Solstice

There are stories that don't look like endings until you realize they've already ended.
They were the kind of friends people noticed.
Not because they were loud or dramatic,
but because they were constant.
Like the sky and the sea, different, yet always meeting somewhere at the edge.
No one could quite define them.
Not even themselves.

They grew up side by side.
Bruised knees, inside jokes, late afternoon walks with no destination.
People said it wouldn't last. That eventually, one would outgrow the other.
But it didn't feel that way. Not then.
He once told her something he wasn't supposed to say. She smiled like she didn't hear it. He laughed like he didn't mean it.
And they kept going.

They made it through childhood, through middle school, through everything that should've pulled them apart.
Until suddenly, it did.
Not a fight. Not betrayal.
Just... life.