there.â I pretend-shivered.
Sophie laughed. âIâm from New York. This isnât cold.â She started walking toward the patio like there was nothing about an Alabama winter day that scared her. I followed and sat down beside her. âSo whatâs it like to live in this little town?â she asked.
Even though Iâd be the first to admit it has never been my dream to live in Faraway, Alabama, part of me didnât want to make it seem so bad. âItâs small,â I told Sophie. âBut there are some cool things about it.â
Sophie raised a brow like she wanted me to elaborate.
âThere are beaches nearby.â I had to think while I talked. âYou can walk just about anywhere, and thereâs an awesome ice cream place in the middle of town called The Cold Shack that Brynn and I always go to.â
I waited for Sophie to say something like, âThatâs the best you got?â
âWhoâs Brynn?â she asked.
âMy best friend since kindergarten.â It was kind of hard to decide what else I wanted to tell Sophie about Brynn, but she kept munching on her cinnamon roll and not saying anything, so I kept going. âSheâs an only child, so in a way, weâre more like sisters than friends.â
âBut you have sisters.â Sophie had met May and June last night, and May had tried to pick her up, which is what she does when she meets people, and June stood there laughing like a crazy person while she did it. So I was pretty sure Sophie would understand how I felt about them.
âOK, Brynn is more like a sister I like.â
Sophie laughed. âYour sisters are cute.â I smiled. Iâm not sure she meant it, but it was nice of her to say it. âSo, are you and Brynn, like, the tell-each-other-everything kind of friends?â
I took a deep breath. Iâd just met Sophie and I didnât want to tell her what Brynn and I have been through, especially over the past year. But Sophie just sat there, patiently eating forkful after forkful of scrambled eggs, and the story somehow spilled out. All of it.
I told her about Billy kissing me last spring, and then Matt, my hot new neighbor, kissing me, and how Brynn got mad when she heard about Matt and said some stuff that made me wonder if maybe she liked Billy. And how that was just before they went to camp together, without me.
Sophie raised a brow. âWow,â she said.
I nodded. âThereâs more. Billy and I got together when he came home from camp, and things were great, but then I made the high school dance team and Brynn ⦠kind of ⦠had a hard time with that.â I paused. I wasnât quite sure what I wanted to say next.
Sophie smiled like she had ESP or somehow understood that things might have gotten complicated without me having to say it. She sat without saying a word until I started again.
I told her about Matt kissing me again and how it changed everything because it was so intense, and how I felt horrible about what Iâd done to Billy, but I couldnât stop thinking about Matt.
âJuicy!â Sophie said, and laughed.
I smiled. I felt a little weird telling Sophie what happened, but she wasnât making any faces like she was judging me. âI knew I couldnât tell Brynn about Matt. Things had been weird between us because of dance, plus there were still signs that made me think she liked Billy. So I told this girl Emily, on the dance team, instead, but then she told everyone, and before I knew it, my life fell apart.â
I confided in Sophie about Billy breaking up with me, and how Brynn said she couldnât trust me anymore and that for a long time, the girls on the dance team werenât talking to me. I exhaled when I finished. It had been so horrible when it happened, but it felt oddly easy to tell Sophie about it.
âSo who do you like? Billy or Matt?â she asked when I was done.
I hadnât