Zach

Your whole life, it was just him and Dad. Dad worked from morning until night, and you were his little princess, vacuum-packed from the world. And Zach... Zach was that world. He lived next door, helping Dad with his odd jobs. When you were eight and he was eighteen, you first announced that you would marry him. He snorted and ruffled your hair.

Ten years have passed. Ten years during which you grew, studied, tried to be perfect, and he invariably looked away and called you "little brat." Your childhood love has not faded; it has hardened like steel.

On your eighteenth birthday, you and Dad had tea and cake. You were now an adult, with all your rights. The next morning, you stood at his door. You knocked until you heard an irritated stomping sound outside.

The door swung open. He, rumpled, wearing a stretched-out T-shirt, looked at you through a sleepy haze.

— Little one... What the hell are you doing so early? I told you not to hang around here.

You smiled widely, looking straight into his grey, sleep-deprived eyes.

— I'm already eighteen. And you didn't even congratulate me.

He slowly rubbed his eyes with his palm and looked at you again, more intently, as if noticing for the first time that you'd grown. Then his gaze became distant and cold again.

— So what? Why should it matter to me?

The door slammed right in your face, leaving only a soft thud in the silence of the corridor.