1.

I wouldn't have seen him return home had it not been for the fight with Mom. I've been home less than a day and am already biting back words that would hurt both of us. There is only so much I can take. Dad hasn't lived in this house for years but that doesn't make him any less of a inconvenience in her eyes. He has his faults but then don't we all.

The only breathing space I can find is the porch swing with the stars and the hot, damp breeze of an incoming storm for company. I hear the rumble of an engine and watch as yellow headlights shine onto the Miller's jacaranda, startling the tabby sleeping underneath as the car turns into Crescent Grove. There are eight houses crammed into this dead end street, homes filled with families who have lived here for generations, neighbours who have known me since the day I was born.

I track the car's movement subconsciously, a moth drawn to the light. It's only when it stops at number 14, I finally wake up.

The slam of the door shatters the quiet and echoes in my chest as the passenger gets out. I can't see clearly enough at first but it only takes a second for everything to align. There are some things you never forget. Things so etched into your soul that without them you would cease to exist as the person you are.

It's the way he stands in front of the house—head tilted down, hand rubbing the back of his neck. A gesture I know for what it really is, not nerves or fear, but shame. I know his eyes will not willingly focus on anything but the ground. I slowly recognise every hazy line of him. He's not changed since the last time I saw him a lifetime ago.

The years slip away to minutes and I feel like the heartbroken teenager I was on the day he was arrested. The boy who'd turned eighteen only a week earlier. The boy who knew me better than anyone else, who was everything to me.

A boy who killed my best friend.