Nine Years Ago 

He was wandering the halls of our elementary school when we first met.

I was sitting against the wall next to my classroom, having been banished to the hall for talking when I wasn’t supposed to one too many times.

My face was pressed up against my knees, and I was trying not to let myself cry over it.

I didn’t see him walk up.

“Are you okay?” He said and I jumped, very nearly hitting my head on the wall behind me. “Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

His voice was soft, sweet, quiet. His eyes were brown, a very pretty shade of it too, but the moment I met his gaze he looked away.

“Ms. Roberts kicked me out.” I grumbled, pressing my mouth up against my knees in hopes that maybe it would muffle my words and hide my shame. 

Ms. Roberts didn’t particularly like me much. Even when I wasn’t talking, I was too fidgety, or too distractible, or something else. But…nearly every teacher I’d had didn’t like me. I mean…neither did anyone else, really.

“I’m sorry.” He said, lips curling into a frown.

“Why are you out here?” I just asked, glancing up at him. He didn’t seem to have a pass of any kind on him, so why was he wandering?

He just shrugged, moving to sit down beside me like he too had been banished from the classroom. “Why not?”

“You should be in class.” I scoffed, turning away from him. 

He’s gonna get in trouble, and then I’m gonna get in trouble somehow for even being near him.

“I like your dress.” He said suddenly, ignoring what I’d just said. I turned back to him, making a face, eyes narrowed. 

His gaze was focused on it though, and yeah, sure I guessed he was right. The floral pattern was…objectively pretty.

But I didn’t like it. It wasn’t what I wanted to be wearing, but my mom insisted. She always insisted. She knew best after all, or so she said.

“I don’t.” I simply sighed, gripping the grass-stained fabric in my hands tightly and tugging like if I pulled at it hard enough it would tear apart and transform into the outfit I wanted to wear today.

“If you don’t like it, we could trade.” He said softly, and I turned back to him.

“…why would you want to do that? I’m wearing a dress.”

“So?”

“You’re a boy?”

He just shrugged, repeating himself. “So?”

It made a lot more sense at the time.

Instead of, I don’t know, asking his name, the two of us had run off down the hall and snuck into the empty boys bathroom by the art room to swap.

So I tugged my horrible dress off, tossing it over to him and trading it for his shirt with the pretty drawing of a shark on it. I had already been wearing shorts and a long sleeve shirt beneath my dress so we didn’t trade our whole outfits, but the moment I pulled that little shark t-shirt on I felt more like myself than I had the whole day.

I should’ve just taken that dumb dress off sooner and hidden it in my backpack. Not like my mom would even know…

“You look nice.” He smiled at me, so brightly I was nearly blinded.

“So do you.” I said, half because it was true and half because I was just…so grateful to get rid of that dress that I was sure it would’ve looked nicer on a pile of mud.

I wasn’t even sure why I hated it so much. I thought dresses looked cool, I even liked this one just…not on me. It was annoying. The fabric got caught on things while I was running around, it was hard to run in, and when it inevitably got dirty my mom was always so mad.

“Let’s get out of here before they catch you in the boys and we get in trouble.” He said, extending a hand to me.

I grinned, taking it.

I should’ve been worried about getting in trouble, but in that moment I really wasn’t. This was…this was nice. This was fun. I was having fun!

So the two of us went running out, grins on our faces wild as we raced away from my classroom and down the stairs to the first floor.

And then I tripped and fell on the last step.

It didn’t ruin our fun, but when a teacher eventually spotted us, him in a dress and me with a face covered in blood, we were immediately sent to the nurse and then the principals office.

We got in a lot of trouble for skipping class, and my parents privately chastised me for the whole dress thing.

When the scratch I got finally healed, I had a scar that cut right through my left eyebrow. My parents hated it, but I loved it.

It reminded me of that strange boy, the one whose name I didn’t manage to catch but the one I would always remember for making me so happy, happier than I’d ever been before in a town that made me so sad.

I figured it was all I’d ever have left of him, of our brief but wonderful friendship.

But then three weeks later I caught a glimpse of that same head of messy caramel colored hair through the window by the door, wandering the halls as he’d been the first time.

One thing led to another, and bathroom pass in hand I rushed out into the hall after him, hoping I hadn’t been too late.

But there was nobody there, and for a moment I considered just turning back so I didn’t get in trouble again.

But something inside of me told me to keep looking.

It was at the top of the steps of the same staircase I had tripped down that I saw him, down at the bottom, hand slipping off the railing to walk away.

My heart soared as I called out to him. 

“Hey, you!”

He stopped and turned back to me, looking confused for just a moment before he recognized me and broke into a smile.

“It’s you!”

And that was the bright beginning of a wonderful, years-long friendship. 

Everything was so perfect in that moment, or at least it seemed that way. 

But I was just a kid then, so I had no idea that soon enough it would be dark again.

-

‘Soon Enough’

“I’m Sebastian Hayes, I’ve been assigned as your tutor. It’s nice to meet you!”

Four long years since I’d heard that voice, and yet I knew it nearly as much as I knew my own. Though it had deepened with age, he still sounded so…so him. 

My heart ached the moment I laid my eyes upon him, years old wound peeling itself back open as he smiled at me and I felt…just like a kid again.

He looked so different, and yet he was the exact same as he was that night I ran away.

The same messy caramel colored hair, though it now kissed his shoulders. It was tucked away in a dark gray beanie that matched the hoodie he wore. 

