She was six when he, at eight years old, moved in. She sat on her pink bike, training wheels helping her balance as a white moving truck backed into the driveway across the street and watched with equal interest as a red van pulled up alongside the street. Men began parading the items into the house and Emma was surprised when the boy caught her staring.

She invited him over to see her treehouse. The pair were instant friends, spending most of their days playing pirate ship or house. Alex was really into stars, he would point out the window at the night sky and explain the different constellations and Emma would listen in awe, adding bits of her own imagination to the mix. The two grew inseparable, spending many of their summer nights camping out in the treehouse with flashlights or glow sticks. It was the kind of easy friendship that entailed sharing popsicles on a hot summer day and chalk drawing contests and rolling around in the prickly grass.

She was eight when her mother passed away. After the wake, she found herself unable to go back into what was once her favorite place to be. Home. Instead, she let the other mourners with their pans of food, in a similar fashion to the movers from years before, parade into the house.

Her treehouse hung on the branches of several ancient trees. Tears clouded her vision, making it nearly impossible to climb the planks of wood nailed into the trunk leading to the small wooden box, but she did it and that's where she remained, curled into a ball in the far corner until Alex found her. He had grown to love Emma's mother. She had always offered him snacks and indulged him and Emma with fun surprises. They had been all over town, visiting the roller rink one weekend and a series of art and science museums the next. She was a second mother, someone to hold on to after the loss of his own mother only weeks before.

"Emma?"

"Go away."

"I'm sorry for your loss." Alex listened for some kind of acknowledgment, but there was a heavy silence that permeated the confined walls of the small building in the branches.

"She…she can't be gone," Emma murmured. Alex was about to correct her, but thought better of it and instead crawled across the planks and seated himself beside her. Emma sucked in a breath, her body visibly shaking in the soft glow of sunset. The two remained in silence, leaning on each other and wondering whether the pain would ever end.

She was eleven when he refused to attend her birthday party. She stood in a bright polka-dot dress that swished when she twirled. She had been so excited to show Alex; she hadn't seen much of him now that he was off in a different school. No bus rides together or lazy days spent splashing in the pool or creating plays to put on for their respective stuffed animal collections. They had not even had a sleepover since the summer her mother passed.

She waited for him to come through the door, her face falling every time a classmate appeared instead. She even put off cutting the cake for as long as possible and pestered her father about the invitation even though she had hand-delivered it.

At the end of the party, as soon as the last person filed out, Emma escaped the deflated balloons and mess of wrapping paper.

"Emma?" Alex peaked his head through the hole in the floorboards of the treehouse.

"Go away," Emma replied curtly, wiping her face. She was humiliated and didn't want to make herself appear any more hurt.

"I just wanted to say Happy Birthday."

"You're too late." Alex crawled towards her, present in hand.

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it, but I brought a present for you." Emma couldn't help her curiosity. She looked over at him and the gift.

"What is it?"

"Open it." Carefully, Emma took the package, which upon closer expectation, had been wrapped haphazardly with a good amount of tape and newspaper. In the box sat a braided leather bracelet with her name stamped into the brown leather.

"I got it at the gift shop at that art institute downtown"

"Really?"

"Yep." Emma had only been there once, back when her mother was alive with Alex. Emma traced her finger along the imprint of her name, the leather was thick and smelled like her father's briefcase. She held out her wrist and asked if he would help her put it on, which he obliged. She examined the look of it on her wrist, admiring the simplicity and enjoying the softness of it rubbing against her skin.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Alex, why didn't you come to my party?" He sucked in a breath. How could he tell her that he was too old to be playing with her? That his friends had seen them walking to get ice cream the previous summer and had teased him endlessly. She was both two and half years younger than him and a girl.

"Listen, Emma, I'm getting older now…"

"So am I," Emma replied. He realized she was going to make him say it.

"Well…It's not exactly "cool" for me to be seen hanging out with you."

"What?" Emma sounded as if she had just had the wind knocked out of her. Her voice cracked. "What do you mean?"

"It's not like I don't want to be your friend, but-"

"Oh."

Alex snapped his mouth shut, seeing the anger light in Emma's eyes as understanding dawned on her. She ripped the bracelet from her wrist, throwing it haphazardly towards Alex, and pushed herself up and past him in a mad scramble to get out of the treehouse.

