the walk-in closet to our right. She veers for my dresser and I swallow down the panic that has started to creep up my throat. It’s one thing to say you’re going to let someone look through all of your stuff—personal stuff you didn’t even curate for them—and it’s another thing to watch it happen.
Watching her step up to my dresser is pure torture. My bedroom dresser looks a lot like my dresser at the lake house, except that this one is low and wide. And just like on vacation, I keep most of the stuff I should keep in the bathroom there. My hair gel, my deodorant, the glasses I hardly ever wear. Her hand touches every item gently, picking things up and turning them over in her hands. She smells my deodorant, tries on my glasses, and then glances toward the other end of my dresser.
My dresser goes from everyday essentials to prized possessions. All of my favorite things are huddled on that far end. Tacked on the wall above it are my favorite photos. There’s me and Todd dressed up as cheerleaders our junior year, me on the beach the spring break we went to Florida, stubs from concerts and baseball games, a napkin Michael Phelps signed for me when my dad randomly saw him at the airport during a business trip.
I watch Sid’s head bounce from photo to photo like a pinball, until it comes to a sudden stop. And I know she’s looking at a photo from the lake. Me and Sid, sitting on the dock, our legs pressed together like we’d known each other forever and not for a few weeks. My mom took it from the shore, and the two of us were oblivious, caught up in conversation, our heads tipped toward each other. She puts a finger out to touch it, like she’s not quite sure it’s real. I had started to think it wasn’t. After so many summers at odds, that first summer had started to dim around the edges. Then her fingers trail down, to the dresser, where all of my weird little trinkets are.
My mom calls me the best kind of pack rat, because I hang on to everything that holds any sort of happy memory for me—I’ve done it since I was a little kid. There was a period, when I was nine, when I refused to take off any of the wristbands I had gotten at concerts and amusement parks and tournaments. They hung on my arm, ratty and faded, until my mother swore she’d cut them off during the night if I didn’t do it. I have a drawer with every newspaper article I’ve ever been in, every swim meet roster, every good moment in my life. But the very best things are sitting on my dresser or tacked to my wall.
“You kept this?” Her voice is soft, and it might just be because she’s facing away from me, but I think it’s more than that.
I know what she’s looking at, but I walk up behind her anyway. Sidney is stroking the smooth rock like it’s some sort of magical crystal that may grant her a wish.
“You gave it to me that first summer.”
“I remember.”
“I wondered if you did. Or if you’d somehow blocked that whole summer out.”
“It was a good summer … mostly.”
“It was a great summer, Sid.”
I’m right behind Sidney, so when she slowly turns around, we’re practically pressed together. “I thought you had to get Todd’s present. Or was this just a trap to get me to realize how sweet and sensitive you are, with your keepsakes and your secret photos?” She sets her hands on my chest. “Because I already knew you were more sensitive and romantic than me.” One finger taps just below my collarbone, and all of this touching is a huge relief. We almost feel like the old us again. Well, the new old us. “You’re nothing but marshmallow fluff in here, Marin.”
“I told you I brought you here for a reason.”
“And what was that again?”
Proof. “The same reason I do anything. To convince you of how awesome I am.” I stroke a finger across her forehead, pushing a loose curl aside. “You haven’t figured that out yet?”
“Even that time you put sour cream in my yogurt container and then glued it shut again?”
“Even then.”
“And when you tackled me to get to the unicorn chair?”
I grin. “Especially then.”
“Hm. I guess I’m just slow sometimes.”
“Apparently.”
Sidney thumps a hand against my