There is an art to betrayal. I've seen it painted before. Britt doesn't have it in her. She acts out of hurt, or a desire to say the right thing to fulfill a need. I'm still not sure which.

I just know my old best friend and my old enemy look thick as thieves. And who's to say it wouldn’t slither into my friendship with Britt? Not that we had much of one anymore, anyways. And could she be friends with both of us? Maybe. Or perhaps I was just naive.

To steal my best friend is to get revenge. To pull my secrets from her, is to win. Something Aurora loves to do. And I deserve it. Don’t I?

My art is mine. I can take my past and do whatever I wish with it.

I just forgot that there are consequences to my actions, to my words, and the way my stories are told.

I can't control who consumes them, how they are taken.

I can only control what I put out there. What I let spill. It will always be all of it. If not me, who would tell my life stories? I can survive the fallout. I will. I am stronger than this petty leaking.

If I keep telling myself this, maybe it will be true.

I wave at Britt, stealing a moment when Aurora looks away, and my old friend’s eyes are on me. She smiles, timidly, and nods her head toward a tree. “Hey, I just saw an old friend. I’ll catch up with you later.” I do not wait for Ben’s answer, abandoning him quickly. An act I am far too good at.

When I reach the tall oak Britt is standing under my neck flushes hot. Why do I feel like I am involved in a clandestine meeting with a lover? Why does it feel like I’m doing something wrong? I always yield to Aurora. That’s the answer I am afraid to admit, but I am getting closer.

“Hey!” My voice is too enthusiastic. It comes out squeaky and wrong. Britt is the one friend I never kept in touch with. The wound was too raw, her hurt too palpable. We all suffered a loss, but hers was the deepest. Her connection was the closest.

“Hi.” She closes the space, reaches for me, and the hug is full body. I feel her in my toes, all the secrets we shared, all the gossip and the planning. I’ve missed her. “I didn't know you were coming back," she says.

I am hard to track down. I have few family connections in town. I don't have a personal Facebook account that anyone can find. Just one under my middle and last name set up to manage my public writing page. I shut down my original profile, created when Facebook was just a way for college kids to connect, ages ago. My phone number isn't even the same. I like being a ghost. I like knowing my past can't find me.

Britt pulls away and stares into my eyes. She shakes her head, and I reach for her hand. “What was that?”

“Did I see you over there with Ben Winthrop?”

“Yes. But the more pertinent question is, did I see you over there with Aurora…Winthrop?” I’ve never said it out loud. Her married name. The one I scribbled into notebooks, attached to mine.

“Yes. It’s weird, right? Weird for you to see?” She scrunches up her nose, and her eyes squint. It's such an awkward face, and I do not know what to do with mine in return.

“I feel like I’m back in Mayberry. I’m surprised I don't see everything in black and white. And Bryan is working on the school across from my house. He was the first person I saw besides my dad and my aunt and sister. And now you're here, with her. You're friends with her.” I am babbling. The Bryan admission, that I’ve seen him, slips out. Because standing in front of me, is a lifeline. One of my dearest confidants. And it feels familiar. I realize my error too late. “I can’t bring him up in front of you, can I?”

“Bryan?”

I cock my head to the side when she says his name. “Who else?” I don't mean to bite, but it’s there. The no shit implication hovers between us.

“It would make me uncomfortable.” She looks over in the direction she came from. I wonder if Aurora is watching us. I do not look.

“We used to talk about him all the time.”

“Don't make me keep something from someone. Don't put me in that position.” From a hello, to a hug, to this.

"In what position? The position of being my friend?” Everything is escalating. Britt and I never cared much for small talk. That was our thing. We always cut to the chase, spilled everything to each other.

“She’s my friend, too, Severin. And you've been gone. You left me when I needed you.” I look at the freckle on her jaw. Her hair is longer than it ever was in school. I can feel her energy. Resentment. Deserved.

“I went to college. It’s not like it was some spur of the moment thing.” A lie. A boldfaced lie in the face of one of my closest childhood friends.

"That was never the plan. We were going to spend the summer together, the four of us. We made plans."

“It wouldn't have been the four of us even if I had stayed.” I let that sit there, heavy. When she doesn't speak, when the silence between us becomes unbearable, I push her further. I make myself ugly, and I wish I could take it back before the words even fall. “I had to go. And if this is all you've accomplished, somehow becoming BFFs with Aurora, then maybe you should have left while you had a chance, too.”

