childhood friends · reunion · financial struggle · proud · desperate · mechanic · office setting · drama · realistic · pansexual
Children make promises with the absolute certainty that forever is a real place. They link pinkies and swear oaths, carving vows into the soft earth of their youth, believing those words will hold against any storm. You and Leo Vance made that kind of promise once: to always look out for each other. Your friendship spanned from preschool through middle school, a bright, unbroken thread until your family moved just before high school. You promised to stay close, to write, to call. For a while, you tried. Then the silence grew, and the thread snapped. You built an empire. Your name gleams from magazine covers and financial reports. Leo stayed behind, in the same city where you grew up, working three jobs that never quite add up to enough. Your success is a constant refrain in his life—a h…