His beautiful brown eyes had deep bags below them, and if I were to guess then I’d guess that he probably still had trouble sleeping like he did when we were kids.

His jaw was sharper than it once was, and I could see a small scab from where it looked like he had nicked himself shaving.

He really did look so different, but he was still him.

He was still Sebastian.

Still my-

“Um, hello?” He said, crashing my train of thought by waving a hand in front of my face.

Broken from my stupor, I blinked and pulled myself together as quickly as I possibly could.

“Oh, uh, sorry, yeah. Ellis. Ellis Thomas. Everyone calls me Jet, though. Uh…nice to meet you…Sebastian.” I stammered out, managing not to stumble over my words too badly.

It felt strange, the familiarity of his name on my tongue. Stranger still the way it felt to say it back to the person it belonged to. 

Surely I was going to have a heart attack and die right here. I couldn’t handle this. Goodbye, cruel world. It was nice knowing you.

“Nice to meet you, Jet. You mind if I sit?” He smiled, gesturing to the chair beside me. I nodded quickly.

“So, let’s get right into it. I was told you needed help with math, right?” He said as he sat down beside me, reaching into his backpack.

My heart-attack-in-progress stopped in its tracks, a strange sense of wrongness taking its place and settling in my chest.

…because he didn’t recognize me.

At. All.

I mean, I didn’t exactly want him to, as him recognizing me would open the can of worms I did not under any circumstances want opened, but still.

He didn’t recognize me!

A small part of me way down deep in my chest felt…almost betrayed that he didn’t still recognize me despite the ways I’d changed. But I didn’t have time to deal with that, so I quickly shoved the feeling down and pretended it didn’t exist. …because it didn’t exist. Totally.

“Uh…yeah. I’m struggling with that.” 

“Oh, who’s your teacher?” He said, not meeting my gaze or even looking in my direction as he flipped through a notebook.

“Mr. Rutherford.”

“Ah, I heard he’s kind of mean.” Sebastian said, pulling a pencil out of his hoodie pocket and writing something down at the top of a fresh notebook page.

“I guess. He just talks too fast for me. He doesn’t take any time to explain anything, and then he gets mad when I don’t pick it up first try.” I complained. This had always been something that annoyed me. Nobody was ever content to slow down for me when I needed it. Nobody ever took their time with me, and always got angry when I didn’t run at the same pace.

I guess that was true of many things. But it had always been true, so at this point it was more annoying that I wasn’t just used to it.

“Well, that’s what I’m here for. I can explain things as slowly as you want. And I don’t get mad when people don’t pick things up first try, so, that’s a benefit.” He laughed to himself, lips curling up in a smile.

“…heh…yeah…”

Despite how different he looked now, he still smiled the same way he did then…

This meeting was not an easy one to get through. 

He explained everything so perfectly, and when he showed me how to do things I understood them so much faster than when my teacher explained them. He was sweet and understanding, and even after the fifth time I got distracted he didn’t even roll his eyes at me! He just shrugged, said it was no big deal, and kept going.

It was just the fact that it was him that was so jarring.

Sometimes he’d meet my gaze and I’d half expect him to suddenly narrow his eyes in recognition, but it never happened. 

He’d just meet my eye and look away again, just like when we were kids.

When we got a little older he kept trying to kick that habit, so some times he’d try and challenge me to staring contests just to see how long he could hold eye contact with me. He usually beat me funnily enough, but he still hated it.

I never really understood why he was so bothered by it, why he’d try so hard to force himself to do something he seemed uncomfortable with. Why he’d try and force himself to be someone he isn’t.

I still didn’t really understand.

He tapped his pencil on the table, and I glanced at his bitten nails. 

His clothes were all so loose, and he was fully covered in all the layers he was wearing.

It was still barely September. It wasn’t that cold, certainly not cold enough for him to be this dressed up.

He didn’t dress like this when we were kids, I’d rarely see him outside of a t-shirt and cargo shorts.

…I couldn’t help but wonder what else had changed. 

I couldn’t help but wonder-

“Ah, our times up.” He suddenly said. I blinked rapidly in surprise. It felt like it had only been five minutes, but when I pulled out my phone to check the time I saw that it had in fact been two full hours.

He quickly stood up, shoveling his stuff away back into his backpack and tossing it over his shoulder.

No, wait, don’t go!

My heart sank at the idea of him leaving.

I didn’t understand why.

We weren’t friends.

He abandoned me.

We weren’t friends.

We couldn’t be…

“Oh, right! Here.” He suddenly said, utterly oblivious to my internal turmoil, reaching out to me and holding a crumpled slip of paper in his hand. “My number, so we can schedule the next meeting.”

I hesitated, but only for a moment.

When I took it, my fingers brushed his.

It was nothing, a light glance that anybody else would’ve batted an eye at.

But I wasn’t anyone else. For me it was different.

Because it just solidified the truth for me.

He was here, right in front of me, staring at me with those same brown eyes and that same sweet smile on his face after four years apart.

“Tha-nks, I will.” I said, voice cracking and a little too breathy.

He nodded. And as he turned and began to walk off towards the door, he stopped mid-step and turned back to me.

“It was really nice to meet you, Jet. Hope to see you again soon!” He said, accompanied by a gentle wave and a smile that rivaled the brightest stars in the sky.

“Nice to meet you…too.” I managed to say a moment too late.

He was already out of earshot.

I simply watched as he left, his brown hair bouncing with every step, just like it used to.

My stomach twisted.

Truly, what were the odds of this?

-