I walk away, a coward, before she can respond.

The heat is unbearable as I wander, avoiding eye contact. The heat, the gossip, they were parts of this town all on their own.

Yet, everyone is smiling, walking the square, visiting booths, laughing.

I startle at a man behind me, yelling, “Fresh funnel cake!”

Why would anyone want to eat hot funnel cake in this weather?

I walk away, deeper into the crowd. The hair prickles on my arms and I turn around, finding no one there.

This is one of my favorite memories. Running around with my friends, exploring the town. I knew every face back then, every name. I knew who was connected to who. Who I would see in the halls, who I would see dropping their kids off in front of the school.

I wasn’t sure if I missed it or not. LA was so impersonal. I knew no one. I stepped out my door each day into an unknown. It was an escape I relished, an escape I needed.

I start toward the courthouse, centered in the middle of our small town. The sound of a fiddle pulls me, so I stop at the edge of a crowd, unable to see into the center in my worn flat sandals.

My peripheral vision catches a slight movement, something that generally wouldn't have caused me to look to the side, but I know the movement.

It’s strange how our mind catalogs things, slight dances of movement. The way someone brings a glass of water to their lips.

This walk, I knew it. I knew the way he talked, the way he breathed.

My eyes catch Bryan’s, and he smiles. That shy one, the one I wished was just for me, but I could never be sure.

He flicks his jaw, walks away. So I follow. It’s what I do with him. I want to be a different woman, but I am not. I am weak for him. We all have that one.

At the edge of the festival, he stands under a tall walnut tree. The biggest tree in town. There is a rusty swing set under the lower branches. My feet pull me to it. I grab the red chain and immediately drag my hand back, rubbing the flaky dust on my jean shorts.

"I reckon you’d probably need a tetanus shot if you swung on that. I don't even know why it's still here.”

"Nostalgia?”

"Maybe.” He shrugs.

The heat is more bearable here. I bend my knees, drop to the ground. I need to rest. The summer sun has zapped most of my energy. The heat is everywhere.

Bryan sits down beside me, close. I feel the sleeve of his shirt brush my bare shoulder. Leaning into him isn’t an option. Just being seen with him is a risk. A risk for him, a desire for me.

"Did you need to ask me something?” I want to push him. To get a glimpse inside his head.

"No. I just wanted to be near you.” His answer takes the breath from me.

I hide my fluttering heart. I don’t let myself stammer. “I’m right here. This is a pretty public place. You sure you can be doing this? Your wife is here.”

"I’m single, basically.”

"You’re not available." There's a difference. He knows this. "You never have been.”

"That’s not true.”

"You’ve always been off limits.” Even when he let me touch him, kiss him, run my hands over his hard lines. I felt it. The way I could never reach inside of him. I could never plant myself there. She was inside. From the beginning. There was only room for one.

"Maybe that’s why you like me?” I like this tone. The bite from earlier is gone.

I laugh. “No. I’m not one of those girls. I’ve always wanted you, maybe I didn’t always know why. Maybe I don’t know why now. But I’ve always wanted you. And I’ve never once found it thrilling that you weren’t mine. That everything we have ever done has been behind the scenes. In secret. Maybe some people get off on that kind of thing, but I don’t. I want normal. I want someone who will take me on dates and someone who could walk me around that little town square, with my hand in theirs. You’ve had that. I had that once, though it wasn’t with anyone I truly loved. And it was a good feeling. No one should be kept away, a tryst. Someone to be ashamed of.”

"I’m not ashamed of you.”

"Bullshit.” I think of the first time he made me feel small. Hidden behind a curtain, listening to him deny me.

"I don’t know why I even came here.” He buries his head in his hands. I'm jealous of those hands. I love his hair, his pale flesh. I want to touch him here. Pretend the town is vacant, that it's just the two of us.

When he is in my sight, I normally let my mind will everyone away in those ways. He is all I've cared for. All I've wanted to see. It was a slow disease, an unraveling.

My hand goes up, and I do not care who sees. His long fingers are soft under mine. He lets go of his hair, his heavy head, and turns to me.

Our hands drop to the grass and he lets me slip mine in between his. It's intimate.

"Want to get out of here?”