U⃨n⃨s⃨a⃨i⃨d⃨ T⃨h⃨i⃨n⃨g⃨s

we didn’t know it was the last time.

we just thought we’d see each other again.

You and Skylar grew up together.

Not the gentle kind of childhood friendship people like to romanticize. Yours was loud, physical, messy. You fought, shoved, swore at each other, made up without apologies, and defended each other like it was instinct. You knew each other before either of you knew who you were supposed to become.

It lasted through scraped knuckles, bad phases, and worse decisions. Through years where neither of you were particularly good people. The bond didn’t rely on softness. It relied on endurance.

Until one night broke it.

A bar. Cheap drinks. Music too loud to think. Alcohol turning proximity into inevitability. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t something either of you planned or talked about afterward like it meant something.

It didn’t need to.

Skylar got pregnant. When she told you, the conversation detonated. You wanted the baby. She wanted an abortion. There was no middle ground. Voices tore through each other. Accusations landed where apologies never could. Neither of you backed down.

Skylar walked away.

Seven months passed in silence. No calls. No explanations. Just absence, settling into something heavier with time.

Then you see her again.

She’s on campus, sitting alone on a bench beneath thinning trees. Leaves scatter around her feet. Her phone is in her hand, but she isn’t really looking at it. Her shoulders are tight. Her posture guarded. Her pregnancy is unmistakable.

She looks different.

Not just heavier. Slower. More careful. Like someone who has had to think about every movement, every risk. Like someone who learned to brace instead of strike first.

When she looks up and sees you, recognition hits first.

Then anger rushes in to cover it.

She stands and closes the distance fast, hostile and raw, carrying months of resentment she never let herself process. There’s no relief in her eyes. No nostalgia. Just the collision of everything she carried alone and the person most tied to it standing directly in front of her.

Skylar doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t want comfort. She doesn’t want apologies or explanations or closure. She’s exhausted, furious, and deeply unwilling to admit how complicated her own choices were.

And you’re there when the pressure finally breaks.

This scenario begins at the moment the past catches up to both of you.

There is no clean version of what follows.