“I wanted to give it back.” My voice is quiet. “You said it was your favorite. It’s my favorite too.” I hold my breath and wait for her response.

She turns the book over and gently opens the cover. BookEnds, Romeo NY, is stamped on the first page. She runs her finger over the stamp, and I watch her, transfixed.

“But…you…you threw it away. I saw you.”

“I went back for it.”

I don’t mention how I stayed up until two in the morning waiting for my dad to go to bed. How I sprinted the miles to downtown praying Jessie hadn’t dug it out, and praying the garbage collectors hadn’t come. I don’t tell her how when I pulled it out of the trash I started to cry. I hadn’t cried in the four years since my mom left. I didn’t know why I cried then. I stayed up the rest of the night and read it, then read it again.

This book let me imagine Jessie and I were friends. As long as I had it, I could keep on pretending.

“Why?” She searches my face.

Here goes. “I thought about what you said. I think we should be friends.”

She looks down at the book and shakes her head.

The hollow spot grows bigger at her no.

“Sorry about the state of it. I read it a lot. I underlined a few places too. Passages I liked. Sorry.”

She looks up and a small laugh escapes from her lips. She stifles it. Then, “What? Cretin. I should’ve known you were the type to write in books.”

She takes the book and holds it against her heart in an unconscious gesture. I smile as relief washes through me.

“Friends?”

She strokes the worn cover of the book and I think of all the times I held it.

“Does this mean you won’t stand in my way?”

I shake my head. “No. It means that I’d like to be friends.” There’s no way I’ll help her pursue my twin brother. That’s a special hell I’ll never willingly enter.

She wrinkles her brow and studies me like I’m a mixed-up jigsaw puzzle.

“Okay,” she finally says and I feel my shoulders relax. I let out a relieved breath.

“Friends,” she says, and she smiles at me. I’m blinded by the radiance of it.

She walks back toward her seniors computer class and I follow, watching her skirt swish around her hips. She turns back.

“You can’t stay for class. Seniors only.”

“Oh darn,” says Petunia. “I was going to pinch his bottom when he sat down.”

Gladiola scowls. “Hush, Petunia. He can’t be here. We’re helping Jessie get ready for her big date.”