"Hi. Good afternoon," I greeted the front desk officer. "We're looking for Brian Alvarez."

Bianca and I were at The Madrigal Mansion—Brian's grandparent's hotel. He had told us that he was currently working as an intern at the hotel. We were a little more than a month away from our reunion, and Bianca and I decided to visit Brian.

The front desk officer, who looked like my age, seemed a little surprised. She blinked at me before answering, "Uh—he's in the café."

I slowly nodded my head and she cleared her throat. "It's down the hall on the right," she continued, pointing in the direction of the café.

"Okay, thanks," I replied, and she smiled politely at me so I smiled back at her.

I tugged Bianca's arms and we walked away from the front desk.

"Did you see that girl? Do you think she's an intern?"

Bianca, without much thought, immediately looked back at the front desk.

"What are you doing?" I asked, alarmed.

"I was texting so I didn't notice her. But she's watching us and yeah I think she's an intern."

"She is?" I asked, taking a glance back at the front desk.

"Yeah, before she quickly bowed down her head when I glanced at her," she giggled.

We entered the glass door on the right. There were a few customers inside the café and I scanned the room looking for a guy standing at 5'8 with his hoodie and ripped jeans, and signature messy just-got-out-of-bed hair. Although I highly doubt, he would look like that today as he was an intern at the hotel.

Brian was nowhere to be seen, so Bianca and I approached the counter to order some food first.

"I'll have a slice of blueberry cheesecake," I mumbled after reading the baked goodies list off the menu. "How about you?"

"Do you think their spaghetti is spicy?" Bianca asked.

"I doubt that but—"

"Hey! Look who we got here," I heard Brian's voice. "How you doin' girls?"

We both spun on our heels and turned to see Brian with his usual grin. His hair was brushed neatly and he was wearing a uniform. He placed his hand on my shoulder and pulled me into a brief hug. I patted his back in return. He pulled back, only to wrap his arms around Bianca, whose eyes widen for a moment before giving the former a gentle hug.

He ordered food for us and told us that it was on the house. We sat on the high stool at the table by the large window overlooking the veranda and parking lot outside. I spotted Brian's car parked beside a blue station wagon.

We talked about the upcoming reunion. It would be happening next month, two days after the Eastview graduation ceremony. The Eastview administration was glad to know that we would be having the reunion at school.

"Did you know someone from our class is getting married already?" Bianca asked Brian.

"No way," Brian laughed. "For real?"

Bianca gave her phone to Brian, showing the wedding announcement of one of our high school classmates.

"Oh, it's real," Brian commented. "Wow. I cannot believe it. How are they getting married already?"

"I couldn't believe it either," I interjected.

"I never pictured him to be the first one from our batch to get married," he said. "We are getting older. Things are kinda...changing."

I nodded. "Yeah."

It was scary how fast some things change. And I had a handful of experiences when it came to changes. I started to wonder what else had changed in my classmates.

Has everything changed?

I watched Brian as he teased Bianca. He hadn't changed, in terms of being carefree and fun. Also, we were still close friends after all these years.

It gave me a little hope that maybe, things hadn't changed that much.

"Their wedding is next month and they'll have a week-long out-of-town honeymoon and unfortunately, our reunion falls on their honeymoon," Bianca said.

"So, he can't come," Brian stated the obvious.

"I think two or three others also confirmed they can't make it to the reunion," Bianca added, looking up from her phone. "I wish we could be complete on that day."

"Yeah, me too. It would be nice to have everyone," Brian agreed. Then he turned to me and asked, "But don't you want to know if he is coming?"

He might not say the name I knew who we were talking about.

My heart thumped excitedly as an image of a certain boy appeared on my mind. It was the same boy whose arms were around my shoulder in my pink photo frame and I couldn't help but smile.

"He's coming, right?" I asked Bianca for confirmation.

I might be a part of the committee, but I wasn't hands-on about the list of our classmates who confirmed to attend the reunion. The last time I checked, I knew he was coming.

But things could happen and sometimes people change their minds, so I wasn't sure.

