God, I am freaking out. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe I just look guilty of something and he’s picking up on that.

And it feels strange, almost sad, to walk through ther empty halls. Each step I take sounds so lonely.

Josh will begin disappearing into a future where the only place he and I remain friends is on the Internet.

That is all that happened. Why did you hear something else?

I take a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, reopen the book, and read the words scribbled in red ink near the top: Everyone needs an olly-olly-oxen-free.

Rejection always hurts, but having it come from my best friend was the worst.

But they were wrong. There was a reason.