She closes the distance between us and begins pounding her fists against my arms and chest. “Get off my property, you son of a bitch!” she screams.

The officer grabs her by the arms and motions his eyes to my truck. “For the last time, Nash. Go back to school.”

Laura is thrashing in his arms, trying to break free. She’s not even fazing him as he keeps her in a tight grip. This seems so normal to him; it makes me wonder if she’s called the cops on me before.

“But…what about Charlie?” I’m confused as to why no one else seems to be concerned about her. Especially her own mother.

“Like her mother said, she’s probably at school,” he says. “At any rate, she’ll show up to the game tonight. We’ll talk there.”

I nod, but I know good and well I’m not going back to the school. I’m taking my bag of Charlie’s secrets and I’m going straight to my house to find more.

Chapter 2: Silas

The first thing I do when I walk through the door to my home is pause. None of it looks familiar, not even the pictures on the walls. I wait for a few seconds, letting everything sink in. I could search the house or browse the pictures, but I’ve probably already done that. I’m on a time crunch, and if I want to figure out what happened to Charlie—what happened to us—I need to keep focused on the things we haven’t wasted time doing before.

I find my bedroom and walk straight to the closet—to the shelf that contains all the other stuff we’ve collected. I dump everything out onto my bed, including the contents of the duffel bag. Sifting through it all, I try to figure out where to begin. There’s so much stuff. I grab a pen so I can make notes of anything I find that might be of use if I end up forgetting this all over again.

I know a lot of things about my relationship with Charlie as of late, but that seems to be it. I know almost nothing about how we got together or how our families were torn apart. I don’t know if any of that is even a factor in what’s happened to us, but I feel like the best place to start is from the beginning.

I grab one of the older-looking notes addressed to Charlie—something I wrote myself. It’s dated over four years ago and is just one of the many letters I grabbed from her attic. Maybe reading something from my point of view will help me figure out what type of person I am, even if this letter is over four years old.

I sit down on the bed and lean against my headboard, and I begin to read.

Charlie,

Can you recall a single time we went on vacation without each other? I’ve been thinking about that today. About how it’s never just my immediate family and me. It’s always both sets of our parents, Landon, Janette, you, and me.

One big happy family.

I’m not sure we’ve ever spent a holiday apart, either. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. We’ve always shared them together, either at our house or yours. Maybe that’s why I’ve never felt like it’s just been my little brother and me. I’ve always felt like I had a brother and two sisters. And I can’t imagine not feeling that way—like you’re part of my family.

But I’m scared that I’ve ruined that. And I don’t even know what to say to you, because I don’t want to apologize for kissing you last night. I know I should regret it, and I know I should be doing whatever I can to make up for the fact that I might have officially ruined our friendship, but I don’t regret it. I’ve wanted to make that mistake for a long time now.

I’ve been trying to figure out when my feelings for you changed, but I realized tonight that they haven’t changed. My feelings for you as my best friend haven’t changed at all—they’ve just evolved.

Yes, I love you, but now I’m in love with you. And instead of looking at you like you’re just my best friend, now you’re my best friend who I want to kiss.

And yes, I’ve loved you like a brother loves his sister. But now I love you like a guy loves a girl.

So despite that kiss, I promise nothing has changed between us. It’s just become something more. Something so much better.

Last night, when you were lying next to me on this bed, looking up at me in breathless laughter, I couldn’t help myself. So many times you’ve taken my breath away or made it feel like my heart was trapped inside my stomach. But last night was more than any fourteen-year-old boy could handle. So I took your face in my hands and I kissed you, just like I’ve been dreaming of doing for over a year now.

Lately, when I’m around you, I feel too drunk to speak to you. And I’ve never even tasted alcohol before, but I’m sure kissing you is what being drunk feels like. If that’s the case, I’m already worried for my sobriety because I can see myself becoming addicted to kissing you.

I haven’t heard from you since the moment you pulled yourself out from under me and walked straight out of my bedroom last night, so I’m beginning to worry that you don’t remember that kiss like I do. You haven’t answered your phone. You haven’t responded to my texts. So I’m writing you this letter in case you need to be reminded of how you really feel about me. Because it seems like you’re trying to forget.

Please don’t forget, Charlie.

Never allow your stubbornness to talk you into believing that our kiss was wrong.

Never forget how right it felt when my lips finally touched yours.

Never stop needing me to kiss you like that again.

Never forget the way you pulled closer—wanting it to feel like my heart was beating inside your chest.