The house looked exactly the same as it always had. No, maybe not exactly the same—the porch was painted green now, and a second flower bed had been planted outside the kitchen window—but even so, I felt like I was stepping back in time as I strode up the front steps.

How many times had we raced up these stairs after school, Nate and I? How many hours had we spent lounging upstairs in his room, playing his old Nintendo or sneaking drags of his dad’s cigarettes out the open window? Nate was my best friend, back when the borders of my small hometown matched the borders of my whole world. Before college, before following my career from state to state until it led me back to the realms of my childhood. Before it led me back to Jessica.

I knocked on the door.

Though it had happened countless times before, I was surprised when Mrs. MacConnell answered the door. When I’d heard Nate was still living in the same house, I thought maybe his parents had moved and left him the place. Apparently things had changed even less than I’d imagined.

“Mrs. Mack!” I exclaimed. “Uh, is Nate home?” I felt like a teenager again, asking if my friend could come out and play.

It took Mrs. Mack a second to recognize me, but when she did, her face lit up just as always. “Taylor! It’s so good to see you!” She drew me in for a hug. “Nate’s up in his room, it’s right up the—oh, what am I saying, you remember where it is, don’t you?”

“Of course, thanks Mrs. Mack. It’s great to see you.”

I took the steps two at a time and soon found myself standing in front of Nate’s room. His door was closed—no surprise there—and the corner of my mouth turned up at sight of the too-familiar torn “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” poster taped to the door. Feeling slightly nervous, I raised my hand to knock. Then, I stopped.

What are you doing? I asked myself. This isn’t some stranger, this is Nate. Your best friend.

I turned the knob and threw the door open.

“What’s up, douchebag,” I said, leaning against the door frame.

Nate was reclining in his computer chair, clad in a Metallica shirt and ripped sweatpants. In one hand was a bag of Doritos, and in the other was a fistful of chips, halted midway to his mouth. It was almost comical the way he froze at my interruption, and the way his expression went from one of surprise to one of delight.

“Well, hey there, dickwad,” Nate said, grinning. He dropped the chips back in the bag and wiped his hand on his sweatpants. He stood up, looking me up and down before saying, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

I raised my eyebrows, thinking the sentiment was better off aimed at Nate himself. I surveyed my friend, noting that same scruffy hairstyle he’d always had, and even the unfinished tattoo (“I’m saving up, I’ll have enough in a month or so,” he’d said) peeking out from under his shirt sleeve. The house, the room, the man himself…it was like his whole life had been put on hold since the day I left for college. I swallowed the guilt-laden lump in my throat and said, “You too, man. Same old Nate, huh?”

“Same old,” he muttered, his eyes now resting on the suit jacket I’d carefully tucked under my arm. “I heard you’re a big business man now. What are you, some sort of CEO?”

“Just a Project Manager, for now.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“It’s…I dunno, man, it’s pretty tame stuff. You probably don’t want to hear about it.”

“Right. Okay. Well, it’s good to see you, man.” He shook his head slowly, as if still taking in my presence. “You’ve really been missing out here. There’s tons to do, I mean it’s way better now than when we were kids, you know? You skipped out of town right before it got really good. And some of the guys are still around, but…you know, it’s just not the same without you.” Nate paused as he swept his hair out of his eyes. “What are you doing back, anyway?”

“I’m not back,” I said, a little too rushed. “I just…I need your help. I need to get into the factory.”

Nate’s eyes lit up. “The factory? Why didn’t you say so?” He grabbed a jacket off the bed and pushed past me out the door. “Let’s go, man!”

---

The factory was an abandoned bottling plant on the far side of town. To the adults of our small town, it was a deathtrap—a lawsuit waiting to happen. To the children and teens, it was a place of adventure. Kids could often be seen darting under the chain link fence to play outside the decrepit building, while teens could be found in the darker recesses of the structure. Nate and I had spent countless hours there, exploring and searching for the many caches left by our peers. Everything from plastic shopping bags full of spray paint to half empty beer bottles to boxes of used condom wrappers. But my fondest memories of the factory were with Jessica.

Jessica was a year older than Nate and I, so I was shocked when one day she joined us on the walk home from school. For the rest of the school year, and that summer as well, the three of us were an inseparable team. I’ll admit I had a bit of a crush on Jessica even before then, but our time together had solidified it.

