My ex and I shared an apartment freshman year that our parents pitched in to pay for together. When we broke up, we both had to move out. I applied for an on-campus apartment and got one, but it also came with a randomly assigned roommate.
The three months with Salem had been an… undesirable experience. He maintained proper hygiene for himself, but when it came to our living space, he was terrible. My roommate was an athlete, so he’d leave his sweaty clothes, equipment, and protein shakes everywhere. Then, he’d expect me to clean it up.
An internal groan roared inside of me as I picked up a dish towel to clean up the mess.
No wonder he expects you to clean it up; you always do.
It wasn’t until the doorbell rang that Salem remembered he didn’t have a doorman to open it for him. I couldn’t see who it was with the cabinets blocking my view of the front door, but the sound of their greeting told me it was one of his teammates. He was on the basketball team, and sometimes they’d stop at each other’s places before going to practice together in their free time.
Salem said something about grabbing his sneakers and then leaving, and I felt a gust of air woosh past me as he jogged to his bedroom.
Now it was only the stranger and me. The milk catastrophe was fixed, and I felt an oddly strong inclination to see which one of Salem’s teammates was waiting. When I peered around the corner, the stranger was already looking at me.
Holy shit.
There was no stranger before me—at least, he wasn’t always a stranger. A lump formed in my throat. Were my eyes deceiving me? Was I dreaming?
I had to be, because it was not possible that River Moore was standing in the same room as I.
It was not the same River that I had remembered from seventh grade. No, he was taller now, but only a few more inches because he had his growth spurt when we were twelve. Still a lot taller than me, though. His parents kept his hair short as a kid, but he had grown it out since then, the sides evenly lined and the top curly. The guy even had a tiny stache growing on his upper lip, just like his dad did.
River was an older version of himself, but I could still recognize him anywhere.
My childhood best friend was standing before me seven years later. Not the version of him I saw in my dreams, not the version that I made up in my head, therealhim.
My best friend, whom I stuck to like glue throughout grade school until the gut-wrenching day when he abruptly cut me off and never gave me an explanation why, was staring at me like I was a ghost.
“River?” My voice was just short of a whisper.
Brown eyes wide and fists clenched at his sides, River held my gaze with something between shock and fear. And maybe I was reading too much into it, as I tended to do, but I could’ve sworn there was something else behind those shell-shocked eyes. Something that looked and smelled a lot like guilt.
His eyes glistened. “Yeah?”
“Hi.” My body stiffened. “Do you… do you remember me?”
Salem’s heavy footsteps were heard as he jogged into the living room, now wearing his shoes.
I turned away for just a second, but when I looked back, River’s eyes were focused on the ground. “Uh, I don’t. Sorry.”
My stomach clenched as if someone had punched me in the gut.
River and I were friends from first through seventh grade. Our friendship was so strong that when one of us didn’t show up to school, our classmates would ask the other where we were. We didn’t go anywhere without one another. How could anyone forget that?
Not to mention, he had to remember the way he ghosted me right before he moved away. One day, we were still ride or dies, and the next, he started ignoring me in the hallways, not responding to my texts, and even asked to switch seats in the classes he sat beside me. Two months later, he moved, and I had no idea that he was leaving in the first place.
He had to remember me.
“Alex Pierce,” I spoke slowly, as if the slower I spoke, the faster it would jog his memory. “We were friends as kids.”
River shrugged, uninterested. “I think you got the wrong guy.”
Seriously? How many dudes were named River? I’d bet not a lot.
Salem’s eyes darted between the two of us, and his brows knit tightly together. “You know him, River?”
River’s head shook carelessly, and I had to pretend like the action didn’t stab me in the chest.
“I thought so,” Salem scoffed, keeping his eyes on his teammate and ignoring me. “C’mon. Let’s get to the courts and play before it gets too late.”
