The only perk to working out alone is music, which I blasted for the duration of my one-mile jog in the park near my house. The world no longer mattered with each heavy step on the sidewalk, weighed down by my wandering thoughts.

I find myself drained as I plop down on an empty bench, despite my ability to go another mile or two. Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined Axel's warm smile or motivational comments. I even missed his cocky one-liners from when we first met, when the gap between our abilities couldn't have been wider.

Now the gap is physical, as I have no idea when we'll see each other again.

I scroll through my phone mindlessly, finding a few missed notifications. One is a text from Mina, and I consider deleting the message before even reading it. I give it a chance, pushing my pettiness aside.

Hey, now that you're back do you think we could talk?

Like in person? I get it if not

I gaze off into the distance, ignoring the young couple running side by side. I'm not sure how much I have to lose by saying yes.

I'm at Green Laurel Park right now

You can just meet me there if that works

Oh, I'm not too far

But are you sure you don't want to meet up at Sweet Treat?

I'm sure

She takes longer than she claimed she would to arrive here, but I'm too tired to even pull myself off the bench. After twenty minutes, she runs down the grass, clad in a white tennis set and visor.

"Do you—is it okay if I sit?" She points to the extra space next to me warily, and I nod and scoot over. "I know it's been a while."

"It's been more than a while, Mina," I say, folding my arms over my slightly damp black T-shirt. "Let's not pretend like everything is normal between us."

"I'm not," she says, smoothing out the pleats in her skirt. "That's why I wanted to talk. Look, Whitney, I get you're still upset, but I don't want that old drama to define our friendship. I still like having you in my life."

"Were we ever really friends, Mina?" I ask, meeting her striking brown eyes. "You wouldn't have used me the way you did if you had actually valued that friendship."

"I admitted I was wrong, Whitney," she sighs, looking away. "I don't know how much time you need to see that I'm sorry, and I regret it. I would never be that petty again."

I lose some of my case now that she's apologized, but I'm still aggrieved. "Look, Mina, even if I do get over it, I bet that once you move to LA next month, you're not going to remember me. Our friendship was never as deep as we thought it was, as hard as it is to admit."

"That's not true—"

"Even if it's not true in the first month, it will be eventually. Come on, Mina, when have you ever been there for me when I was down? Or when have I ever learned any of your secrets? What did we even talk about for four years straight?"

She doesn't say anything for several minutes, and I start to regret my words, realizing I could have phrased my point differently.

But then, she...agrees?

"I guess you're right, Whitney. There are some things I never told you...that sometimes I wish I did."

"Like what?"

She freezes, seeming to have expected I wouldn't be so curious. Her gaze grows more distant, now lost in the mass of maple trees to our right. I worry she may never speak at all, but after a minute, her lips part and soft words come out.

"Like the real reason I was so hurt by Adriana's rumor," she says, her voice almost inaudible. "I didn't sleep with my coach, Whitney. He harassed me, for months. I was barely seventeen...and he was thirty."

My heart cracks in half at the dead look in her eyes. "Oh no, Mina. No. Don't tell me he's still around."

She shakes her head. "No. He quit and moved states at the end of last summer, and a woman took his place. But that lie Adriana spread around killed the last of my hopes. How could I have spoken up about him when almost everyone I knew thought I was a whore?"

"You should have told me," I say, watching a single tear trickle down her cheek. "You know how many people my dad knows. One good lawyer, and that guy would have been done for."

"Whitney," she says and swallows a gulp, "my mom and uncle are both lawyers. I knew very well who could have helped me, but there are other reasons I kept my mouth shut. As fucked up at it is...I didn't need my name plastered all over a scandal when I was trying to secure a D1 offer."

I open my mouth to refute her statement but realize I can't make her do anything, especially when I know she's still traumatized. "Adriana didn't actually know the truth, did she?"

"Fuck Adriana," she breathes, ignoring my question. "And anyone who still hangs out with her. Do you know I cut her and Willow and all their airheads friends off while you were gone? I haven't had a longer period of my life to actually use my brain and not my phone, which is why you might have thought I was ignoring you."

"Let's not talk about irrelevant people anymore," I mumble, having had the opposite of a social detox this summer. I stand up and hold out a hand, not wanting her to sit here and fall deeper into her misery, as I'm close to doing the same. "How do some smoothies sound right now?"

"Smoothies?" She wrinkles her nose. "Are you sure you want to put an end to our ice cream tradition? I actually liked that part of our friendship."

"Welcome to the dark side," I joke and drag her off the bench. "I'm in too deep right now."

