Like a Best Friend | ✓

chapter two

An hour and a half after I get home, I am in full Friday evening mode. I've eaten; I'm showered and dressed in my coziest pajamas, slipper socks on my feet and a candle flickering in the living room. The scent of chai apple cupcake permeates the air – a bonus of my small apartment – and mingles with my cinnamon bun body wash, and the hazelnut coffee in my hand. I'm all ready to veg out on the couch with my phone in my hand to choose the best pictures I've taken this week. My Instagram account isn't nearly as big as Kitty's and I almost never feature in the pictures I post, and I'm sure it's only because of her that I have twelve thousand followers. Only a fraction of them interact with my snaps of Boston, my artsy coffee photos and pictures of books I'm currently reading, but I have had the occasional sponsorship and a surprising amount of my mail is books that have been sent to me directly from the publisher.

The minute my butt hits the cushion, there's a knock on my door. Ugh. I didn't order food and I'm not expecting anyone. It's probably a lost delivery driver for one of the other apartments in this building and I plan to ignore it, until there's another knock and I get up with a harrumph. This had better be quick. I have a Gilmore Girls rewatch to continue. It's my comfort show: every year, when September comes around, I put on the first episode and spend the next couple months rewatching all one hundred fifty-three of them. I know each episode so well that by now it's mostly something to have on in the background while I edit photos or chat to Kitty.

I look through the peephole and all I see is brown, but I'd know that curl pattern anywhere. I fling open the door and my best friend almost falls into my living room.

"Kitty, hey," I say, greeting her with a smile. I glance out of the window to check that the sun has gone down before I say, "Shabbat shalom."

Kitty rights herself with a laugh, her curls damp and her cheeks pink as though she has walked all the way here from her place in Beacon Hill. "Sorry, missed my stop, ended up at the Museum of Fine Arts and figured I'd just walk but it's fucking disgusting out there, Jesus. God, you look comfy. Can I come in?"

I step to the side, taken aback by Kitty's sudden intrusion. Something's not right. This is the Kitty I see when something's happened, when something has flustered her or she has exciting news or she's about to drop a bombshell so I steel myself for whatever's about to come out of her mouth. And I've never known her not to return a Shabbat Shalom, even though I'm not Jewish.

"You're already in," I say. "What's going on? Did I miss a call?"

She sheds her wet coat and takes a clip from my kitchen table to hold her hair back. "No, I didn't call. Sorry, shit, I'm being such an idiot, you could've had plans."

I look down at myself. Kitty follows my gaze. We both laugh. I'm not the type to make plans for a Friday night, and if I do, those plans involve Kitty. "I was about to start Gilmore Girls. You're more than welcome to join, but I'm gonna need to know what's going on because you look kinda..." I trail off, gesturing at her face. Her unkempt curls and her rain-streaked cheeks and the wild look in her coffee-brown eyes. "Come on, Kitty. What's happened?"

Kitty unzips her boots and pulls them off by the heels. She smooths her green woolen dress over her hips. Raindrops cling to the fibers at the hem and the cowl neck where her coat didn't cover it; she has brought the scent of rain with her, fresh and earthy. "What episode?"

"Uh, Rory's dad's about to come back, I think."

"Oh, awesome, you're still on season one." She drops onto my couch and massages the balls of her feet through her thick black tights. I sit on the coffee table opposite her, blocking her view of the TV, and I put my hands on my knees. My senses are on high alert. I slip into crisis management mode.