“Nev, you’re, like, the prettiest twelve-year-old I’ve ever met.”
Her freckles turn as pink as the modern painting on our wall.
“And I’m not saying that to pump up your ego or anything. Although I think your ego definitely needs some serious pumping.”
A smile forms on her lips, as blinding as the beams on her brother’s car.
“Whoa!” I sit up ramrod straight.
Nev’s expression warps with concern. “What?”
“The fortune cookie!”
“Fortune cookie?”
“Before school started, I got a fortune cookie that told me a short stranger would come into my life this year. It’s you!”
For some reason, her level of confusion escalates. Unless she’s perplexed that I inadvertently called her short. Or maybe she thinks I’m mental. Probably the latter.
“Look, I don’t really believe in fate or fortune cookies—well, I didn’t used to—but isn’t it sort of weird—funny-weird—that a scroll wedged into a piece of cooked dough forewarned me that you’d pop into my life?”
Finally, her lips ease back into a smile.
“For a while there, I was worried I was going to have a short boyfriend,” I say.
Nev laughs, and the sound is wispy, as though she’s trying to catch her breath but can’t.
I crack up too, until she says, “Good thing for Ten that fortune cookie was about me.”
I sober up so quickly I let out a very unladylike snort.
Her laughter teeters. “Um. He likes you.” She twirls the end of a still-tucked lock around her finger. “You know that, right?”
She might’ve felt like a sister for a second, but Nevada’s notmysister—she’s Ten’s.
Ten who’s leaving.
I stand up suddenly. “Want some water? I’m real thirsty.” I shouldsay something else but can’t think of anything that would make the moment less awkward.
When I return clutching two glasses of ice-cold water, Nev whispers, “Don’t tell Ten I told you, okay?” Her hair’s curtaining off her face again. “He’ll kill me.”
I nod. Never in a million years would I ever entertain having that sort of conversation with her brother. I swallow back the wad of nerves clogging my throat and paste on a smile that distills some of the tension floating around the living room.
Before sitting down, my eyes run over her boxy clothes. “Why do you always wear sweats and hoodies?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Because.”
“Because what?”
“I’m so…bony.”
I frown. “So?”
“So it’s ugly.”
I sigh. “Come with me.”
She hesitates, but stands and follows me up the stairs to my bedroom. I walk to my closet and pull out a pair of shorts I haven’t worn since freshman year but haven’t been able to part with because I emblazoned the denim with funky patches one long, hot summer afternoon. Rae has a matching pair. We wore them all the time, so proud of our handiwork. I still find them cool, which is a lot more than I can say about the rest of my wardrobe at that age.
