Was I really getting to understand her? I always felt like Abby was dragging me while I simply let it happen. Not that it was a bad thing. Were I to be left to my own devices, I would still be doing nothing in my life besides going to school, work and stay home. I’d still be the same person I wanted to change. I might not be actually starting to understand Abby, but I felt like if I were to keep trying to keep-up with her, I would eventually get to that point.

  “Hold on a sec Violet,” she told me, halting our walk.

  Abby was shifting her gaze between the shop we were now standing in front of and myself. She was holding her fist against her lips and had again a face of someone with conflicting thoughts.

  “Yeah, I should…” she muttered as she began to point to my bare shoulders. “There are a lot of people inside. Are you really ok with going in there like that?”

  Truth be told, my mind had been so busy with her, I had completely forgotten to fuss about my clothes.

  I assured her it would be fine because, if I got too uncomfortable, I had come prepared with a bra in my bag.

  “As to be expected from you. If that’s the case… actually no, never mind.”

  I asked her what was it that she was going to say, but Abby refused, telling me now wasn’t the time. That irked me, for some reason, and I insisted on her telling me. I even promised I wouldn’t get mad.

  “Well… ok…” she gave in with a sigh. “I wanted to ask you why you have so much trouble about… that.”

  Today was going to be a day in which she was going to get to know a lot of stuff that bothered me, wasn’t it? It was a very sensitive topic for me, but Abby was acting in such a way that, if I didn’t give her a proper answer, she most certainly would be left thinking another line was crossed. She kinda crossed a line, but not really? Like I said, it was a sensitive topic for me.

  But as I thought this, when weighting the options, her feelings on this subject somehow outweighed mine, to my great surprise. Was that what it was like being friends with others? It felt like a pain in the ass, but I had accepted Abby’s offer of friendship so that settled my monologic argument.

  …No, that’s not right.

  I was going to tell Abby because I wanted to confide in her, as a friend.

  I told her about my very religious grandmother, and how she’d get mad if she noticed I wasn’t wearing one since I was thirteen.

  “Since you were thirteen? Why? You don’t even…”

  Even though she stopped midsentence, I knew very well what she meant. And her child-like face, like that of one who was caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing, sucked dry my will to get mad.

  “It’s ok. It really bothers me being ft as a board, but there really isn’t anything I can do right?” I told her as I patted my chest. “Anyway, it’s because according to her, a dy should never be without proper clothing. Only loose women would do so.”

  She gave me a couple of nods while looking confused. “Ok, I get it. She’s one of those really old-fashioned dies. But still, at thirteen? Wouldn’t it make more sense now that you are a high schooler?”

  “Now would be a bit hard… she passed away on the twelfth of June,” I said, trying not to sound too down by it. “And it was at thirteen that I… had my… first… m-menst… you know.”

  “Oh. Ooh. Sorry that I asked…” she said awkwardly.

  I found it cute, she doing so. Maybe that was why Abby did it so many times to me? Not that I considered myself cute like her. It also made this conversation a bit more awkward.

  It was all right though. It was the first time I had ever told this to anyone, and doing so made me feel like a weight had been lifted of my chest. However, while I felt a lighter conscience, she on the other hand was feeling bad about all the emotional stress she had put me through when all she wanted was for us to have fun. Before, she reminded me of a child, but right now, she was reminding me of a puppy, and that was tugging my heartstrings.

  “I-I’m having fun! And we still have time, right?”

  My attempts of cheer were met with Abby shaking her head side to side.

  “My parents want me back home before noon. We are going to a business lunch at an associate’s pce,” she said completely disheartened.

  Well, that was a bust. Now what?

  Looking for answers in my mind, again none were coming up. Nothing except one thing.

  Hug her.

  Certainly, I could come up with something else.

  Hug her!

  That something else was refusing to step up and the voice in my head was now more of a shout.

  Without really knowing what I was doing, I approached Abby and wrapped an arm around her neck and the other around her right arm and back. After a couple of seconds, I had her arms around my torso.

  “To cheer me up?” she asked in a childish, whiny voice.

  “Hmm. Ye-yeah. I’m not… doing it too hard… am I?”

  “Hehe, thanks. Ease up just a bit around my neck, please.”

  While Abby sounded like she was having a merry time, I was looking around to make sure there wasn’t anyone who could see us. Fortunately for my mental health, that side of the park was completely vacant and the people in the store were too busy talking amongst themselves to look outside.

  “Just tell me when you want to stop,” she instructed me.

  Right about now was getting stuffy, and we were starting to stick where our skins touched. The fact we had so much skin contact was also bothering me a lot.

  “It’s ok… I’ll leave it up to you,” I told her, while trying to put those feelings aside. Or at the very least, under control.

  “Really? That’s so nice of you,” Abby said while tightening her grip and, without missing a beat, she added just like your smell.

  “OK, never mind. I’m calling it off!”

