I haven't said his name aloud in eight years. Not once. I learned quickly that grief becomes easier when you stop giving it a voice. People think mourning is about remembering someone, but it isn't. It's about learning which memories you can survive touching and which ones you have to leave buried. His was the second kind. My best friend. My first love. The person whose death carved something permanent into me. I watched him die when we were sixteen. I remember the attack with horrifying clarity—the cold concrete against my palms, the metallic taste in my mouth, his screams, my hands shaking so badly I could barely move. I remember the blood pooling beneath him. I remember holding him while he went still. I remember screaming for help until my throat tore apart. What I don't remember is what happened afterward. Everyone says that's because I was in shock. Maybe they're right. Maybe trauma has a cruel sense of humor.

The letter arrives on a Thursday.

No return address. No explanation. Just my name written across the envelope in handwriting I haven't seen since I was sixteen. I stare at it for nearly ten minutes before opening it. Inside is a photograph. At first, I don't understand what I'm looking at. Then my lungs forget how to work. It's him. Not a resemblance. Not someone who looks like him. Him. Older, obviously. Twenty-four instead of sixteen. His face is sharper. There are scars I don't recognize running along his jaw and disappearing beneath his collar. His hair is longer. His eyes are tired. But they're his eyes. The same eyes that looked at me from beneath blood-soaked lashes eight years ago.

I turn the photograph over. Five words are written on the back. You remember it wrong, Elias. My hands start shaking. Because suddenly, I remember something else. Not him dying. All the suppressed feelings I had for him.