“You know, for a maybe-atheist, you can be pretty freaking profound.”

“Still waters run deep,” Cleo says, smiling. “But you shouldn’t be surprised. What Major Arcana weirdo are you always saying I am?”

“The High Priestess, a keeper of hidden knowledge.”

“Yeah, that. Minus the ‘ess’ part, maybe?” Cleo grins.

Then she gives me that look, the one that reminds me she might be the only person to really see me. The realest me, underneath all the emotion and the mess, the one not even Chase really sees.

And for one perfect moment, I feel completely at ease.

I’m about to give Cleo that limb-busting hug when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I almost forgot I snuck it out of the shoebox when we sat down. When I pull my phone out, my eyes light up along with the screen.

“Ah. That’s your Anwar face,” Cleo says, frowning a little. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Anwar can wait. I give Cleo that hug before she can escape.

Click here

I smile at Cleo before crafting a response to Anwar’s latest DM.

Click here

“Hey, what’s this for?” Cleo asks, her words constricted by my mega-squeezing arms.

“For just being you.”

“Aw,” Cleo answers, hugging back.

Sometimes Chase and I spend so much time together, it’s easy to overlook how special Cleo is—and how much her friendship means to me. Or maybe it’s because Cleo and I are both going to colleges in New York. I know I’m going to see her more often, even if I’ll be downtown at NYU and she’ll be all the way uptown at Columbia. Either way, it’s no excuse to take Cleo for granted.

She must feel the love right now, though, because she nestles her face into my wild curls, squeezing me back.

“Hey, while I’ve got you alone, I have a new doodle for you,” Cleo says, reaching into her pocket.

She hands me a ripped-out piece of sketchbook paper. Looking down, I see it’s a flare pen doodle of Cleo and me inside Maggie’s shop. She has us drawn in simple black and white, but we then both wear jester hats striped with every color possible.

Cleo has drawn us to look like The Fool.

I couldn’t love it more.

“This is some of your finest work yet,” I say, hugging her again. “I’m obsessed.”

“What can I say?” Cleo replies. “We look good in silly hats.”

“That we do,” I laugh. “So good, I’m going to need to make a little album of all your doodles from this trip. Who needs phone cameras or photo albums when you have a resident Cleo?”

“You know, Amelia,” Cleo says as she hooks my arm to exit the bathroom together. “I ask myself that same question nearly every day.”

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“Thanks for checking on me, Cleo,” I say with a smile.