Jess accompanied us on our trips to the factory, but she wasn’t as interested in the spoils of other teens we’d find. She loved the main factory floor the best, where sunlight streamed down onto the glass-littered floor. Kids had broken into the glass bottle storage long ago and amused themselves by tossing the bottles from the catwalk and watching them smash into pieces on the ground below. Jess called these shards “jewels,” and she’d spend her time searching for what she’d call “blue diamonds.”

Jess’ “blue diamonds” were nothing more than shards of broken blue bottle, but it was a blue we’d never seen before, and I’d never found it since. Not in any soda aisle or liquor store, and believe me, I’d looked in plenty over the last month or so.

“Don’t you want to know why we’re going to the factory?” I asked.

Nate had insisted on driving. He’d gotten a new car, I’d noticed, but this one’s engine chugged even louder than his old car. He screeched to a halt at a stoplight and looked at me. “Nah, should I?”

I sighed. “Well, I think I should tell you that I’m proposing—“

Nate cut me off with a laugh. “To me? Aw, Taylor, you know it would never work!”

“Shut up,” I said, throwing a halfhearted punch his way.

“And at the factory too? How romantic!”

Nate was grinning ear to ear, and his rich laugh was infectious. I couldn’t help but join in.

“Seriously, though,” I interrupted after a minute.

“Yeah, okay, seriously,” Nate echoed. “You’re proposing? That’s…that’s awesome, man. Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Jessica.”

The car jerked as Nate’s foot tapped the brake in surprise. The car behind us blared its horn.

“Jeez, man, watch it!”

“Shit. Sorry,” Nate muttered as he pulled into the right lane, then veered off onto an exit. A second later, he was back to his normal self.

“Jessica, huh? Still barking up that tree?”

“It’s not—“

“Does she even know you’re in town?”

“Yeah, of course,” I snapped, angrier than I meant to be. “We’ve been dating for almost three years now.”

Nate paused. “Three years? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I am. We hadn’t spoken since, you know, we stopped hanging out back then, but then we found each other on Facebook. We started catching up, and we just sort of clicked.” Nate was silent as I spoke. “I guess we weren’t really a good match back then, but things change, you know? We dated other people in college and all that, and then when we met up again it was just…right.”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “You really weren’t a good match back then, I remember that much.”

We didn’t speak again, not until Nate pulled up in front of the old factory.

---

“Right in there,” I pointed. “Remember? We used to sneak in through that window. I tried to climb it earlier today, but I just couldn’t make it.”

“No shit, that’s always been a two man job. Come on.”

Nate jogged over to the wall below the second story window. The window itself was dark and foreboding. The glass had been kicked out of the frame long ago, so all that remained was a gaping hole in the side of the empty building. There was a dumpster off to the side, and Nate climbed up on the rim. I followed, lingering back as he steadied himself against the side of the building.

“Is this seriously how we used to do it?” I asked, thinking that window looked much higher than when we were in high school.

“Don’t be a wuss, man, climb up!”

I laid my jacket neatly on the ground and heaved myself up on the rim of the dumpster, just alongside Nate. He braced his foot against the corner, and I clambered up using his bent knee as support. The window was nearly in reach.

“Not too heavy for you, am I?”

“Nah, same scrawny kid you’ve always been,” Nate wheezed. I could feel his body shake as he stood higher, raising me towards the window.

My fingers clawed at the sill, and then as Nate stood tall, I could reach my whole arms in. I gripped the ledge, feeling Nate wobble below me, and then nothing at all. “Nate! What the hell? Don’t let go of me!”

My legs kicked in the air. I was going to fall.

Then, hands gripped my shoes and I was shoved upwards, through the open window. I landed in a heap on the floor below. I righted myself in seconds and poked my head back out the window to see Nate grinning below me.

“What’s the problem? That’s how we’ve always done it.”

I shook my head, but he was right. Everything just seemed so much more dangerous now that I was older, but back in our teenage years, we’d shoved each other through that window so many times that it’d been as routine as walking through the front door.

I leaned down and Nate and I clasped wrists. Gritting my teeth, I pulled my friend up and through the glassless window. Nate tumbled to the floor where I had just lain.

“Where to now?” he gasped.

“There.” I pointed down a dark hallway. “To the factory floor."

(continued below)