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I’m standing so close to the door, Nat takes a startled step back.

“Sorry! I’m—”

“No, you’re fine.” She laughs a little, moving to let me inside. “Claire left. She went home.”

“Right.” By the time I slip my shoes off, I’ve become cotton candy. Sugar and air, a breath away from dissolving. “So it’s

a no on the prom do-over?”

“Correct.” She smiles faintly.

“Well, well, well. Maybe someone shouldn’t have dumped her girlfriend at prom.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” Nat says. Something in her expression makes my breath catch.

“Wait.” I step closer. “Were you the dumper?”

“Why are you so shocked?”

“Because!” I laugh. “Oh my God, it was you! You dumped her ass! You did that. You’re the prom dumper!”

“I’m the prom dumper.” Her voice is just a little bit breathless. “Hey, do you want to go upstairs?”

A perfectly casual question. Therefore, my brain’s being extremely normal about it.

“Your parents aren’t home?” I ask.

“Still in the city. Some kind of medical conference.”

I shoot finger guns. “Yeah they are.”

By the time we reach the stairs, I’m down to roughly five percent human. The rest is just liquified dandelion in a skin suit.

Nothing about this computes. It’s the same family photos framed, gallery style, at the foot of the staircase. Same stairs

I’ve been scrambling up since kindergarten. Same diamond-patterned rug stretching the length of the hallway. Same guest room,

same Mark’s room. It’s all so perfectly normal.

Except it doesn’t feel normal. It feels like the pause before a song starts.

Nat shuts her bedroom door behind us, and I can’t stop drinking in the details. Even though I’ve spent half my life in this

room. Natalie’s blue-painted walls, lined with photos and framed vinyl records. Blue floral comforter, with mismatched throw

pillows propped up against the headboard. There’s a cardigan draped over her chair, a stack of folded laundry on her desk.

It’s as familiar as her face. But it all feels strangely brand-new.

For a moment, we just stare at each other.

“So,” I blurt, finally. “Why’d you dump Claire?”

She lets out a startled laugh. “What?”

“Other than the fact that she’s Claire. Obviously. But I thought you guys were—”

“You,” Natalie says. And just like that, I stop breathing.

“She wanted to dance,” Nat adds, “but I just wanted to find you. You were acting so weird—just, with Walter, and the haircut—”

“You said it was cute!”

“It was.” She reaches out to touch the ends of my hair. “It is. That was kind of the problem.”

I step closer, heart pounding. “Oh?”

“She said I’m too focused on you. Like, if you want to be with Amelia so badly, why are we even doing this ?”

“And then what?”

My brain’s a trampoline. Nothing stays put. Nothing but the smell of her ChapStick.

“I broke up with her.”

“Because—”

“Because she was right.”

My mouth falls soundlessly open.

“But it’s okay if you don’t—I mean,” she adds, nonsensically. “I swear to God, I won’t make it weird—”

“Hey, Nat?” My voice breaks, just a little. “You know I think about you every minute, right?”

She opens her mouth and then shuts it.

“Every second. As soon as I wake up. Like the song. Not by Aretha Franklin. ‘I Say a Little Prayer.’ Also ‘Kathy’s Song.’

That one too. Actually, all songs. Music in general. Every single—”

She kisses me. Leans forward, plants her hands on my cheeks, and—

“Oh!” I say.

She pulls back, eyes widening. “Sorry—”

“No, it’s—wow. Yeah. It’s good. I just—wow! Okay—”

She laughs, and it tickles—makes my lips feel like they’re buzzing.

“I don’t—I don’t even know how to be around you sometimes,” she says, and her mouth is so achingly close. “When you’re sitting

there talking about MILFs or narrating your fucking text messages, or whatever , and I’m there having heart palpitations over your freckles? Is that even—”

“Yup. Yeah. Me too.” I poke one of her dimples.

She laughs. “Can we—”

“Yeah.” Barely voice. Mostly breath. She tugs my hand, and we cross the room in seconds. Scoot onto the bed. Just the edge

of it. But I lean back onto my elbows, peering up at her. Natalie, in her drawstring shorts and yellow-striped T-shirt. She’s

right in front of me, and it’s still not enough. I want to kiss her dimples when she laughs. I want to kiss her neck when

she nods.

But then she slides off the bed.

“No, come back!”

She grins back at me, crossing to the shelf near her window. Then she plucks her naked mole rat plushie off the shelf and

turns him backward, facing the wall.

“Good idea! You’re so smart.” I kiss her forehead. “And pretty, and—”

She presses my shoulders and leans down to kiss me, and it’s like I swallowed a meteor shower. Heat and light streaking past

my rib cage, crash-landing somewhere south of my stomach. “Fucking hell , Natalie—”

She smiles down at me, flushed. “Look who finally ran out of nicknames.”

I shake my head, tugging her closer; my hands drift down her back, crossing every stripe of her T-shirt. Past the narrow raised

band of her bra. Slipping my hands beneath the hem; meeting her eyes, just to check. She nods, leaning in to kiss me again,

except my hands are underneath now, palms pressed against the smooth warmth of her skin. I roam a little, up to her shoulders,

under both bra straps. Then back down to the outside edge of the band, and around to the faint squishy curve of her sides.

I feel so—

Awestruck. Which is a little unhinged. I’m fully aware. Maybe if we were the kind of friends who rub in sunscreen, I’d be more normal about this. But we’re not. So my hands think they’re exploring Mars. And now my brain wants to move there.

I trace down a little bit farther, finding the dip of her waist, and her eyes flutter shut. “How are you doing this,” she

says, soft as a whisper.

I kiss her again. “YouTube tutorials.”

She laughs out loud. Or not out loud. It leaves her mouth and goes straight through my brain. If the laugh never hits air,

which way do you count it? If I speak in the middle of kissing, am I talking? Is it thinking?

I feel moonheaded, fuzzy-brained, fully unzipped. I feel so “Kathy’s Song,” “Kodachrome,” “God Only Knows.” Every single one

of them. “Something,” “A Case of You,” “Song for the Asking.”

She takes her glasses off, folds the arms in, shoves them on her nightstand without a second glance back. Our eyes meet, and

I’m sure I’m unstitching. Splitting at the seams, with beams of light breaking through. I can’t even think straight, but I

kiss her again, like a question. Like a wish that comes true before I’m even done asking.