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My phone lit up with an incoming call from Zoey. As usual, it was way too early in the day for a video call. I was grateful for once though, because I was in desperate need of a distraction.

I answered on the first ring, and her makeup-covered face appeared on my screen. She sometimes liked to cosplay characters for her YouTube channel, and today, it looked like she was made up as Harley Quinn.

“Wow, Zo, you look amazing,” I said when I saw her.

“Thanks.” She smiled. “It took me forever.”

I checked the time and scrunched up my nose. “It’s not even 9:00 A.M. How have you done a full face of makeup already?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Because unlikesomepeople,I happen to be a morning person.”

“Which is why I have to wonder how we’re friends. It’s weird.”

“Hey, I never complained about your obsession with horror movies, which is way weirder.”

“Maybe to you.” I chuckled.

“Maybe to everyone,” she replied. “Anyway, I tried to call you last night, but you never called me back…”

My expression sobered a little as I realized I was going to have to tell Zoey the embarrassing truth about why. I mean, I shouldn’t have felt embarrassed about being with Aiden—no other girl at school would be. I was embarrassed about how I’d done a complete one-eighty on my feelings for him though. I’d acted like he was the devil, but now I could see what a great guy he was. Zoey was going to think I was a total hypocrite.

“Lissa?” Zoey prompted.

I opened my mouth to tell her but then completely chickened out. “It’s my birthday in two weeks.” I blurted out the first thing I could think of to distract her instead.

I hadn’t really thought about my birthday since lockdown began, so I wasn’t sure why it had come to mind. It was probably because my party was supposed to be this weekend. It was the only weekend my parents weren’t scheduled to work this month, so we’d planned to throw my party early. It was strange to think how difficult it had been to find a free Saturday night in their schedule when now it was completely free. Thanks to the pandemic, most weddings were canceled. If only the wedding they shot in Mexico had been a few weeks later, they never would have got into this mess.

For a moment, Zoey looked slightly confused, but she quickly turned defensive. “Are you telling me that because you’re worried I’ll forget? I’m your bestie, Clary. Yourbestie. Those other bitches we’re friends with might forget, but not me. I know that date better than my own birthday.”

She sounded really offended, so I rushed on. “No, I know you won’t forget. I was just thinking that it sucks I can’t have the party we’d planned.”

“Ugh, I know,” she agreed. “I’d prepared the best makeup look for you too. I don’t know why you wanted to have a Halloween party for your eighteenth, but I was going to make you look totally hot.”

“You know how much I love Halloween.”

“Yeah, but you like it for all the wrong reasons. You’re supposed to like it so you can wear cute outfits, not so you can watch scary movies that make it impossible to sleep at night.” I’d forced Zoey into watching a horror movie marathon with me a few years back, and she still hadn’t forgiven me.

“It’s going to be weird celebrating it without you,” I said. It was going to be even weirder to celebrate without my parents. I wished I could somehow stop time so I wouldn’t have to turn eighteen without them.

“I know,” Zoey replied. “But don’t worry, we’ll still have your party once lockdown ends. Your parents will be back by then, and it will be epic, I promise.”

“I hope so.”

I didn’t know how she could be so sure, but I appreciated her optimism. Zoey always knew the right thing to say, and it made me wonder if perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst thing to tell her the truth about what happened with Aiden. I needed to talk to someone, and I told my best friend everything. Now wasn’t the time to start keeping secrets from her.

“So, you mentioned I missed a call from you last night,” I started. “I might have missed it because something happened…” Man, this was hard. How did I even begin?

“Something?” Her eyes brightened with intrigue. “Something good or something bad?” she asked when I didn’t answer straightaway.

I couldn’t seem to respond.

“Clary…”

“Something like… I made out with Aiden!” The words burst from my lips, and I covered my face in embarrassment as Zoey started to squeal.

“Shut up!”

“Willingly,” I grumbled in reply.