Page 6

“Hey, Syd,” I say quietly as Drew turns in his seat and places his hand out.

“Alice,” he says calmly, “thank you so much for coming.”

“You knew she was coming here?” Sydney’s eyes flash from mine to the back of Drew’s head. There’s a second where I see anger, and I fear this reunion isn’t going to be what I hoped it would be.

Drew swivels back to face her. “Please don’t be mad,” he says softly in a tone I didn’t think possible for a man of his size. Then, lowering his voice, he adds, “You know why I’ve done this, why I tried to find her.”

Feeling the need to be in his corner, I jump in like the motormouth I am.

“And I wasn’t easy to find.” I smile. “He had to break the law and everything, but here I am.” I stretch out my arms and resist the urge to say “Ta-da!” as I desperately try to read Sydney’s face.

“Alice. It’s really you,” Sydney says as she rises. There’s a second where it could go either way, but when her eyes soften and she holds out her arms to greet me, my worries are quickly doused as I fall into her embrace.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” I say into her hair as she hugs me tighter than anyone has in a very long time.

“I’m so happy to see you.”

Sydney leans back, and we stare at each other. Tiny lines crease the corners of her eyes, mirroring my own, and I’m suddenly reminded that we aren’t fifteen anymore.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Sydney says before shooting Drew a look. “I can’t believe you kept this from me. I thought we were just here for the shops.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Drew says, gesturing between us. “We wanted to surprise you.”

Sydney looks back at me, and I fight the urge to touch her freshly curled hair the way we used to when we turned her bedroom floor into a salon, trying not to burn the house down with our curling wands.

“I’ll leave you both to it.”

Drew rises from his chair, and standing up somehow makes him even more magnificent. He smiles at Sydney, the kind of smile I’m certain he only has for her, and she must feel it right in her gut. I’ve never had a man look at me like that and probably never will, and the tendrils of jealousy creep back under my skin.

He kisses her lightly on the cheek and squeezes her arm as she gazes at him like he’s hung the moon. Honestly, if he were my man, I probably wouldn’t stop looking at him either.

“Wow,” I say as Drew leaves, and Sydney and I take our seats at the small table. “You found your Romeo.”

Her smile grows. She hasn’t forgotten. In English literature, we studied Romeo and Juliet for our piece of Shakespeare, and we both fell in love with the tragic tale and vowed we wouldn’t rest until we found our very own Romeo.

“I sure have.” Sydney laughs, and it’s the same one from twenty-one years ago. But then her face clouds, and I see tiny remnants of the Sydney who left me. The empty shell of herself, devoid of laughter and life.

“Sydney—”

She puts her hand on my arm, and her eyes wander to the table.

“I want to start by saying I’m sorry. Sorry for losing you the way I did. Sorry for not being a better friend.”

“Hey—” I try to interrupt, but she cuts me off.

“Please, hear me out.”

I nod, even as a knot ties in my stomach.

“I wasn’t in a good place back then, after my mum and dad split up. And I know you tried to help. You were there for me when I needed you, and God, did I need you. But I was so angry. My whole world had fallen apart.” She wets her lips. “The loving family I thought I’d have for the rest of my life just didn’t exist anymore. When my mum admitted that their marriage had been broken long before Dad had the affair, it made me feel like they’d both been lying to me.”

Sydney’s gaze drops to the tabletop, her fingers fiddling with something I can’t see.

“And, as you know, the split was awful. They were so horrible to each other. Constantly arguing and dragging me into the middle of it. I never knew whose side I was supposed to be on.”

Her eyes pool with tears, and even after all this time, I can see the hurt sitting there beneath the surface.

“Then Mum moved us away, and it felt like I lost everything. Not just Dad walking out on us, but my home, my school, the town I loved… all the plans I thought I had for my future…. It all went to shit.” She looks up at me now. “We were supposed to always be besties, but then we moved, and I was such a mess. So angry. So lost. It took me a long time to sort my shit out.”