“Both parties know nothing’s going to come out of the ship long-term, but you let what’s going to happen in your window happen. Afterward you have all the adorable, beginnings-of-a-relationship moments to look back on when you want to. They’re cemented in the snow globe, no bad memories to retroactively taint or shit on them because you parted amicably and never looked back.

“He’s asked me out thrice now, despite my consistent rejections.” She chuckles wistfully before suddenly emitting a gleeful dramatic gasp.

My stomach plummets. “What happened?!” I fold forward away from her, frantically grabbing for my hair.

It’s gone. It ends right above my shoulders. I spin to look over the back of the bench. My two-foot-long ponytail is lying in the grass like a dead animal. I squish my hands up against my cheeks. “Oh my goodness.”

Jamie comes around the front, gently taking my shoulders. “Don’t look. You’re fine. Let me fix it. It needs to be styled.”

Hiccups pop out of me as she begins to pull, compare, and snip at the strands of hair around my face.

“Do you not like Zarar”—hiccup—“enough to keep talking to him after this?” I ask.

“That would ruin it, Sier. Number one rule of snow-globe relationships: Don’t mess with the globe. It’ll break and become a pile of moldy shit.”

Twenty minutes later, Jamie swishes onto the bench next to me, smiling. “You look amazing.”

I reach up and run my fingers through my hair. They hit my shoulders so quickly, it’s disorienting. But I’m no longer anxious about it. My earlier nerves have, surprisingly, morphed into a mild, pleasant … buzz.

I am hesitantly excited about our pending shenanigans. It’s kind of cool that Jamie’s going to dye her hair black now, and we’re going to match. The idea of us matching, I don’t know, it feels so sweet and fuzzy. This whole adventure might help us turn into … real sisters.

“Can we head back now?” I ask in the most neutral tone I can muster. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of sounding eager.

“Yeah.” Jamie grins. “After we check out the cabin!”

And, there goes my buzz.

I look over at the cabin. “Yeah, no. We’re not going in there.”

“Terry says this trail is happy haunted. We get up here and it spills into a creepy old log cabin? We have to check it out.”

“I’m not checking that out. It could be old and collapse, Jamie.”

Jamie leaps off the bench and jogs the thirty feet up to the door.

“Do not go in there!” I yell as she kicks out at the flimsy-looking wood. There’s an unexpected scraping noise as her boot makes contact.

“Gah!” Jamie whines and nurses her foot. The door opens ever so slightly before closing again.