I’ve Had 5 Years to Forget *Unfinished; final/end chapter once all completed*

And then I saw him. The man I hadn’t seen since the last day of senior year.

“Micheal, I can’t believe we are never going to see each other again,” I said glumly looking into her eyes as I try not to think about the future without her.

“I know! We’ve known each other since kindergarten. We’ve had a few disagreements here and there,” she says while laughing and trying not to cry at the same time, “but overall we’ve had so many amazing memories together.”

“Hey, don’t look now, but you know Joey Farewell??” She added with a bit of mischievousness in her voice.

“Yeah…” I say hesitantly.

“Well, he’s coming over here. Probably to talk to you,” she said that last part was the way the girls in the movies do when they are talking about boys or gossip when their voices get all high.

“Ugh! No! Can you shake your head or something to tell him I can’t right now?”

Before I can even finish, Micheal is nodding her head up and down and uses her hand to signal Joey over. When he makes his way over I give a slight glare at Micheal, that only she would pick up on, only because we’ve known each other for so long.

“Hi, Joey. Long time no see,” I said with as little and close to no clue or hint of any emotion at all.

“Look, I know I’ve loved our friendship and I know you still blame yourself but you can’t keep doing it. Nobody could have known that Jessic-”

“No Joey. Stop,” I said backing away while putting my hand on the sides of my head.

I couldn’t think about this right now. Not when I’m leaving all my friends and packing up to leave for New York.

“We both know nobody at this school will be able to forget what happened. And if we forget what happened, we will jus-”

“JOEY! STOP IT! NOW!” This time I’m yelling, trying got push away the painful memories.

“Okay okay jeez. I wasn’t trying to-” Joey started before Micheal butted in.

“No, nobody ever tries to. Nobody ever tries to remind her of what happened!”

As tears start to form in my eyes, Micheal embraces my shaking body.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Joey says as he walks away, with his head down looking at his feet.

Before he is out of earshot I mumble, “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

He stops and only looks back at me before continuing on his way.

“Hey!” I say as I am walking up to him.

“Been a while,” he says while running his finger through his golden curly hair, “Hey, I don’t know if this is still a sensitive topic, but I’m sorry about the last day of school senior year. I didn’t mean to hurt you or anything I just-”

“It’s okay. I’ve realized that no one could’ve known it was going to happen,” I say while putting my hand on his shoulder.

“That’s good,” he looks as if he has more to say, but instead closes his mouth and says, “How’s Chloe?”

I simply smile and say, “She’s doing well. Haven’t seen since graduation huh?”

“Uh, no. I haven’t,” he says while stuffing his hands into his pants pockets.

“Want to come over to our apartment and catch up?”