Jasmine is the one who inspired my haircut, who gave me the bravery for my piercing. Jasmine is the one who took me all over the Outer Banks, showed me how to find beauty in places I didn’t see it, including—cheesy as it is—myself. Jasmine is the one who showed me the real fun was never in following the crowd, and that sometimes the best things are the scary and the unexpected.

God, a part of me hates her so much.

But it hits me with a bolt that what Chase is seeing is that I love myself more after this summer, and for that, I will probably owe her forever.

“Good,” he says, and it isn’t until he says it that I remember where I am and who I’m with. “So, should we get some popcorn?”

THEN

We did hang out by ourselves the night after the poker game, but there was no ice cream; instead, we stocked up on graham crackers, Hershey bars, and marshmallows, and made good use of the fire pit in the backyard.

“What do you think happens if you leave a marshmallow in a bottle of soda?” Jasmine asks, holding up one of the many bottles of Coke we’d bought to accompany our s’mores, determined to taste test every one of its sweet varieties. “Do you think it explodes?”

“Uh-oh. Do you think having both in our stomachs at the same time will make them explode?”

Jasmine laughs and whacks me on the arm. “Shut up! This is serious. We should experiment. For science.”

“For science, you want to waste a perfectly good marshmallow by dropping it into a bottle of cherry Coke.”

“Would you prefer I waste a perfectly good marshmallow by dropping it into a bottle of orange vanilla?”

“Don’t you dare. Orange vanilla’s my favorite.” I grab the bottle of carbonated Creamsicle and chug it while using my other hand to throw a marshmallow square at Jasmine’s nose.

“Now who’s wasting a perfectly good marshmallow, Larissa?”

The combination of her using my full name and her mock-angry tone cracks me up, and my sugar high doesn’t help. This is so gross but also so delicious, and even without everybody else, even though we already spent the whole day together going through pictures and analyzing tedious details to pick the best shots, this is the most fun night I’ve had since we came down here.

“You’re such a dork,” I say, grabbing stuff to make another s’more. “But I’m glad we stayed in. It’s nice to chill out and wear comfy clothes and let my hair get all rat’s nest-y.”