My old house looks the same. White shutters and yellow siding. When I walk in, I can hear the attic fan going. The whoosh of air I always associated with the blistering Kansas heat. So many open fields, no reprieve. Nothing to stop the memories from finding me.

My father never believed putting in air conditioning was a necessity. He could afford it if he saved. But there was always something else he placed first.

Our college savings.

New school clothes.

Sasha's first car.

I remember hot summer nights falling asleep in my underwear; a box fan shoved in the window. The one above my bed whirling as well, lulling me to sleep, singing with the cicadas.

How could I have forgotten this? All the clothes I packed to sleep in are taking up valuable space I could have used for something else. It’s too hot for that shit.

I try to ignore the sound of construction across the street, but all the open windows make it difficult, they betray me. He never was easy to hide from. I had to move away to feel unwatched.

Maybe I’ll escape to my car, turn the air on, the sound up.

Of all the people and things I thought I’d have to face when I came home, he was the one I dreaded most. Well, him or Aurora, or the one I cannot speak of.

I find my room, and it makes my heart thunder in my chest. I’ve stepped into a time capsule. Nothing has changed. My pale-yellow bedspread is sitting on my full-size bed, and ivory wrought iron scales the wall, still covered in striped wallpaper.

To the right is my nightstand, made of stacked suitcases I found at flea markets with my father on our weekend adventures. To the left is a peeling NSYNC poster. I should pull it off the wall, but I leave it and walk to my little vanity, next to my dresser. My jewelry box is sitting on top. When I open it, a tiny ballerina twirls.

My father kept me happy, whole, fed, and growing in this house. What will become of it now that he no longer lives here? I should have come home. More than never. At least a few times. It was selfish, stupid. I didn't have the money to drop everything, and I convinced myself that was a good enough reason. A lie can be a good reason if you repeat it over and over again.

Sasha has been home. But she is motherly. She had to be. She raised me until she left home, that habit never left her. She is still that woman, always caring for me, no matter the miles.

My father is just a few blocks away, and I am terrified to see him in a couple of hours. To see how far he has fallen. My aunt says he has more good days than bad. But the bad ones are often.

He remembers the war. The friends he lost.

He remembers losing my mother.

And on the tough days, he forgets losing her, and won't rest until someone tells him where she is.

There are even days when he forgets he has two daughters, and he thinks he has a son. This is how I learned my parents had a miscarriage before my sister and me. More than one.

It shouldn't be surprising. They had me so late in their lives.

I walk to my bed and fall back onto it. A trust fall into my past. A light puff of dust flies up, swirls around me, and is ripped away by the fan.

The sound of a hammer makes its way to my ears when everything settles, as I close my eyes. I wanted to take a small nap before getting around, but that's not going to happen. I have business to take care of.

I need to see Bryan.

Twenty minutes later I cross my lawn, cross my street, walk onto the school property. I don't know where my nerve comes from, but I want to see his face and his reaction. I want to store it away with every other memory of him.

They say everything looks smaller when you come home. It does. Smaller and sadder. There is a melancholy laced in the smallness of this place. Maybe it isn't there for everyone, but not everyone has lost all that I have. Not everyone left here, scarred and shaking.

I walk into the school and take in my surroundings. My eyes need time to adjust, so I breathe, in and out. I clutch my chest, then laugh at my dramatics.

Tools and tarps litter the hallways. I hear loud banging, clanking sounds in the distance. A hammer to a wall.

Somewhere near my old English class seems to be where the noise is originating. I wonder if it’s Bryan. This project can’t be a one-man job. What if someone else is in here and I get caught trespassing? I'll just blame it on nostalgia. On wanting to see my old desk, my old locker, my past captured in brick.

I’m playing with fire here; this is the truest thing I know. But I was always with him, the break in time and miles hasn't lessened this need. This need to play.

My feet are covered in sawdust when I glance down. I reach for the wall and let it guide me, watching my step, less brave than I wish I could be.

I turn the corner to step into the classroom, and I pull my eyes up.

I see Bryan’s back. His hips, his calves. The shape of him I'll never be able to scrub from my brain.

He has headphones in, and he is sanding down drywall. His hammer is at his feet. I know I need to make some noise, to stop creeping around.

I reach for the light switch and flick it up and down, causing his body to whip around. When his eyes meet mine, they are not kind.

I break the silence, pulling my hand up in a small wave. “Hi.”

He drops the sanding brick in his hand. “How did you get in?”

“The main door was unlocked. Was it not supposed to be?”

“Richard was supposed to lock it.” Terse words. Dismissive and biting. Fitting for someone who fled, who never learned how to say goodbye. But sometimes an ending cannot be given. Sometimes the ones we place on pedestals lose our trust.

“Who’s Richard?” I ignore his tone. Our missing goodbye plays in my head, all the scenarios I ran away from, avoided.

“My uncle. He bought the school.” He crosses his arms.

“So he has money, eh?” Dumb question. Fillers, mostly. I want to touch him, hug him. The need is surprising, annoying. I scratch my arm so I can feel something.

“You’d be surprised how cheap this place went for on the courthouse steps. It was auctioned off. And in worse shape than you’d think.”

“I’m sure it'll look great when you’re done fixing everything up.” I talk as though we are friends. As though we are catching up, and everything is erased. He won't allow it.

“What are you doing here, Sev?”

No one has called me Sev in years. My body reacts to the moniker in a way I refuse to dissect. I reach up, pinch the bridge of my nose. “I wanted to come see how you’ve been. How you are.”

He laughs, but there is no warmth there.