"I think so. Elisa said he confirmed right away. He's not that active in our group chat but he participated in the polls."

"Okay..." Brian nodded. He gave me a sideways glance and added, "But he's still in Australia right now."

I shrugged and glanced at Bianca who was busy texting on her phone.

"Oh, before I forgot, are we really not going to bring some drinks? Wine?" Brian asked.

I shook my head and replied, "No."

Brian gave an exaggerated disappointed sigh.

"The school strictly said not to bring any sorts of alcohol."

"Boring."

"The last batch who held a reunion there got wasted and let's just say the party didn't end well."

"Besides, not everyone in our class can drink," Bianca added, looking up from her phone. "Myself included."

Brian laughed. "You drink but you always get drunk. Kane can't drink."

I gave him a pointed look.

"What?" he asked, smirking. "Okay, you can drink but only like three shots."

6 years ago

"Happy birthday, Brian!" we had shouted all together.

We had been at Brian's hiding place, at least it's what he used to call it. It was like a studio-type house in their backyard. Brian had always joked that his parents prepared this for him, so if they ever kicked him out in the middle of the night, he wouldn't be sleeping out on the streets.

We loved hanging out at Brian's place because it felt like we have a private house all to ourselves. Today, he prepared a variety of chips, his favorite nachos, and salsa, overloaded pizza, and he prepared a gin and juice mix.

"Can you believe that we're already in our last year in high school?" I asked as Miguel refilled the ice bucket.

"Nope. I don't think I'm ready to enter college next year," Bianca answered.

"Can we extend one more year in high school?" Lily asked. "Honestly, I don't want another year in high school. I just don't want to get separated from you guys yet."

"We'll still hang out in college," Miguel assured us as he sat beside Brian.

The latter opened another pack of chips and handed it to me. I'm not so much into chips and all sorts of junk foods so I passed it to Lily.

"I can't wait to get to college so I can finally live without Lily. Come on, since kindergarten with this girl? I need a break," Brian joked.

"I'm with both of you since kindergarten," I reminded him.

"Yeah, but I like you better than Lily."

Lily glared at him before saying, "Ah, the silver lining. Going to school knowing that there won't be a Brian Annoying Alvarez."

"Didn't expect a comeback from her, didn't you?" Jeff asked, smiling.

Brian scrunched his nose and nodded.

"But since it's your birthday, I'll stop there, birthday boy," Lily chuckled.

"I think I should say thanks but I won't."

Lily punched Brian's arm playfully and the latter didn't even squirm.

"But guys, seriously, it's my birthday and we're talking about separating. Come on. We'll still hang out in college. That's a promise. For now, let's just have a good time."

We played a couple of rounds of spin the bottle before the bottle finally pointed at me.

"You gotta drink it all up," Brian prodded and gave me a half-filled glass of gin and juice.

"Go, Kane. Go Kane..." they started chanting.

My heartbeat rapidly and my palms started to sweat. It was silly. I wasn't scared of drinking. It was the pressure that they were cheering me on and expecting me to down everything.

I took the glass from the table and noticed Vino shifted beside me. I turned my head to look at him and noticed his pupils were dilated as he stared at me.

"Can you drink it?" he asked in a low voice.

I nodded, slowly lifting the glass to my lips.

"You don't have to drink it if you can't," he added.

But I sipped the liquor, trying to gauge if I could drink it. It was citrusy but it had a bitter aftertaste. I gulped everything so we could get over it and moved on to the next lucky drinker. But I couldn't handle the aftertaste and I ended up gagging.

"Maybe we should lessen Kane's next drinks," Vino suggested.

"That's not fair," I protested.

"I'm just looking after you."

There was a momentary silence and I could feel the rest of the squad exchanging glances.

"Okay..." Brian started, cutting off the awkwardness.

"That seems fair," Miguel agreed.

I rolled my eyes at them and crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"It's alright, Kane. We don't want you to puke later on anyway," Lily chuckled.

Vino placed his hand on top of my head and ruffled my hair. "Calm down, my moody girl. I think everyone knows you always drink the least."