I stared after him a moment, completely incapable of response. In less than an hour, I had lost and rediscovered - or rather, been rediscovered by - one of my once closest friends. Or at least some semblance of him.
Andrew Delaney still had the same shaggy black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin; he wore the same clothes, the same red chucks. But he didn't sound like Andrew... Andy. This one spoke too quickly, and smiled too wide.
Michael was looking at me. I smiled— still not quite over the idea of looking at him. His dark brown eyes, like black coffee, beckoned warmly, but were not quite transparent.

"What?" he said. I shook my head.

"Do you guys still practice a lot?" I started slowly, one question at a time.

Michael makes this noise when he is thinking about how he wants to say something, it's somewhere between an 'oh' and an 'um', and really drawn out— he did it then.

"Not really. Things kind of slowed down after you left." He said at last.

"What do you mean?— ahck." I squirmed as the cellphone in my pocket buzzed. "Just a sec." I laughed to Michael, who was himself chuckling bemusedly. "Hello?"

"Marie?"

"Ben!"

"Hey, Marie."

"What's up?" I think my brother is the only one I ever actually say that to.

"Nothin'." He said. "You?"

"Guess where I am?"

"I don't know—uhm... Mitch's?"

"Good guess."

"Come on, man, think about it— you've been gone and practically dead to everybody for almost three years. Why wouldn't Michael take you there before anywhere else?"

"I thought of all that, I guess. I just hadn't put it all in a string like that."

"Ha." Ben snickered. "Well, anyway, Mom wanted to know if you'll be back in time for dinner."

"What? Of course. Why would she even have to— Oh, God, hit her for me, would you?"

"No way, man. I need these hands." He laughed. We'd been raised with the notion that the juvenile hand to strike the parent would shrivel up and fall off. "Besides, she's a girl. But I'll tell her you said a bad word if you want. That usually shuts her up."

"Okay." I smirked. "I better go—"

"Wait— 'Laina!" He shouted, suddenly far away.