five seconds. I counted."
"Art is subjective."
"Art is not standing frozen on stage while Mrs. Patterson whispers your line from the wings loud enough for the entire audience to hear."
He was laughing again, and I was laughing, and somewhere in the past hour we'd migrated away from the dance floor to a quiet corner near the old trophy case. Beth had given me a thumbs-up at some point and then disappeared, probably to the tacos she'd promised herself.
The DJ played a slow song, then a fast one, but we stayed in our bubble, talking. I told him about nursing: the parts I loved, the parts that drained me, and he told me about law, about the cases that kept him up at night, about his parents' house sitting full of boxes he couldn't bring himself to open.
"I'm so sorry," I said softly when he mentioned his parents. "About your mom and dad."
For a brief moment, I saw a tinge of sadness flood his features before he smoothed it away. "Thank you. It's been... It's been hard. Being back here, in their house. Everything's the same, and they're just... not."
