“What’s up, old boy?” Tom asked me on a warm summer morning. It was around eight months after the four of us had first met, sometime in June. My life was unrecognizable when compared to what it had been like before those friends swept in and pulled me out of my lonely existence. I felt like I was finally awake to life.

Tom stood over my bed, shaking me by the shoulder. He had taken to calling me “old boy.” I can’t remember where the phrase had come up, although we had recently read The Great Gatsby in school, and I have a feeling it was his version of “old sport.”

“What are you doing?” I groaned, rolling over to face the wall.

Tom pulled the covers off. “We’re going out to the lake today. Did you forget?”

I sighed. I had forgotten.

“C’mon, old boy.”

I made some other sound of protest, but the truth was, I was ready to wake up. Thoughts of Mary filled my head constantly. Everything I saw reminded me of her, and when I closed my eyes, her face was there, offering that same bashful, hopeful grin.

“Don’t call me that,” I said as I put my feet down beside the bed.

Tom laughed. “Okay, old boy.”

Within a few minutes, Tom and I were in his car, windows down, the morning air fresh and new and warming up. Everything smelled like it did in the summer on a day that would soon be extremely hot. Tom’s face was sleepy and happy and free, everything you’d expect to find on the face of a teenager who was in the middle of discovering life and all it might have to offer. I laughed and punched him in the shoulder. He only grinned harder. I put my arm on the window, leaned my head into the rushing stream of air, and closed my eyes.

In that moment, life was perfect.

We picked up Shirley first. She gave Tom a peck on the cheek before climbing into the back seat, over my protests.

“I want to talk to Mary,” she said, “not be the passenger in between you and Tom gabbing.”

“Hey!” Tom protested, but he winked at her in the rearview mirror, and she laughed.

“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked.

“The lake,” Tom said.

“I know that. But where?”

He laughed. “It’s a surprise, old boy.”

“What?” Shirley exclaimed, sounding genuinely offended.

“Whoa, whoa, easy now,” Tom said. “Don’t worry, babe. You’re going to love it.”

I glanced back at Shirley, and she crossed her arms in mock protest. It didn’t last long though. Sullenness never clung to Shirley.

Five minutes later we stopped in front of Mary’s house. Tom beeped the horn once, and Shirley slapped the back of his seat.

“Thomas Avery James, are you kidding me?” she snapped, glaring at me—I could feel it.

“You’ll make quite a mother someday, Shirley,” I said.

“You get up to that door this instant and ring that bell like a proper gentleman.”