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“Tell her,” Nina suggests. “If you want it to be perfect, you have to be comfortable.”

“So, what, just text her and say ‘hey, do you mind if we order in and I just dress in my pajamas’?”

“If that’s how you want the night to go, then yes, tell her.”

It sounds so easy. Ask and you shall receive, a concept that is so beyond foreign to me. A world that exists where you can want something and it could actually be yours––what’s that?

Nina sits up and rummages through my bed until she finds my cell and hands it to me. “Text her.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

She pushes the cell into my chest. “Text her. I have a point to prove, and if I’m right, and Zara is the type of woman I think she is, she’ll prove it for me.”

“What am I supposed to say to her?”

Nina snatches the phone back off me and types in my passcode.

“So much for privacy,” I mutter underneath my breath.

As soon as she opens the text thread, I cover the screen with my hand. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh my God,” she gasps excitedly. “Have you been sexting? Who are you and what have you done with my friend? I like this Clem.”

“Please stop,” I say, my face reddening as I take my phone back.

“Okay, but text her,” she repeats. “Tell her you don’t want to do dinner out and you would rather just keep it low-key at her place. What’s the worst that’s going to happen?”

“She’s going to say yes.”

This silences Nina, her brows scrunching together. “But isn’t that the point?”

“Yes, but no. What if she’s a people pleaser and just says yes?”

“You mean, what if she’s like you.”

Annoyed, I push her shoulder so she falls back onto the bed, and she squeals. “Why are we even friends?”

“I’m sorry,” she says through a laugh. “But you know there are people out there who like to people please, it’s their love language. It’s called acts of service.”

I raise an eyebrow. “But it’s not that when I do it?”

“Not if it’s not for people you don’t love or care about.”

I put this information to the back burner, not really wanting to dive into the nitty gritty reasons of all my people pleasing behavior, and throw my phone back on the bed. “Can you just help me find something to wear?”

“Fine,” she says. “But for the record?—”

I glare at her, cutting her sentence short. “Clothes, Nina. That’s it.”

It takes two hours of me trying on different versions of the same outfit to find exactly what look I’m going for. I could say that my access and affordability to expensive clothes hindered my selections, but I wasn’t really that girl to start with. I prefer comfort: jeans, boots, tanks.

I don’t really eat in restaurants or dress up, but if anyone could help me find that middle ground of dressing up and still dressing as me, it’s Nina.

“Neen’s,” I say as I look for my duffle.

“Hmmm?”

“Is it presumptuous to pack a bag?”