I palmed the back of my head as I watched him, waiting. Waiting for something. For some assurance, some promise that he would try to keep his crap under control, or at least try harder.

Instead his face took on a hard expression, the tendon in his neck straining. “I’m too old to change, Sal. I am the way I am,” he finally offered to me in a crisp voice.

“I don’t want you to change. All I want is for you to trust me a little. I’m not going to screw you over, and I don’t like giving up on things,” I told him in an exasperated voice.

And what did he say? Nothing. Not a single thing.

I’d never been a fan of people who talked a lot. I thought it was a person’s actions that really said what mattered. That was until I met Reiner Kulti, and I suddenly felt like stabbing myself in the eye.

My head gave a dull throb, a warning of a tension headache beginning. I suddenly realized this conversation was going nowhere. Exhaustion poured straight into my muscles, and for the first time in a long time, I felt defeated. I hated it.

But there comes a time when you have to listen to your gut and not your heart, and I did just that.

“Maybe we both have too much stuff going on right now. I’m overwhelmed, and I have no idea what I’m doing, and you have your own crap to work out. Maybe you need to figure out what you want to do with your life before we can keep being friends. If you even still want to be friends after this.” I told him.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth he looked outraged. Absolutely outraged. “Are you joking?”

I shook my head, grief coming down on me with such a force it made me want to cry. At the end of the day though, it was like he said: no one was going to watch out for me but me. “No.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it, and a second later he shook his head and was gone.

* * *

Kulti didn’t come to my house that day or the next.

When I started to feel a little guilty on Sunday afternoon, I sent him a text.

Sorry for what I said. I’m under a lot of stress and I shouldn’t have blamed you for my choices. You’re a great friend, and I won’t just give up on you.

He didn’t respond.

Then Monday came and he wasn’t at practice.

He wasn’t at practice Tuesday, either.

No one asked where he was. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

I sent him another message.

Are you alive?

No response.

* * *

Two things caught my attention when I pulled into the middle school’s parking lot.

There was a black Audi already there with familiar license plates.

Parked right next to it, was a big white box van.

Unsure whether to feel relieved that Kulti was still alive, or aggravated that the sauerkraut hadn’t texted me back once, I took a deep breath. I pulled into the parking spot, putting my Big Girl Socks on, though my instincts said that he more than likely hadn’t gone out of his way to show up for camp if he wanted to get into an argument.

At least that’s what I hoped.

I’d barely gotten out of the car and popped the trunk to grab my bag and the two cases of bottled water, when I heard steps come up behind me. I knew without turning around that it was him. Out of the corner of my eye, he stopped right beside me and pushed my hands away from the cases, hoisting them out.

“Tell me where to take them,” he said simply as his greeting.

All right. “Their field is in the back. Come on,” I said, shutting the trunk with my bag in hand.

We walked silently across the lot and down the paved path leading toward the field. Three teachers had volunteered and were providing the goals from the school’s existing sports equipment. I spotted two of them already there and made my way toward the table they had set up for registration.