When he caught my eye, I hid back. But then, I poked my head out and mouthed the words, each and every one perfect. At first, Dad just blinked, but after a minute, his mouth wobbled, like he was fighting a smile, and then he broke out into a closed-mouth grin.

Floating on air, I darted out into the open and mouthed the words and danced, the little six-year-old doing karaoke in a darkened hallway at night, the lamp on her dad’s desk her only sun, moon, star.

And Dad began to laugh, and Dad stood, and I ran for him, and he took my hands, and …

How we danced, spinning in our socks and dipping and howling at—

“Your friend is coming up the drive, Thaïs,” Mina says gently, dissolving the memory. I would be crying if my tear ducts could manage. They ache from earlier, and my skin feels tight to the touch.

The headlights of Saxim’s mom’s car shine through a grimy Stökéwood window before I hear its engine. I bound through the house, bubbling over with fresh energy, itching to show someone my discovery, and by the time I reach the front door, the car’s headlights have gone dark and the doors are closed. The woman with her back to me is tall, lithe, and elegant, her black hair tied up into a French twist, and if it weren’t for her school uniform and the fact I know Saxim’s mom is so petite, I would think it’s her mother. Saxim turns to face me, slipping her cell phone in her pocket, and her eyes are exactly the same as always: dark and wet and long-lashed and gleaming, the kind of eyes you could fall into if your feet aren’t firmly planted on the ground. It’s disorienting to see her: this girl, this woman who has been my lifeline for years, a relationship only deepened by the special-edition pink clamshell keychain Pocket Best Friends Uncle Teddy gifted us after I left Viloxin to live with Aunt Marion. Besides cultivating our Best Friends (which involved loads of faux electronic hairstyling), we communicated every day, and I woke tingling to see the neat bubbles of her therapeutic replies, painstakingly typed after she finished her homework. No one else used the custom application in the entire world, so I was Basil, and she was—

“MONTY!” I shout, launching myself at her. She startles as I wrap myself around her, but her giggle is the exact same, too: unapologetically joyful, infectious, life-affirming. She smells the same: like heady gardenia.

She’s stiff under my arms until she replies, in bad British English: “By Jove, Basil, you haven’t changed a spot.” She holds me extra-long, feeding me her Saxim strength and love like only she could when we were younger and life was difficult in those small ways that felt impossibly large.