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I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again.

“Okay maybe a little.”

“A little?” Serena clutched her chest dramatically. “Babe, if yearning were an Olympic sport, you two would have matching gold medals.”

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Everything felt light with Serena. The complications and history and old wounds felt smaller around her.

“Okay, but you have to tell me something.” Serena righted herself after our fits of laughter. “Why didn’t you ever track each other down after everything? Or, like, exchange phone numbers like normal people when you were kids? Stalk him on socials? Anything at all?”

“I don’t know, it felt…too invasive to look him up after so much time had passed,” I replied honestly.

“And you never exchanged numbers?”

“Nope.”

“God, why?”

“His dad forbade him from talking to me, so the letters happened then just kept going. It was our own thing. I don’t know, it just worked. Sometimes writing something on paper and never seeing the paper again was sort of freeing, like sending it into the universe and letting it go. We shared a lot that way.” I paused, thinking about it all. “His dad was really awful.”

We spent a long time lying on the bed next to each other. I told Serena all about it—how awful his dad treated him, and how somehow, deep down, I knew he had tried to get to me after the crash.

“So his dad is like the worst human alive?” Serena commented at the end.

“Yup,” I confirmed.

“Fuck. I feel kinda bad about being so harsh to him now.”

“It’s okay.” I shook my head.

“You love him?” she asked, turning to me, her face resting on her hands. I rolled over to face her too.

“Always have,” I admitted with a sad smile. “I don’t know where any of it will lead, but I think we owe it to each other to have a conversation about it, at least.”

“And maybe kiss him again?” Serena stared at me with a smirk and raised eyebrows. I threw a pillow at her, laughing. “You totally want to!” she yelled over the pillow, throwing it right back.

“Maybe!” I laughed. “Yeah actually, definitely. Yes.”

“Theo and Maisey sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S⁠—”

“Shut up!”

“Never!”

The next morning consisted of Serena fussing over me wearing my hair down instead of in its usual high ponytail, making me wear one of my favorite chunky pink-and-red checkered knitted sweaters, and putting sparkly eyeshadow on me.

“I really don’t think I need glitter,” I sighed at her second attempt at putting it on.

“Everyone needs glitter.” She looked at me like I had grown an extra head, as if I had said the most insane thing in the world. Because Serena Koloman was a force to be reckoned with, all wrapped up in pink glitter herself.

“Fine, but only a little,” I gave in, far too easily because I had missed this so much that it made my chest ache.

“Thank God!” Serena cheered, holding up the tiny glitter palette. “I was two seconds away from tackling you.”

“You literally already threatened me with hairspray 10 minutes ago.”

“And I’d do it again.”

I snorted as she leaned closer to dab shimmer onto the inner corners of my eyes with intense concentration. Her tongue poked slightly between her teeth when she focused—something she’d always done—and warmth bloomed in my chest at how familiar it all felt.