There are still school desks in the classroom. I see our old teacher’s desk shoved against the blackboard. I walk to it, hoist myself up.

Bryan takes a seat at one of the small desks close to the window. He reaches out to a glass full of dark liquid on the windowsill.

“I shouldn't be talking to you.” No mincing words. They echo sentences offered to me in the past, in our past. We are doomed to repeat our mistakes unless we face them. My father told me that, back when he was able to give advice. What will he be able to give me when I see him later today? I frown and bury my head in my hands. I can feel Bryan; he swells in the room.

I wish for nothing more than to touch him once again. Just once.

The brush of a hand.

The graze of an arm.

He is still beautiful and the realization that I still want him hits me all at once.

“Why shouldn't you be talking to me?” Don't say it. Don't. He does.

“Aurora.”

The name chills me. The one girl who had everything I ever wanted.

“You guys are still together?” I knew they got married. Facebook is a glorious and horrible thing.

“Not quite.” He leans back in the seat.

I feel transported. Fixated.

He was always that way – leaning back, making me stare. So comfortable in his skin, never in his work or his mind, but his flesh, he lived in it so entirely.

His eyes hold no mischief now. Not like they used to.

“What’s not quite mean?”

“Separated. At the moment.”

“I’m sorry.” My mind races, the way it always does. Trying to find my in. My plan and all the ways I can approach this. I miss the old schemes, I miss my old friends. I have no one in my corner to help me figure this out.

“Are you?” He challenges me.

I am. I am sorry to hear it. I find no delight in knowing they are not doing well, if only for the sake of the child I know they had together. “Yes.” I stare into his eyes, embrace the burn of them. He can give me his malice. I will eat it up. “Why wouldn’t I be? You think I’m still harboring a high school crush?” I am. Will it ever die? Or will it always lie dormant, in wait for my weak moments?

“Well, it’s not like you’ve thought of me since graduation. The whole world knows you haven’t.” He throws his arms out wide. He always had an impressive wingspan. I remember his arms around me, the temporary warmth of him.

I roll my eyes before I can stop myself. I should have known it would come up, the screenplay I penned in college. Not Friends, Not Lovers. “I wrote it. I didn't star in it. It was an indie film, not some blockbuster. So don’t act like it was some scandalous thing. To everyone else, it was just some movie. Some made-up story.”

“Did you hate me that much?”

“Hate you? What do you mean?” The light I cast on him was unflattering. I was wounded, recovering from everything. So I aimed my anger at him. I couldn't aim it at the one I would never name. The one I forced myself to never speak of.

“I was just some dumb jock. And Aurora, a mean girl.”

I shrug my shoulder at his defense of her. He never saw her the way the rest of us did. “Well, maybe that’s what she was back then. What, did you guys watch it together?”

“Fuck no. She watched it though. And obsessed over it. Obsessed over those years and what I did to her. It’s why we are where we are.” I hear it there as it rolls off his tongue – the blame. I am to blame for all his woes. So like him to place blame anywhere he can stake it.

“And this is the reason for your bitchy attitude toward me?” I hop off the desk, pace in front of the blackboard. My index finger reaches for the dust and chalk. I draw a line.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Don’t blame me for the fact that you cheated on your girlfriend when you were eighteen. I didn't do that.” I draw a heart, scribble a jagged line down the middle.

“Maybe not. But you weren’t innocent either. It wouldn't have happened without you there.”

I whip around at his words, a flurry of dander and chalk floats in the air. “Are you fucking kidding me? I didn't make you cheat. I wasn’t seducing you.” My sharp mouth, my callous words, they fall out. My father always told me to watch my language on the phone. I never listened.

“You weren’t?”

“No. Are you kidding me? Is that really how you want to paint it? Fuck off.” I leave the classroom in a haze of anger and red. My sandals flip and flop on the tile, an embarrassing retreat.

I hear Bryan following me, the push of the desk across the room.

“Why did you have to write about it?” His words echo across the hallway.

I spin, face his approaching form. “Why wouldn't I? I left Kansas and moved to a city where I knew no one but my sister. I had nothing but this broken heart and a story to tell. That’s what we do, that’s what writers do. We tell our stories.”

“Regardless of who gets hurt?”

"Yes. Regardless of who gets hurt. Life’s a bitch, and I’m not going to sit on the past that I own to save your feelings, or hers. You didn’t give two shits about her feelings so why should I have?” We don't speak of the elephant in the room. The real reason my heart broke and why I left with no goodbye. His loyalties lie with the wrong people.

“I did care about her feelings.” It sounds hallow, and we both hear it. I see it in his eyes, the reflection.

“You had a funny way of showing it.” I hear our moans, the sound of our clothes hitting the ground. So close. We were so close.

“I cared about you, too, once. I couldn't stay away, and I'm sorry. Am I ever going to stop paying for what I did when I was a dumbass kid? That was over ten years ago. When does it end?” His fingers are running through his short hair; he's talking to the wall now, avoiding my eyes.

“Don’t know. Don't care. That’s for you two to figure out. I’m not playing the middle woman anymore.” Can I convince myself of another lie? What's one more, really?

“That’s not why you came here?”

“No. I wanted to say hi to an old friend.” I would have taken his friendship, but I wasn't even worthy of that. Not by the rules of Burlingame High. And here we stood, surrounded by these haunting halls.

“Friend? We’ve never been friends. You know that. We are not friends.” It stings.

I walk backward, my hands up in defeat. When I've stepped over the threshold dividing Burlingame High and the front lawn, I laugh. “And not lovers. Was that your next line?”

“Yeah, maybe it was.” He closes the door in my face.