“Oh my God,” Zoe cried out, her amber eyes widened beyond capacity. We were lying on the floor of her bedroom, eating popcorn, and confessing secrets from the darkest recesses of our souls. “He really said that?”

    I laughed. “He did! Isn’t that crazy?”
    “I don’t believe it!” She exclaimed, digging around the almost empty bowl for the last of the kettle corn. “He said you were pretty?”
    “Well, his exact words were, ‘My mom doesn’t think you’re cute anymore because you grew up. I don’t know why.’”
    “Sophia Reynolds, why didn’t you tell me sooner? That’s amazing! You guys have known each other forever and you’re always spending time with each other. When are you finally going to get together?”
    “Zoe,” I said, sitting up for the first time in over an hour. “First of all, we only do stuff together because he’s an old family friend. And second of all, no, thank you very much. That would be so weird.”
    “Come on,” she said. “Practically everyone thinks you’re perfect with him.”
    “Not everyone.”
    “I don’t want to split hairs, but yes. Everyone.”
    “Whatever,” I said, picking at my newly-manicured nails, stopping only as small flakes of red polish began to fall onto the floor. “I don’t know why I brought that up.”
    “Because we’re best friends,” Zoe grinned, sidling up beside me.     “And you love him and you just had to tell me.”
    “Oh, yeah,” I said, unable to stop a wide smile from coming on. “I want to marry him after I get my PhD in comparative literature from UC Berkeley, and we can live in some chic loft in New York City and have a kid named Crystal who’ll grow up to be neurotic and live in a sanitarium, where she will commute to rural towns every other week to teach underprivileged children to read.”
    “Exactly,” she said, getting increasingly hyper by the moment. “But instead of having a traditional wedding, you’ll elope and get married in the middle of the woods like that Shakespeare play we were forced to read in English last year.”
    “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Zoe. Why don’t you pay-”
    “Whatever! Why can’t you just make that happen?”
    “Seriously?” She nodded assent. “Because it’s never going to work and I’d never be willing to do it.”
    “You should never say never, Sophie,” she said, standing up and stretching. “That’s what I said, and look what happened to me and Brandon.”
    I looked at her incredulously. “You broke up last week!”
    “Really?” She asked, a confused look on her face. “Oh, right, I was thinking about Tyler.”
    “Wasn’t he the one who lasted nine days because you caught him cheating behind the bleachers with Emily?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “An all time low. But I said we’d never break up.”
    “Please,” I scoffed. “We all saw that one coming. He was such a douche. I mean, he played the trumpet. How bad can you get?”
    “Trumpets aren’t all that bad,” she said defensively, her arms crossed against her chest. “That new kid from Nevada’s pretty cute. And good. He got the solo at the last concert and he just moved here.”
    “Trust you to notice that,” I smiled. “Instead of the fact that he’s in the senior math class, and he’s only a sophomore.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Zoe yawned impatiently. “That’s cool.”
    I smiled inwardly. The kind of nonchalance Zoe gave towards school and my urge to overcompensate for her lack of interest was what made us the best of friends. By that time, the popcorn bowl had run dry and my fingers had begun to scrape the buttery bottom of the ceramic.
    “Want some more?” Zoe asked, scrunching her eyes in the way that she always did when she was tired. We’d brushed our teeth and changed into our pajamas hours ago, but, per our usual sleepover routine, still hadn’t gone to bed.
    “Nah,” I replied. “It’s, like, two in the morning. Hey, didn’t your parents say they’d be home around twelve?”
    “Sure,” she said. “But they never are.”
    “Oh, right.” She walked over to the front of the room, flipping the light switch. As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I could hazily make out her lithe form slipping beneath her covers.
    “Well, good night, Soph,” she said sleepily, her eyes already beginning to close.
    “Good night,” I replied. For a few moments, I watched as lights came and went in the glass of her window, but I soon fell asleep, knowing that tomorrow, no matter how different from today was never really going to change. And for some strange reason, somewhere deep inside me, that made me feel safe and happy and I knew everything was alright with the world.