I notice that her room has changed a bit. I haven’t been for a while, and I see that she’s taken down a couple of her parents’ old posters and replaced them with new ones of bands she likes. There’s a picture of her and Paige stuck into her mirror frame. Everyone fingers Lottie’s things and oohs and ahs over her room and her hoarded books and music, lying on her bed and tossing her old stuffed animals around. Instead of feeling comfortable, as I should be, I’m paranoid, nervous, watching Lottie, who doesn’t seem to care at all.

“Oh my God, it’s you and Stevie!” screeches Paige, picking up a photo from her dresser. “So cute!” Me and Lottie, wearing jammies and giving each other full-body hugs, huge grins on our faces. I remember that night. It was our first sleepover. We ate so much junk food that Lottie threw up before we went to sleep, and her mom gave us both flat ginger ale and electric blankets, and Lottie’s nausea just became another fun part of the night.

“Nice nightie,” Aidan says, leaning over Paige’s shoulder and popping some chips in his mouth. “You still got that one, Stevie?” he guffaws, and Paige glares at him. He bugs his eyes out with a what? expression, then rolls his eyes and throws himself into a beanbag chair.

“Of course I do,” I deadpan, “and I’m saving it for a special someone.”

They laugh and move on, to someone, something else. Lottie is speaking animatedly to a girl I don’t know.

I glance back at the photo, two sweet girls in their pj’s. That room, that corner of my world that seemed so untouched by everything else, feels like some kind of fakery now, different and sullied somehow. But Lottie is completely unbothered. What is wrong with you, Stevie? I wonder, looking at myself in the mirror, at my half-grown-out hair. It seems like a metaphor for my whole life. Half finished, unappealing, awkward. I notice Dee in the reflection behind me, smirking at something Josh said to her.

I turn around and see there is nowhere to sit. I look out the open door and walk into the hallway. Her parents are out, so I wander down the hall, looking into the rooms. I notice that the guest room bed is made, that there are a bunch of things on the night table: a book, water glass, notepad. We don’t have a spare room at my house, but I recognize the signs of a parent sleeping in another room, and my heart sinks a little.

“What are you doing, Stevie? Casing the joint?”

It’s Aidan, an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, lighter in hand. He leans his tall frame over and puts his chin on the top of my head, following my gaze into the spare room.

“Fascinating.”