Just Listen

"Clarke," I said, taking a step toward her. "Let's just go for a little while, like, a half hour. Then we'll come back and eat the pizza and do the movie and all that. Okay?"

Clarke wasn't an emotional person. She was instead a born stoic, extremely logical, her entire approach to life one of figuring out problems, stating solutions, and moving on. But in that moment, as I said this, I saw something rare on her face: surprise, followed by hurt. It was so unexpected, though, and gone so quickly, that it was hard to know if I'd really seen it at all.

"No," she said. "I'm not going." And with that, she walked across the room to the couch, sitting down and picking up the remote. A second later, she was scrolling through cha

"All right then," Sophie said with a shrug. Then she turned to me. "Come on," she said.

She started toward the front door, and for a second, I just stood there. Everything about the Reynoldses' kitchen and this night was so familiar: the smell of pizza in the oven, the two-liter Coke on the countertop, Clarke in her spot on the couch, my spot open and waiting for me beside her. But then I looked down the hallway to Sophie, who was now standing in the open door. Behind her, it was just barely dark, the streetlights flickering on, and before I could change my mind, I walked toward her and stepped outside.

Even years later, I remembered that night so well. Like how it felt, after climbing through the hole in the pool fence, to walk across the dark parking lot, right up to Chris Pe

"A

We all stopped talking. I could see Chris squint as he looked into the dark. "What was that?"

"Shhh," Bill said. "Someone's out there."

"It's not someone," Sophie said, rolling her eyes. "It's Ca-larke."

"Ca-what?" Bill said, laughing.

Sophie reached up, pinching her nose shut with two fingers. "Ca-larke," she repeated, her voice sounding so like Clarke's, stuffed up and adenoidal, that it was startling. I felt a pang in my chest as everyone laughed, and I looked back over at her again, knowing she could hear it. She was still there, across the street under the light, but I knew she would come no farther, and that it was my job to leave now and go to her.

"I better—" I said, stepping forward.

"A

Chris and Bill were both watching us. "It's just," I began, then stopped. "I should just go."

"No," Sophie said. "You shouldn't."

I should have just walked away, from Sophie, from all of it, and done the right thing. But I didn't. I told myself later it was because Chris Pe

So I stayed where I was, and Clarke went home, and later, when I tried to go back to her house, the lights were off, the door locked. I went up anyway, but unlike that night we'd gone to Sophie's, the door didn't open. Instead, Clarke left me waiting, as I had done to her, and eventually I went home.

I knew she was really mad at me. I assumed, though, that we'd work it out. It was just one night—I'd made a mistake; she'd come around. But the next day, when I walked up to her at the pool, she wouldn't even look at me and ignored my repeated hellos, turning away when I sat down on the chair beside her.

"Come on," I said. No response. "It was stupid of me to go. I'm sorry, okay?"

But it wasn't okay, clearly, as she still wouldn't look at me, giving me only her sharp profile. She was so mad, and I felt so helpless, I couldn't stand to sit there, so I got up and left.

"So what?" Sophie said when I went to her house and told her what had happened. "Why do you even care she's pissed?"

"She's my best friend," I told her. "And now she hates me."

"She's just a kid," she replied. I was sitting on her bed, watching her as she stood in front of her bureau mirror. She picked up her brush, giving her hair a few strokes. "And to be honest, she's kind of a nerd, A

"I am," I said, although I wasn't sure this was true, even as I said it.

"Good." She put down her brush, then turned around, looking at me. "Now come on. Let's go to the mall or something."

And that was that. Years of friendship, all those card games and pizza nights and sleepovers, finished in less than twenty-four hours. Looking back, maybe if I had approached Clarke again, we could have worked things out. But I didn't. It was like the passing time and my guilt and shame opened up a chasm, wider and wider. Once, I might have been able to leap it, but eventually it was too distant to even look across, much less find a way to the other side.

Clarke and I would run into each other again, of course. We lived in the same neighborhood, rode the same bus, went to the same school. But we never spoke. Sophie became my best friend, although nothing ever happened with Chris Pe

Before Sophie, people knew who I was because of my sisters and my modeling, but it was only once we were friends that I was popular. And there was a difference. Sophie's particular brand of fearlessness was perfect for navigating the cliques and various dramatics of middle school and high school. The bossy girls and whispered comments that had always u