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I stepped out of the bathroom, my clothes clinging to me from the steamy shower fog. A towel twisted my hair onto the top of my head. My wet feet recovered the sand lost to the hardwoods.

Hadley’s bedroom glowed pink from the hallway. I found her in bed, wrapped in a quilt and paging through a book.

I leaned against the doorframe. “Goodnight, Hadley.”

“I don’t want to go to bed yet,” she whined, but her sleepy voice disagreed with her words. “Please don’t make me?”

I smiled and held my pinky to the ceiling. “Pinky promise.”

“Can you tuck me in?”

Before I left for mini golf with Everett, I needed to paint my nails, blow dry my hair, and tap on sparkly eyeshadow. Ever since we kissed on the Ferris wheel a few nights ago, things were different. The rest of the ride was something like floating, then we landed back on the ground and floated once more. It was a wonder how light the world felt after. We wore the possibilities like tattoos, memories scorned on warm skin.

How high could we float one day?

I was likely to find out tonight, but Hadley wouldn’t always be so little and in need of my company.

“Of course.” I left my towel in a lump on the floor, squeezed next to her on the twin bed. It was cold on top of the blankets, and my hair made the strawberry pink pillows smell like strawberries.

“How was your day?” I curled up to face her, sharing the space with her dolphin stuffed animal from the aquarium.

“Good. I played at Sophie’s. We jumped on the trampoline. I like having a friend with a trampoline. We’re going to the beach tomorrow.”

I remembered my own excitement about the Rivera-Sanchezes’ trampoline. I pictured Hadley and Sophie jumping on it like Haven and I did before the trampoline became just another place to tan. I was glad Hadley had a friend like Haven. Friendship like that was the glue of adolescence.

“I’m glad you have a best friend.”

“Me too.” She yawned, revealing gaps in her mouth from recently lost teeth. “I hope we’ll be best friends forever.”

“You will,” I said like I was the universe making a pinky promise that would never pull apart. “You’ll make so many memories together.”

“Like you and me?”

“Just like us.”

Her voice was sweet like strawberries. “I like when we make memories together.”

My heart swelled. I was warm even on top of the blankets in a tank top and shorts. “Me too.”

“Are you going to make memories with your friends tonight?”

“How did you know?” I faked my surprise and tickled her clavicle.

Her face curled up between breathless giggles. “Because you look pretty. And you always have fun past my bedtime.”

“I’m going to play mini golf with Everett, then we’re going to watch a movie, but I promise I won’t have too much fun without you.”

“Pinky promise?” She cracked a sly, soft smile that hid her lost teeth.

“Pinky promise.” We linked pinkies for real this time. “Let’s play One Sentence Story.” It was the way stories were always told between us: shared between turns and made perfect together. “There once was a mermaid named…”

She sifted for the perfect name. “Coral!”

I continued, “Coral was the nicest, most beautiful mermaid who…”

“…met a nice merman named Aquamarine…” She giggled. “Pretend that’s Everett.”

I hadn’t expected her to make me the mermaid, or introduce a fictional Everett, but instead of rolling my eyes and pretending it wasn’t true, I nodded. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I was a girl who flattened a cute outfit on my bed, painted my nails moon jelly blue, brushed mascara on my eyelashes, applied the blush from the Boardwalk on my cheeks.

Thanks to Hadley, I was Coral the mermaid now, lying under glowing ceiling stars before my own starry summer night, so I said, “Together they swam through the stars, in and out of constellations.”

“Then one day, Aquamarine gave Coral some stars from the sky.”

“One for each day he loved her,” I whispered, hoping Hadley didn’t hear. I didn’t know what prompted it, how our story ended up here, or how many stars Aquamarine gave Coral, but I felt a blend of guilt and softness and anticipation in my chest.

Normal people called that love.

I sifted through my mind for the rest of the story, wondering if Coral was a normal mermaid, but Hadley’s breath had become the slow kind that told me she was asleep. I lay there for a few more minutes, breathing in the strawberry smell, counting the stars in the ceiling to determine how many I should give Everett tonight.

I slunk out of bed, careful to keep the mattress still. I unclasped her necklace and rested it on her bedside table. I tucked the comforter over her chest, wrapped her arms around her stuffed dolphin, and whispered a proper goodnight to her sleeping ears. I kissed sweet dreams into her forehead and hoped to hear all about them soon.

Then I stepped out to get ready for my date with Everett.

That was what I called those now.