Olivia was a firm believer that families didn’t have to be blood relations. She and Conrad had grown up together, sharing lazy afternoons, dreams, and the occasional milkshake. Conrad hailed from a large family, crammed in a small house, so he liked being anywhere but there. Most people, even in the toughest of LA neighborhoods, didn’t mess with kids, especially not a quirky Hispanic boy who wore vintage clothes before they were cool and a plump white girl with glasses pedaling their used ten-speeds past pawnshops and gas stations. Their favorite hangout was a pastry and ice cream shop on the edge of their neighborhood where they scraped pennies together to buy chocolate shakes. Mr. Cortana begrudgingly let them hang out at one of the corner tables and watch telenovelas—which is how Olivia had learned to speak Spanish. She and Con had sneaked into rated-R movies, played video games at a run-down arcade, and curled into the beanbags Marley abandoned in Olivia’s bedroom, and listened to old music like the Kinks and Led Zeppelin.

As they grew older, the way she felt for him changed. She started to notice the way his too-skinny face broadened and his smile became more mysterious than goofy. One day when they were at the pool and bumped heads, coming up sputtering, she had an inclination to kiss him. Which was so odd, but the way the water caught in the long lashes above his brown eyes and the way his white teeth flashed against his tanned skin as he smiled at her did something funny to her. She’d read enough Sweet Valley High books to understand that something had changed . . . at least on her end.

Conrad didn’t notice her in that same way. Not that she’d given him much cause. Olivia had been a late bloomer, clinging to her baby fat a bit too long. Her parents couldn’t be talked into contacts because they were too expensive and something about infections of the eye. Olivia experimented with makeup but always felt her heavy-handed eye shadow made her look more Marilyn Manson and less Marilyn Monroe.

Then their senior year, the year she finally dropped some weight and saved her money from working at a childcare center to get contacts, a fifteen-year-old Marley had gone from skinny nuisance to curvy, blonde goddess.

Let’s just say Conrad had noticed Marley.

“Are you still there?” Conrad asked, jarring her from thinking about the night when Marley came home from spending the summer with their grandparents while Olivia worked. Her baby sister hadn’t looked so babyish. Instead Marley had turned into a tanned, confident woman-child who wore her newfound sexual awakening like she wore her Revlon lipstick. Obvious.

“I’m still here.”