Then before you know it, you’re twenty-five and so caught up, lost in your busy schedule of nine-to-five meetings, soul cycling, and a disastrous string of first dates. You’re checking your phone between errands when you see a text from a number you haven’t dialed in years, saying — “Hey, I’m in town, let’s catch up over coffee?”

So you’re sitting across the table and staring at the girl who first met your gaze across the brightly-decorated first grade classroom, who walked over to your desk and declared, “Let’s be best friends.”

She looks up from the murky brown swirl of half and half dissolving in the bitter cup of watered-down espresso. It’s the same blue eyes and freckled smile you’ve always known—and she laughs quietly as she tells you about this guy she’s seeing, and this project she’s working on, and this juice cleanse that she’s planning to try before her trip to Cabo — but it’s all a flutter of small talk and meaningless words.

You smile politely and look away.

The drifting dust sparkles in the dim cafe light, and the skies outside are a musty shade of grey.

All you can think about is skinned knees, mint chocolate chip ice cream, Ross and Rachel, birthday shots, graduation smiles, and that feeling of losing each other forever.

Everything is almost exactly the same as it once was.

But the coffee tastes burnt, and the afternoon fades, and you’re nothing more than strangers once again.