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at school. The baseball season isn’t over yet and the coaches were strict outside of the season, I could only imagine how brutal they were during the season. It was a surprise…for both of us.
    The look on his face when he’d first seen me was pure anger. Not that I can blame him. Decker has every right to be angry with me. But when he’d seen my face…my tears…it was like a switch had been flipped. He’d automatically fallen into his former role as best friend and for that I am grateful. I know we’ll have to duke it out eventually, but not today, thank God. I can’t handle much more today.
    He’d looked really good. Better than the last time I saw him. I let out a small laugh. The last time I’d seen him had been right here, in my room. He’d been drunk that night, but he was still Decker. Memories of our last night together roll through my mind, it’s all so bittersweet.
    Knowing what I know now, I don’t regret leaving the way I had. Sure, I’d regretted it at first and planned to make it right at Thanksgiving—beg his forgiveness, but then things happened that had changed the way I looked at everything. Those things still have an effect on my day-to-day life. I’ve missed Decker every day and nothing will ever change that, but I can’t regret the decisions I’d made that summer. Not with knowing what I know now.
    I lay on my bed, staring at those damn glow-in-the-dark stars. Things really do have a way of coming full circle, don’t they?
    I hear a familiar sound. Still familiar even though it’s been nearly three years.
    “You left it open,” he says.
    “Old habits die hard, I guess,” I say, still staring up at the stars on my ceiling. I vaguely recall having flipped the lock on the window when I had come into my room hours before. It had been automatic…a reflex.
    Keep telling yourself that, Casey.
    He takes off his shoes and slides onto the bed beside me, still fully clothed. That’s new. I roll onto my side, my back facing him, and he pulls me back into his chest, wrapping his arm around my middle. I close my eyes at the instant comfort it brings and will the tears not to return.
    “I’m so sorry about your dad, Case. I didn’t know. Mom told me when she got home.”
    I’d figured he didn’t known about my dad’s passing. He never would have behaved the way that he did if he had known. Even if I did deserve it. Decker just isn’t like that.
    “I know; it’s okay.” I squeeze the hand he has wrapped around me.
    “It’s not okay. I was awful to you,” he argues, pulling me even closer, as if he’s afraid I will disappear again if he lets go.
    “I deserved it,” I say, feeling myself crack a little on the inside.
    “You didn’t, not today.”
    I sigh. Maybe not today, but one day.
    “We will talk about what happened after graduation, Casey. Not tonight…not until you’re ready. But it will happen before you leave again.”
    I nod, knowing it’s unavoidable. He deserves something. Maybe not the whole truth, but some truth. We lay in silence for several minutes, listening to the sounds of crickets and frogs in the night. My mind’s swirling with a million thoughts, most of them memories of my dad.
    I sniffle, and he tightens his arm around me. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
    I hear him sniff and know that he’s fighting some emotion as well. “I know. I can’t either.
    He whispers soothing little nothings into my ear as I cry for my dad. I cry for the memories I’ll never forget and the ones I’ll never get to make. The moments of my life he will no longer be there for. I cry for my mom because when all is said and done, she’ll be alone.
    “So…how do you like Stanford?” he asks me several minutes later, once I’ve calmed down. Surprisingly, his tone holds no bitterness.
    I smile a little, this is something I can talk about. “I love it. It’s everything I dreamed college would be.”
    “What are you studying?”
    “Psychology. I hope to be a