So when she said, “I’ve been seeing someone… you remember Ethan, right?” I actually laughed, thinking she was joking. There was no way she would do that. Not after knowing what he meant to me as a child. Not after hearing me confess my little kid feelings so earnestly.

But she wasn’t joking.

She smiled and said, “Isn’t it funny? You used to have such a crush on him.”

Funny. That was the word she chose.

From that moment on, everything felt wrong. She kept inviting me over, insisting we should “bond as a family.” Even when I met her alone, she couldn’t stop talking about him—how “mature” he was, how he “understood her better than men her age,” how refreshing it was to be with someone young and energetic.

Every sentence felt like salt in an old wound I hadn’t even known was still there.

What hurt most wasn’t jealousy. It was the feeling that something private and innocent from my childhood had been taken and turned into a joke I was now forced to sit through.

Eventually, I gave in and agreed to have dinner with them. I told myself I was being dramatic. I told myself I was an adult and could handle it.

I couldn’t.