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What do you mean I can’t come?” Collin demands on the other end of the phone while I struggle with the side zipper. My fingers hurt from pinching the tiny, metal zipper and forcing it up the six inches I managed to close it. Screw it. Danika can zip me up when she gets here.

“You already had plans,” I remind him.

“A house party in Hollis is not the same as a penthouse party in the city, and you know it.”

“These are people Danika knows from the hospital. It’s not up to me.”

“It’s a party on New Year’s Eve, not a wedding reception. You can totally bring me with you. Unless you’re embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“What? No.”

“You are. I knew it!”

“Stop doing your mind fuckery on me, Collin Humphreys. It won’t work.”

“Look at you, Sadie Prescott, using big adult words.”

“Ask Danika. If she says yes, then you can come.”

I can’t believe you said yes,” I tell Danika while seated on the train amongst hundreds of others headed to the city to celebrate 2010.

“He offered to be the DD.” Danika lives with two other nurses in Queens, but she promised to take the train with me to the party. No one’s driving other than the conductor.

“But we’re—” I gesture at the train car.

“I know,” she says, arms crossed in a sulk. “He tricked me. I forgot until after I’d said yes. When I remembered, he said, ‘no backsies’.”

“We’re not in fourth grade. You’re allowed to change your mind anytime.”

“Yeah, well, he sounded sad. And I felt sorry for him.”

Collin isn’t even with us. He wanted to make an appearance at the Hollis house party before meeting us on the Upper East Side.

“He played you. Since when do you have a squishy heart?”

“I’ve always had a squishy heart; it’s just usually wrapped in barbed wire.”

I concede. “True.”

“Are you going to kiss someone at midnight?”

I immediately bristle at just the thought of it. But then allow it to sink in. I look at the ring. It doesn’t fit as snug on my right hand, but I can’t seem to take it off.

I can feel Danika wanting to say something. My eyes slide her way when nothing comes of it.

“Depends if there’s anyone worth kissing.”

She grins mischievously and squeezes me against her side. “Oh, we’ll find someone.”

Is that Collin… making out with…” Danika narrows her eyes, taking in the couple in the corner, oblivious to everyone else.

“Yup,” I say, sipping the champagne that’s meant for midnight. “He didn’t even wait ‘til 2010.”

“Go, Collin,” Danika admires, now blatantly staring.

I tap her arm with the back of my hand. “Stop.”

“What? They’re hot.”