her while I’m gone. Okay, thanks. I love you.”
I hang up, and shove my phone away.
That’s it. I did it.
One step closer to done.
LATE JUNE
TENTH GRADE
At the top of the stairs, my heart starts beating too fast again. How did it come to be that I’m scared walking into my best friend’s room?
Aubrey’s house feels both strange and familiar. I know every room by heart. Every closet. Every nook and corner.
To my right, closest to the steps, is Mr. and Mrs. Andersson’s room with the cherrywood sleigh bed, hardwood floors, and the blue-and-white toile wallpaper. “French countryside,” Mrs. Andersson once told me, a pattern of trees and hills, old-fashioned families picnicking, and boys in hats walking sheep.
Their door is open, the hall quiet. Ethan’s door, across from it, closed.
He always did like his privacy, even when he didn’t give Aubrey the same consideration.
“Lock the door, JL,” she says, pulling Mary Lennox to her bed. “We can’t put it past Ethan to come barging in.”
I have an overwhelming desire to peek in, smell his fresh ocean scent mixed with cocoa butter sunscreen, on the blankets, on the pillows, on his rug. Embedded in the air that belongs to him.
“Can I, JL?”
I nod, and whisper, “Anything, Ethan,” and he opens my towel, and it falls to the ground.
I draw a ragged breath and let my mind shift to Max’s room instead, dark and woody like he is, to his rock posters, his guitar. To the plaid bedspread, and curtains he made himself. And I’m slammed with guilt. Guilt for brushing him off. For feeling embarrassed about him around Ethan.
Guilt for longing for Ethan the way I still do.
Enough about Ethan.
I’m here to study. And I’m lucky to have Max. He’s the only one who ever stuck by me.
Max loves me.
At least, I think he does.
And in a few short days, I’m leaving with him.
I up my pace, move toward Aubrey’s room, my stomach clenched, my heart beating overtime.
Right outside Aubrey’s door, I stop. The three of them are in there, chattering happily. Giggling. Settled. It’s not even 7:30. How long ago did they get here?
Nobody is missing me. Nobody cares if I’m here. After years of being best friends, I’m only someone to feel sorry for. Out of place and unwanted.
But Aubrey’s trying. She came to me. She texted. I told her I’d do this, so there’s no way I’m leaving now. Maybe I’ll tell her about prom, about Max and the ring, about my plans to go to California. And we’ll be Aubs and JL, like always.
I look in and freeze again. All three of them sit on Aubrey’s moss-green carpet. They’re dressed in pajama pants and camis, heads bowed down, oblivious. Meghan and Aubrey have their backs to me, Niccole is painting Meghan’s toenails, leaving Aubrey to paint her own.
“Hey,” I say, softly, and a second time louder, so they can hear me over the music.
Niccole’s eyes dart up, and Aubrey twists around.
“JL!” Aubrey puts the brush top back in the bottle, and holds her leg up. “I’d get up and hug you, but…” She waves her foot at me, a tissue weaved between her toes to separate them. “I’m so glad you made it. Did you get pizza before you came up?”
I shake my head, and move into the room, trying to ignore my pounding heart. Trying to ignore the look I see pass between Meghan and Niccole.
“Not hungry, thanks. But yeah, I’m here. You told me to come, so I did.” I drop my duffel bag down near the bed, and my backpack on it, and walk to her desk where the polishes are. “Are there any good colors left for me?”
* * *
Aubrey’s whole room used to be purple. Purple curtains, lavender rug, purple canopied bed.
At the end of middle school, she told her parents that no respectable high schooler could have a purple room, and now, except for the rows of dolls standing stock-still on their white-painted shelves, the room looks like it’s off the glossy pages of a Pottery Barn summer catalogue. Palest blue walls, whitewashed desk, dresser, and daybed, with scalloped shells etched into the wood. I helped her design it right down to the rug.
I grab a bottle of bright blue polish with green sparkles called Mermaid’s Tail and sit down next to the girls.
“So…” Aubrey says, when I am barely through my first toe. “Dish. We’re all jealous. You know we want to hear about prom.”
“Need to hear,” Niccole says.
“We hear it