'Take a look, at my face. For the last time. I never knew you, you never knew me. Say hello. Say goodbye.'
-David Grey

He sits down at your table, which is crowded with practice exams and Splenda wrappers; he looks like he hasn't slept in a month. He leafs through your textbook, bored eyes glazing over the numerical equations, looks at you and says, 'Christ, H, I'd rather edit the bloody thing.' Heads swivel in your direction at the accent, reminiscent of Manchester United and enviable jagged-sharp wit, much in the same way they always did. The way they always do. Your face breaks into a smile you immediately wish with a vengeance you could undo. Because this is the thing. This, is the point. You always smiled. You always laughed. You always bought in, and you paid full price. And this time, the cost was so high it left you begging on the street corner in ratty clothes with a tin can.

'You've hurt me,' you say in a voice that unwittingly takes on the tone of a child, and the moment the words escape your dry mouth, you realize how pathetically hollow they sound. Because he knows. Because he always knew.

He leans forward. He leans too close.

"I know," he says.

You kick open your own floodgates now, start rambling about the moral integrity that used to be yours, how you were tricked, lied to, used. You launch into a bitter tirade of a tainted history, of misinterpreted tears and shallow fears. Of cars and houses, of wives and friends, of careers and plane tickets. Of oceans and ignorance.

"I'm sorry that it was you," he says, tears welling in his eyes. Tears filled with salt you would rob, if you could. "I wish it had been anyone but you."

You tell him to leave and don't mean it. Because as he looks into your face and stands to turn away, you know that you have been forever changed. That he holds a piece of you that you will spend many years to come, trying desperately to get back.

And yet, the truth remains. Because the truth is, you probably wouldn't have had it any other way.