Abigail comes over and hits me in the arm. “We’re being body positive, remember? It was our New Year’s resolution.”

“It’s never the new year,” I say, drifting toward the rack of shoes. There’s a pair of lace-up combat boots almost identical to the ones I’m wearing. “By the time it’s the ‘new year,’ it’s just the year.”

“Oh, shut up, Cham. I put up with so much shit from people about how fat girls can’t dance, and I just keep shaking my ass anyway.” She starts party-girling around Hilary, who laughs.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” I put the boots back and look down at my boobs. “I’m sorry for underappreciating you, my itty-bitty titties that last grew in seventh grade.” I pat the top of my bra, which always drifts away from my chest like a sailor going out on a whim.

“Good girl,” Abigail says, now shimmying in front of the mirror, and Hilary shimmies against her back too. Neither of them has any qualms about dancing in public. I stand beside them and run a hand through my dark, frizzy hair until a knot stops my fingers.

“Shouldn’t you be at dance practice anyway?” Hilary asks, turning to a rack of “special-made” denim items. How do we live in a world where recycled jeans cost more than nonrecycled jeans? “Or do you get to skip because you’re a captain?”

“It got canceled,” Abigail says, frowning at the jeans on jeans on jeans.

While she tells some story about how practice got canceled because her coach’s pug had a panic attack at doggy day care, my phone dings. I look down at it, stepping out of the way of the only shopper in the store besides us, who seems completely unfazed by the recycled-jeans scam as she piles a pair over her arm.

“It’s Gene,” I say a little too loudly. The woman looks over at me judgmentally, but it’s not my fault that seeing his name on my screen creates a little lightning storm in my belly.

“And how is Eugene Wolf?” Hilary asks in the British accent she frequently catches from a mysterious airborne virus. She tries to get her chin over my shoulder to read my text, but I clear my throat and turn from her because I try not to encourage other people’s character flaws. “He says, I have a surprise for you!” I feel a huge grin take over my face.

“There she goes,” Hilary says, crossing her eyes at me, and Abigail laughs. They call it the Cham-in-love grin, but it’s actually the Cham-in-like grin, because until Gene says it, I’m not admitting anything. There’s nothing worse than being in love with someone who’s only in like with you. Not that I know that for sure, but I’d rather not find out.

“Maybe the surprise is a prom ask?” Abigail says. She selects a few dresses from the nearby rack while I pretty much entirely lose interest in shopping.

“I hope it’s a prom ask,” I say, looking down at my phone and wondering which cute-but-chill thing to respond with. “I mean, I definitely want it to be a massive romantic gesture, but I also don’t know if I’m properly prepared for that. I need to wax my mustache before I get a surprise like that.”