Just Friends(5)

My eyes finally land on him and the floor of my stomach becomes a faulty elevator.

The person who felt more like home than my house did, the one I spent twelve formative years with, the name that became too painful to think about after disappearing without saying the word goodbye, is standing in front of me.

More to myself than him, a subconscious breath of a word rasps out of me, “Declan.”

His pupils dilate in response. Or am I imagining things?

Apart from the tiniest twitch of his strong mouth, his jaw stays locked in cool concentration. He seems unmoored, maybe more resigned to see me than shocked by my presence.

Why is he unfazed?

Everything about him is familiar in an instant, and yet, wholly different.

Declan has the face of someone who only becomes more interesting the longer you look at him. I instantly get lost surveying his recent developments. In the four years since I’ve seen him, his face has stretched tight over the angular planes of his cheekbones. A speckling of stubble dots the slant of his jaw. New lines are etched into the grooves beside his eyes. But the dimples, the freckle on his bottom lip, just slightly to the right, and the freckle on his neck, slightly to the left, are still perfectly in place.

“Blair,” he responds in a clipped tone and a simple, albeit slightly awkward nod, before shoving the application into my hands and spinning around to walk away.

As he does, I notice something that wasn’t there the last time I saw him. A subtle limp.





Chapter 3


My fingers navigate to Roshi’s number the second I step foot out of the coffee shop. Distant chatter fades as she answers the phone.

“Hey, Blink. How’s Seabrook life treatin’ you?” Her voice is a slow, laid-back drawl.

I’m out of breath as I answer, “Roshi.”

“What! What? Don’t use that voice! It scares me.” She snaps out of her typically affable demeanor in an instant.

“I. Just. Saw. Declan,” I grind out, word by word.

There’s a moment of silence that stretches for so long, I remove the phone from my ear to check if she got disconnected. I’m grateful the speaker is away from my ear because she screams, “WHAT?? THE DECLAN RENSHAW!?”

“Yes!” I cry, relieved to finally have someone else say it back to me.

My eyes. On Declan Renshaw. Four years after the accident.

“Where did you see him?” she asks. “Just out on the street or something?”

“No, he’s the manager of some coffee place. I was applying for a job there before I knew he worked there, obviously!”

“What was his reaction?” she demands.

“I don’t even know. It was so weird. He didn’t look shocked to see me at all. His face was like this… black hole. Just completely devoid of emotion. And then he shoved the job application into my hands and stalked off to the back room like he had something else to deal with.”

“What!?” Roshi squeals. “That’s all? He didn’t say anything about it being… you?”

“I mean, he said one word before disappearing, and it was my name. That’s it. I guess I also only said one word too, but…” I trail off.

“Hmmm,” she hums. “He’s gotta be affected by seeing you for the first time after all these years though. Right?”

I huff out a breath, the question is exactly the thought I’ve had looping through my mind since it happened.

How could he ever move past everything we experienced together? There was the fight but, weren’t we more than that? And how we ended… how was he so unbothered by it?

“Wow. Very strange indeed,” she says quietly, seeming to ponder the strangeness of it alongside me. “Are you still gonna apply for the job?”

“Yeah, I mean, I need a job with overtime hours. Plus… is it bad that I kind of want to work there? To get some sort of closure or something? The last time we spoke…” I hesitate. How we ended isn’t something I’ve ever shared with anyone. It certainly wouldn’t paint me in the best light.

“Yes, of course that makes sense!” Roshi insists. “I’d be in that coffee shop every day until that man gave me answers.”

“Yeah. Right,” I intone, choking down a morsel of guilt. “I’m gonna apply.”

Conflict, to me, might as well be synonymous with death. But this is Declan. I can’t help my curiosity now that I know he’ll be in that coffee shop a few blocks away from me every day. Plus, the odds of him hiring me are low anyway.

After catching up with Roshi, I return to the guesthouse, charging up the uneven cobblestone, and let myself into the cool air-conditioning. Throwing my phone on the bed, I rip my suitcase open in search of running clothes.

Adrenaline and ancient, teenage-level angst are still pumping through me. My thoughts won’t calm on their own, but I can force them to by demanding they focus on the essentials only. Breathing. A beating heart. Obsession and heartbreak won’t have room in my body anymore once I start running.

I throw the arch door open, lock it behind me, and jog out onto the street, turning right instead of left to hit the forest road instead of the town.

The sound of my cushioned shoes hitting the black tar road becomes the metronome for my thoughts to stay on beat.

Never, in all my hours spent pondering Declan’s whereabouts, did I consider the coffee shop three blocks from my childhood home. It felt like spending years trying to break into a laptop, only to find out the password was password.