  “Please Violet! Just five more minutes,” she whined.

  “Minutes?! What do you think I am? An arm clock?”

  She pulled some distance between us while still having me wrapped in her arms. She got on the tips of her toes, our faces now standing a palm’s length away from each other. I had her wide-open eyes meeting mine. For the first time I didn’t find them troubling to have fixed on mine, but instead, I found them lovely. I noticed her brown eyes were sprinkled a shade of moss-green here and there, like stars in the night sky. They really were lovely.

  Still, I wished she would just let go.

  All of that sudden enthusiasm was a result of her concocting a pn. A sleepover, it was, and at my pce no less.

  “Well, if you think I’m a bother, wait until you meet my parents. My mum specially. She is a… bit hard to deal with.”

  That did sound like a real pain in the ass.

  I was yet to tell Abby I knew her mother and how much of a pain she was, but kept postponing it because I didn’t want to be rude. One more hassle to deal with.

  Still, a sleep over?

  I really didn’t have a reason to say no, besides me feeling awkward.

  Her eyes now reminded me of a small animal begging for treats.

  “…My house isn’t as nice as yours… it’s super small, has no AC, you’ll have to use the same bathroom as my dad, and—”

  “I don’t care about any of that! I’d love to see the pce where you live! Please? I’ll bring movies and snacks! I still need to ask for permission, but pretty please?”

  I retract what I said about her eyes. I really couldn’t stand them after all.

  “I-I suppose… yeah,” I said, not resisting those puppy eyes. That, I believed, was something I should start to be wary about.

  “Yay!” she shouted as she went back to hugging. So excitable this girl.

  “Abby, c’mon! I’m all sweaty!” I yelled.

  “No problem. I don’t really care abo— Ah!” she said as she let my body go. “Déjà vu, right? Should I say sorry?”

  “No need,” I sighed. “I just have to accept I will sometimes get squeezed without me wanting to, ri—”

  “That’s no good! If I’m doing something you don’t want me to, you should tell me right away! Otherwise, we will just repeat what happened the other day, right?”

  I gave her a slight nod. For some reason I found myself thinking I’d rather feel comfortable with her antics than telling Abby off all the time. Probably because it would be less bothersome.

  Despite all of Abby’s faults, she let me be myself around her, so maybe that was why I wanted to let her be herself around me too? It was still a huge bother though.

  “Should we get inside now? I should be ok for an hour more before they start calling me. We can use that time to pn what we will be doing at your pce.”

  “Yeah, let’s.”

  “Good, good,” she said nodding expectantly. “Our previous talk gave me a hankering for caramel and pekan nuts ice cream.”

  The air was cool inside the store, too much for my sensibilities, but where we set my bag, it was warmer due to the sun coming in from the window.

  It had a nice view of the park, and the coffee ice cream I was having was pretty much spot on for my tastebuds.

  “Could I have just a taste?” she asked me with gluttonous eyes.

  Each of us had a spoon, so I agreed to it.

  Her happy face dissolved into regret once she got the spoon inside her mouth. “Bwargh! Bitter!”

  “Pfft, fufu. It is coffee fvoured.”

  “…”

  “…What?”

  “…That giggle right now was pretty sweet, though.”

  Why must she torment me at every possible moment? And she always seemed to know when my guard was down. What a pain. A pain that… that was strangely pleasant. Fun, I’d say.

  Before I could snap any comeback, her phone rang and all the good mood she had vanished.

  “Sorry, I need to answer this,” she told me, getting up and walking outside.

  I was thinking how different we were while sitting alone. Like, yes, there was our personalities, but what I was focused on was our lives.

  I was poor—not dirt poor, but enough for me to consider very carefully before buying anything, while she was rich, but… the freedom I had in comparison… it was off, wasn’t it?

  I could simply get up in the morning, stay out all day, and at most I only had to text dad saying I was going to eat somewhere and that was it. Not Abby, though. Most of the time, it felt like she was being tracked and puppeteered.

  “Sorry Violet, I need to go now,” she told me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “If we don’t get to meet ter… thanks for coming today. I had lots of fun.”

  “Oh, erm… m-me too…”

  She leaned in and gave me a smooch on my cheek, my body feeling a chill as her lips made contact.

  “Ah! S-sorry! It was a reflex.”

  I told her it was fine.

  And it was. I was just surprised from it and how it felt.

  …It felt kinda nice…

  Soft, slightly wet, gentle and warm.

  My mind was in a bit of a daze after she left. I was thinking if I had managed to be a better friend for the duration of our “pydate” as she called it. I think I did. She said she had fun and so did I. We even shared some secrets. Well, I did.

  Yeah, we got a bit closer.

  That got me fired up to do even better, so after leaving the store, I went back home in such a speedy pace, I was almost running. I had to make my lunch, thoroughly clean the house, buy groceries, and prepare dinner. There was so much to do until her arrival, if she’d indeed be able to come, it got my head spinning.