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JACE
She’s back. Fuck.
Mila Hart had been my neighbor since birth. We grew up together. Our parents became good friends. Having dinner at each other's houses every week was normal to me. Her dad, James, coached our flag football team right up until she left.
Mila wasn't only my neighbor. She was my first and best friend for twelve years.
She wasn't given a choice in leaving. She’d wanted to stay. I hated her mom for taking her away. I’d known things would be different with her being so far from us, but the distance wasn’t the problem. Mila was.
I called her every day. And every call and message that went unanswered was like a dagger to my heart. It only took her two weeks in New York to forget about us.
When she left, she really left us. Nothing, not one word to any of us, in four years.
Now she’s standing there, beside her father's truck, looking like a womanly version of the girl I once knew. Her hand on hip with her head cocked to the side told me it was Mila instantly. She has that kind of attitude about her. Sassy and confident, my mom would always describe Mila.
Her blonde hair is longer and hangs in waves over her shoulders. Her black, ripped skinny jeans and tight red tank top show me she’s not the little girl I once remembered. She stands there looking like some model off a runway.
But she isn’t a model. She’s the girl next door, and she's always been beautiful no matter what she wears. Fuck…
She smiles and waves at me, like the last four years she wasn't here don’t mean a thing.
Mila isn’t my best friend anymore. If anything, she broke me when she stopped taking my calls. I won’t tell her that. She messed up, and if she thinks I’ll forget about it and wave back—that I’ll tell her, “It's good to see you”—she’s delusional.
I’m angry with her. I didn't realize that until I saw her. Fuck.
I slam my fist on my steering wheel. I don’t want anything to do with her. I hope she returns to where she came from. But with school starting Monday, I have a feeling she isn’t here just for the weekend to visit her dad.
She hasn’t been to visit her dad once in all these years. I asked him about her for months after she stopped talking to me, thinking maybe her phone was broken or her mom had grounded her. But he spoke to her all the time. That's how I knew she didn't want to speak to me.
The others need to know she’s back. I wasn't the only one who missed her when she left. When she cut me off, she cut us all off. I don’t know how they’ll feel about her returning. I can’t let her get between us again.
She almost broke us apart when we were ten and all had a little crush on her. Now we’re grown and horny as fuck all the time. The pact needs to stand more than ever. She has the power to destroy us, and I can’t let that happen.
When we were ten, Roman and Hunter fell for her. Just like I did. It wasn't hard with a girl like Mila. She was everything. She played football with us in Hunter's backyard, tackling all of us, getting mud and bruises on her body. She would claim she was the knight of the castle, wearing a pink tutu and attacking us with her plastic sword.
“It isn’t a crush, I love her,” Hunter told us.
Roman pushed him over. “I'm gonna marry her. You can't love her.”
I was worried she would pick one of them, and we wouldn't be friends anymore. There would be Mila and the one she chose, the two losers left to watch, heartbroken. I wouldn't be one of the losers. She was mine first. I loved her first. I was going to marry her.
I told them we had to make a pact.
“We can't all love her and still all be friends when she picks one of us. It will tear us apart. Friendship is all we need. So, we make a pact now. No one can love or marry Mila. Ever. No one can break the pact. It’s for life.”
We all spit into our palms and shook hands. We’d seen it in a movie, and we did it whenever something was “for life.” The pact was done. Sealed in our spit. Except, I crossed my fingers with my other hand when I made that pact. Mila, she was mine. I was going to keep her forever.
But now that she was back, I didn't want her. I couldn't let Roman or Hunter have her either. It would break us apart worse than ever.
Roman took it the hardest when she left. He’s still fucked up now. Mila had filled a hole for him that Hunter and I couldn't. We’d tried to help him, but he spiraled into a deep, dark depression. He’s still in that dark place, but he’s better than before. I’m worried her reappearance might make him spiral again.
I’m so angry with her. What she did to me, to Hunter, and especially Roman. She’d known he needed her more than any of us, and she left him to the wolves.
I bring up the group chat on my phone, anger bubbling within me.
Jace: The pact still stands.
I throw my phone onto the passenger seat, my foot on the gas as I tear backwards out of my driveway. I throw my car into drive and dare myself not to look back at her.
