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“Guys,” I hear Nolan say quietly.

“No, no.” Caleb spreads his arms out across the table. “Let’s lay it all out. We’re all here!”

Well, except Nate, I think. I feel like I have a rock in my gut. I glance at Nolan, and his eyes meet mine, pain and apology flowing through them.

I clear my throat. “Well, I know I made a lot of people upset when I left,” I say.

Everyone nods. “We get it man. We do.” That’s Nolan.

“You left, and we all sort of fell apart, Lev.” Garrett turns to me. “We hit it hard for a while after—”

“Just say it,” I cut in. “After Nate died, and I left.”

Garrett downs his beer. “Yeah, okay? We buried Nate, you left, and we fell apart. We all drank our faces off and barely talked to each other.”

“Because none of us knew what to say,” Caleb admits quietly. We all look at him. “We fucked up that night, and our lives were never—and won’t ever be—the same again. You ran from here, and we fell deeper into the hole when the reality is that we all should have been getting through it together.”

I’m caught off guard a little by this conversation, but I know that it has to happen, so I keep going. I clear my throat. “I had to leave,” I say. “I don’t really want to say I’m sorry for that, but if it helps, I will.” I stare down at the lime in my glass. “I was headed for something really bad. I wanted to die so I could be with Nate. If I didn’t leave, I wasn’t going to make it.” I look up to four pairs of eyes on me. My old friends. “It broke me. But I had to.”

A deafening and uncomfortable silence oozes across the table before Nolan breaks it. “We get it,” he says. “We’re just glad you’re back.” He lifts his glass, and everyone else slowly follows suit to clink our glasses together. “Wolf Pack forever,” he says. We let out a quiet, collective howl that doesn’t seem as teenage-silly anymore and all take a drink before setting our glasses down again.

Garrett gives me a half hug and announces that he has to get back to the bar. Although we just had a difficult conversation, I think it was years in the making, and it was needed if we’re going to move forward together. We were all so tight in high school before the accident. Inseparable. I feel a little better after the conversation, and everyone else seems to be feeling the same.

Chris excuses himself and heads back to the stage for sound check, and we all refill our drinks. Before long, the band is launching into their set. It’s not my favorite type of music, but it’s a cool atmosphere and so it isn’t terrible to listen to. They work the crowd on some songs and play background music for others.

The others and I fall into easy conversation, and it’s a relief to feel normal around my friends again.

After a particularly good song and another round of drinks, Caleb turns to me. “Lev, Nolan and I were talking yesterday about the night that we snuck onto the campus of Northhead High and toilet papered the statue of their moose mascot.”

“And then it rained,” Nolan blurts out with a laugh.

“And the toilet paper got all hard and crusty around the moose,” Caleb throws in.

“I heard they were so pissed about it.” Nolan chuckles. “Their poor janitor had to scrub the moose.”

Something about that statement has us all laughing hard.

“Remember in ninth grade when we skipped and took the train to New York so this guy”—I point to Caleb— “could meet the girl he thought he was going to marry?”

Caleb buries his head in his hands and groans. “There was so much wrong with that,” he says.

“Yeah,” I chime in. “We were so dumb. As if our parents weren’t going to get a call from school.”

“The fact that we were all absent,” Nolan adds, and we laugh again.

“How long were we grounded for?” I ask, shaking my head.

Nolan shakes his head, still cackling. “Shit, I’m probably still grounded for that.”

“And we never got Caleb to meet his girl!” I remind them.

“Catfished!!” Nolan and I say at the same time.

“You guys suck,” Caleb chuffs.

I’m still chuckling as I excuse myself to use the bathroom. Walking down the hallway to the back, an odd sensation runs down my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. It’s uncomfortable at best, and my shoulders tighten as I reach the bathrooms. There are two single-use restrooms at the end of the hallway, but both doors are closed, and when I try the handles, they’re locked.

With an impatient sigh, I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest to wait for someone to finish and come out so I can go. Finally, after what seems like several minutes, one of the doors opens, and a man exits, giving me a nod. I return it and go into the bathroom to do my business. After I finish and wash my hands, I open the door and lean back to toss the paper towel into the trashcan when a body slams into me.