She was 16 when she had her heartbroken. When Emma entered high school, their circles seemed to overlap. The town was small and everyone knew everyone else for as long as she could remember and now, they were at an age where it was okay to have both guys and girlfriends. Emma and Alex found themselves thrown together on more than one occasion, Alex tagging along with his friends to a frozen yogurt shop or a small pizzeria and meeting up with Emma and her group of friends.

A coldness lingered in the air between the two neighbors. Superficially they were nice to each other, asking the right questions, but always only scratching the surface without ever delving into their past. As the years went on, the fight seemed to grow sillier and sillier, but Emma had her pride to hang on to and she didn't need Alex anymore. She had plenty of friends, everyone wanted to be her. Or with her.

One evening, Alex was sitting at his desk working on a paper for class when he heard shouts from outside. His window had a straight view out the front of the house and to Emma's across the street. But the noise was coming from down below where he recognized her smaller stature standing outside the driver's side of a tan jeep. The arguing was a jumble of sounds until he unmistakably heard Emma tell the man to F*ck himself before storming off. With a screech of tires, the car took off down the darkened neighborhood while Emma's figure, rather than headed inside, slipped around back.

"Emma?"

"Go away." Even though the circumstances were different, Alex couldn't help but remember the several other times the two had been in exactly this position with him checking in on her, who, true to her form, was curled into the corner. Alex pulled himself up and sat at the entrance, maintaining a distance between them.

"Emma-"

"Alex, I don't need this right now," Emma replied sharply with a sniff. Even in the moonlight, he could see her eyes were already bloodshot and her voice was hoarse from the screaming match. Instead of continuing, his attention was pulled in another direction. Inches from him sat the leather bracelet from several years before. Huh. He picked it up, tracing over the lettering. It was faded and worn, a mixture of sunlight and rain leaking through the slats above over the course of several seasons had taken a sad toll.

After several minutes and more sniffling, Emma looked up and spotted the bracelet. A flashback to the last time she was in the treehouse hit her but she was too tired to do anything more than look away.

"Do you remember when I gave this to you?" Alex ventured into the darkness. Emma only scoffed and crossed her arms, instead choosing to look beyond him and out the window at the night sky. Alex turned his attention to the window as well. The stars shone brightly, the moonlight shooting a beam of light across the floorboards, reflecting off the small spots of paint still clinging to the wood while most had been weathered away. Alex slowly leaned forward, moving towards her, checking for an indication that it would be unwelcome. When she noticed and did nothing, he crawled over to her and resituated himself so he was facing the window. They sat side by side, Emma pulled her knees to her chest, her tears dried up.

"I'm sorry," Alex whispered, eyes trained on the window.

"Whatever, we were bound to break up sooner or later, he was a self-centered ass-"

"No, not that. I mean about what I did to you all those years ago."

"We were just kids, it doesn't matter now." At this, Alex turned to face her, trying to read her expression. A golden strand fell out of place and he found himself automatically brushing it aside. The shock from his touch caused her to look away again.

"Emma, I was a complete idiot. Please,"

"There's nothing to say. We can't exactly go back to the good o'le days." She attempted a playfulness that didn't quite reach her eyes and pulled her knees closer, a cool breeze sent a shiver down her spine and goosebumps along her arm. Alex quickly pulled off his sweatshirt, one of his father's old Notre Dame ones, and offered it to Emma. She looked at him, a silvery spotlight casting his shadow across the enclosed space. He was in a plain-white long-sleeved t-shirt. Emma hesitated before pulling it over her.

"Thanks." A silence fell over them again, dense with things unspoken, with feelings unexpressed, with all the time they spent apart.

"Emma, I don't want things to go back the way they were,"

"Oh."

"No, That's not- Emma," He began again, frustrated that he was being misunderstood. "Emma," he began again, softer. "Emma." She turned towards him at the repeated utterance of her name.

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more, but you know me. After all this time, after all we've been through, you must know that I have loved-" In a split second, Emma's hand was twisting the fabric of his shirt as she closed the already small gap between them, pulling his mouth to hers. He was stiff for a split second before melting into her. His hands reached up, bracing her lips against his own. Soon everything and nothing were the same as before. They were surrounded by relics of their past, and yet, neither could have predicted their futures would lead them back to each other, nor in such a physical way, to say the least. He had inched closer until she was propped against the wall of the treehouse, stopping so that she could situate herself more comfortably.

Breathless, they remained inches from each other, Emma's arms draped around his neck while he used the pads of his thumb to rub at some stray lipgloss. Her lips were as swollen as his felt. "Hey," She whispered. "I love you too."