Ainsley was halfway through tracing a pattern onto the back of a pale blue strip of cottony fabric, so she didn’t take her eyes off it while she answered. “I found a hideous bag of a lace dress at Jenny’s,” she said, referring to Jenny’s Thrift Store, one of Ainsley’s favorite haunts, “that I think’ll work well as a two-piece crop and skirt set. I’m making a new lining for it because it’s practically see-through right now, and then”—she grabbed a pair of scissors—“I’m thinking like an elastic, frill trim on the bottom of the top part.”

“Nice. That’ll look awesome.”

“I hope so. Will you be my model?”

“For a crop top?” I cringed. “I think I’ll pass. I can’t wait to see you in it, though. I bet you’ll look incredible.”

Ainsley smiled to herself, pleased at the compliment.

She had always been thin, narrow hipped, and tall, taking after Dad’s side of the family in height and figure. Her hips and chest had gained gentle curves over the last few years, but she was still very slim by all measures, more like our paternal aunts. I was tall, too—at five foot nine, I towered over most girls my age—but I had Mom’s bone structure. “Child-bearing hips,” Mom had commented when I was still a child myself, an eleven-year-old who’d just gotten her first period and suddenly exploded outward with hips and breasts that couldn’t be contained by any of my old school clothes.

At the time, I couldn’t have cared less if my hips were ideal for sliding out babies with ease and grace, I just didn’t want to be the only kid in the grade who had to go up two uniform sizes in a year to accommodate puberty’s offerings. These days, I liked my hips, and I liked my boobs. Even if they meant that I couldn’t get away with borrowing any of Ainsley’s old size-six school clothes.

But the above did not mean I wanted to model a crop top on a channel with thousands of subscribers, thanks all the same. Loving my body didn’t make me magically immune to stage fright, or to comments from nasty, sexist strangers on whether girls should or should not be wearing revealing clothing to begin with. I didn’t know how Ainsley did it. Anonymity was a warm blanket, wrapping me in a safe cocoon free from personal attacks.

“What’s up, anyway?” Ainsley asked as she dug around in her wicker sewing kit for measuring tape. “How was Q and Q Club?”

“That was yesterday. They moved it to Thursdays for Mr. Elliot this year. I told you.”

“Okay, but counterpoint, I’m resistant to change and repress that kind of stuff.”

“To answer your question, they’re all missing you desperately.”