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I nearly drop my burrito. “Did they hook up?”

“What? No?” Her eyes widen. “Does Kayla like Juniper?”

I rush to cover up the truth. “That’s howyoumade it sound.”

“I just meant that they were talking band stuff and taking selfies.” She narrows her eyes at me. “You know something.”

“I know very many things.” I throw my balled-up tinfoil into the trash and walk into the aisles. “Like, for example, I know that my mother is basically trying to paint over theblemish that her mother’s death left on our life.”

I don’t have to see her to know she clams up. Corrine wasn’t exactly there for me when my grandma died—like, not emotionally. I get it, death isn’t the easiest topic to just talk about on a random Thursday over cafeteria tacos, but death makes Corrine uncomfortable to a whole other degree than meeting parents does. She practically shuts down, folds into herself, and disappears into a little sliver of the space-time continuum.

“That was deep,” she jokes.

“She’s already started packing up her stuff and wants to paint over her murals—I can’t let that happen.” I drag my fingers over the clothes hanging beside me, but I’m not really seeing them.

“Maybe it’s her way of moving on?”

“That doesn’t work for me, though, because my way of moving on is not moving on, not yet. She can’tforceme to move on just because she wants to. Like, I don’t know, they go hand in hand because we live together, live with all her stuff, in her house. It’s only been a few months.” My throat feels swollen and the prick in the corner of my eyes makes me pause.Shit, I want to hug her so bad. Just see her one more time.The worst part is that if I did see her right now, I’d probably just complain about her daughter to her.

The last minute is the most I’ve gotten to talk about this with someone other than my mom in a long time, and even though I’m still pissed and distraught, I’m also relieved. It’s like a weight has been lifted to just come outright and sayStop, I’m not ready yet, don’t leave me behind.

She shrugs sheepishly when I finally glance at her. “I’m sorry.”

And then my reliefpoofsaway. This is about as far as this conversation will go. Once Corrine says she’s sorry, that’s the wall. We’ve hit it at full speed and there’s nowhere else for her to go, nothing else she can say. “I’m sorry” is the last thing you say to someone when you’re sympathizing with them, when you’re hoping they’ll move on to something less suncomfortable.

I wish I could fucking cry—or not cry, whatever—to my best friend and get more than just a faux-placid response. I wish I could scream at her that it’s okay to feel the hard, painful emotions, that she’s safe with me and I want to be safe with her. I wanted to scream that at her back when she and Holden broke up, and I extra want to now.

I pluck out a maroon velvet dress on a whim, the last thing that my finger touched, just so I don’t have to look at her with disappointment in my eyes. I know she’s not, like, a therapist, but it would be nice if I could talk about these things without her completely shutting down and shutting me out.

“That’s cute,” she says, coming around the counter. I can hear the relief in her voice, like water filling a cup. “Are you going to wear it to the dance?”

I think of Holden and me, drunk in my living room, learning dances. I get a phantom whiff of his cologne or body spray or laundry detergent and think of pressing myself against him. My cheeks heat. When did he start smelling that good? And before he crawled out of my bedroom window before sunrise, he hugged me in a way he never has, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist instead of his hands spread out across my back. It was so familiar and right.

“I don’t think I’m going.” I slide the dress back into its spoton the rack. It probably wouldn’t have fit me anyway. I’m not one-size-fits-all size.

“But the funds are going to be split to help some of my clubs. You have to go.”

I side-eye her, knowing I could just give her the ten-dollar admittance fee and call it even, no dressing up or painful high heels necessary. “Says who? Logan, who you’ll have ditched me for at the dance anyway?”

“He’ll be there, and I agreed to save several dances for him, but we’re not going together. I told him I didn’t want our first romantic outing to be at a school dance. It’s cliché.”

“Well, regardless, I wouldn’t want to intrude onthat.”

She bites her bloodred lip. “Look, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to say this, but you’ve been bailing on, like,everythinglately and you need to go to the dance to prove to your friends that you haven’t been body-snatched or something.”

“You think an alien would come to Earth and pick me of all people to body-snatch?”

“I don’t pretend to know the way an alien’s mind would work, Saine.” She tugs the dress from the rack and places it against my chest. “That color looks great on you and it’s super cute and you have to buy it.” She snatches it away from me just as I’m about to grab it. “Wait, no. My idea, my money. I’m going to buy it. A super early Christmas present.”

I sigh. There’s never any use fighting her on something she’s set her mind on. “Maybe I should try it on first?”

“Why?” She finds the tag. “It’s only five dollars.”

She spins toward the register and stops a few feet away,plucking a T-shirt from the rack that saysTry back tomorrow. “Kayla would love this. Right?”

And, just like that, we’re done discussing my house/mom/grandma issues; we’re done discussing whether or not I’m going to the dance or buying the dress. If it makes Corrine’s eyes tickle with tears or make her feel any type of way that she doesn’t want to feel, she’s over it.

I kind of think maybe I’m over it, too.

Holden

Today 12:22 AM

Yeah I guess I’m going to the dance

12:22 AM

Sweet. See you there. I’ll be the one with the sick dance moves making everyone jealous.

12:23 AM