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All of a sudden I feel panicky and it’s hard to breathe and I couldn’t care less about cherry chocolate-chunk custard I can’t picture Thanksgiving without Margot I can’t even picture next Monday without her I know ot than I airls without Margot?

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MY OLDEST FRIEND CHRIS SMOKES, she hooks up with boys she doesn’t know hardly at all, and she’s been suspended twice One tio before the court for truancy I never knehat truancy was before I met Chris FYI, it’s when you skip so much school you’re in trouble with the law

I’m pretty sure that if Chris and I met each other noouldn’t be friends We’re as different as different can be But it wasn’t always this way In sixth grade Chris liked stationery and sleepovers and staying up all night watching John Hughesout after my dad fell asleep to meet boys she ht outside I’d stay up until she came back, terrified she wouldn’t make it home before h

Chris isn’t the kind of friend you call every night or have lunch with every day She is like a street cat, she cooes as she pleases She can’t be tied down to a place or a person Sometimes I won’t see Chris for days and then in the ht there will be a knock at nolia tree I keep ot can’t stand each other Chris thinks Margot is uptight, and Margot thinks Chris is bipolar She thinks Chris uses ot controls ht But the i, is Chris and I understand each other, which I think counts for a lot more than people realize

Chris callsa beotch and she’s co over for a couple hours and do we have any food?

Chris and I are sharing a bowl of leftover gnocchi in the living roo Kitty off at her swim team’s end-of-season barbecue “Oh, hey,” she says Then she spots Chris’s glass of Diet Coke on the coffee table, sans coaster “Can you please use a coaster?”

As soon as Margot’s up the stairs, Chris says, “Gawd! Why is your sister such a beotch?”

I slide a coaster under her glass “You think everyone’s a beotch today”

“That’s because everyone is” Chris rolls her eyes toward the ceiling Loudly, she says, “She needs to pull that stick out of her ass”

Froot yells, “I heard that!”

“Iup the last piece of gnocchi for herself

I sigh “She’s leaving so soon”

Snickering, Chris says, “So is Joshy, like, going to light a candle for her every night until she comes back home?”

I hesitate While I’m not sure if it’s still supposed to be a secret, I a any of her personal business All I say is, “I’m not sure”