Chapter 16

Dean’s POV

2006

We met the way kids meet — assigned seats, first grade, a teacher who put us at the same table because neither of us would stop talking to the kid next to us. Tristan gave me half his fruit snacks on the first day for no reason, and that was it. That was the whole deal. Some friendships start smaller than that.

For a long time, it really was just good. Bikes down the same street. Building forts that fell over. Scraping our knees on the gravel by the creek and wiping the dirt off on our jeans like it didn't hurt. Him teaching me how to skip rocks the summer I couldn't get the wrist angle right, patient about it in a way I didn't expect from an eight-year-old, not once making me feel stupid for not getting it.

"Keep your thumb flat," he'd tell me, adjusting my fingers himself. "Throw it across the water, not down into it."

I'd gladly tell you it stayed that simple. It didn't.