She laughs and wipes the last bit of wetness from her eyes. "Smoothies it is, then."

***

When I come home later in the evening, I expect familiar emptiness to greet me.

Instead, I hear the hum of light laughter coming through the back of the kitchen. I creep across the hardwood and stick my head out of the door. I have to blink twice when I see my two parents.

I can't remember the last time I saw them this carefree, sitting on two deck chairs and sharing some pizza and wine. By instinct, my mom senses someone lurking in the background and catches my face, now behind the screen door.

"Whitney, come join us. There's still some pizza left over."

I hold up a hand. "Oh no, I'm good. I'd hate to interrupt."

"You're not interrupting anything," my dad chimes in, setting down his glass of Pinot noir. "I've barely seen you since you came back."

I oblige and step outside, finding an extra chair already set up from before. My mom pushes a slice of Margherita pizza towards me, and I eye it warily, before figuring one splurge won't ruin all of my progress.

"Did you two ever take that trip you were planning?" I ask, setting the plate down on my lap. "The one Dad mentioned a couple weeks ago."

"Funny you ask, since we postponed it to this weekend," my mom replies and goes for another slice. "You'll probably have the house all to yourself, since Poppy is out with her old friends from high school."

All to myself. At first, the prospect of more loneliness pains me, but then I realize this weekend could be the perfect time to—

"Is something the matter, honey?" My mom pulls me out of my thoughts. "You've been a little off ever since you came home."

I'm more than off, but how can I explain exactly what's plaguing my mind? It has a lot more to do with the man in front of me than anything that happened at the camp.

"You could say so," I say and make up an excuse. "I guess I'm just a little nervous for college next month."

"Oh, come on, Whit, I have no worries about you when it comes to school," my dad says, looking up from the email app on his phone. "Besides, you can always play the 'my dad is an alum' card if the school gives you any trouble."

"Jason," my mom snaps, but even she cracks a smile at his casually nepotistic suggestion. "Ignoring that advice, I also think you'll be just fine. You might even like these years more than high school—at least I did."

I smile and nod along, unsure if I should waste this precious opportunity of having my two parents to myself on frivolous conversation. There are so many questions I could ask, accusations I could make, thoughts I could make known. I decide to take the less straightforward route.

"You know, I've always wondered," I say, darting my eyes between the two of them, "if New York brings back so many bad memories, why were you both so willing to let Poppy and me go to college there?"

My dad grips the stem of his glass a little harder, looking to the right at my mom. She doesn't meet his gaze and picks at the crust of her half-eaten slice.

"I don't think that's much of a question," she says softly. "Why would we deny you both great educational opportunities?"

"Of course," I say, unable to refute her point, despite knowing both of them are aware of what I'm getting at. "I just think it's odd we avoided the city for most of my childhood despite living only an hour away."

"We visited when we needed to," my dad cuts in, leaning forward in his chair, "but this is our home now, Whitney."

I shrug, feeling bolder. "Is this really our home, when you spend more time away from it than inside of it, Dad?"

"You know very well we wouldn't live the life we do without my job," he says calmly, glaring at me through his black-rimmed glasses. I tear my face away when I notice his eyes are only a shade away from Axel's golden-hazel ones. "Or your mother's, for the matter."

"You know I'm not ungrateful. I just wonder how useful escaping actually is, if everything comes full circle eventually..."

A sigh escapes my dad's mouth, and he gazes off at the array of trees that separate our property from the one behind it. He looks back at me. "I have a feeling I know what you're talking about, but why are you so curious right now? What's changed, Whitney?"

"Nothing has." Except me. "I just think I'm a little too old now to be kept in the dark about what made us leave our old life behind."

"You know why, honey," my mom says, sitting on the edge of her seat. "Our life in New York just wasn't sustainable."

"You know that's not the truth, Jennifer," my dad cuts in, taking both of us by surprise. He runs his fingers over the graying edges of his hair and looks into my intent eyes. "I did want to escape, Whitney, because my life wasn't forming me into the person I wanted to be. And...quite frankly, I still don't think I'm that person. Especially with you."

I suck in a breath, feeling the whole atmosphere change, a cool breeze starting to flow. "Do you think it's too late, Dad?"

"No, I don't," he says softly. "It's never too late, as long as you're still here."

I have a feeling the "you" in "you're" doesn't refer to me, making me wonder if he knows I'm no longer blissfully unaware of the past.

I send a small smile back to him and say nothing else, hoping today might be the start of something new between us.