Elle winced, one eye shutting. “Shoot. Was that too blunt?”
Annie laughed, recovering from her shock. “Blunt? Yes. Too blunt? No. I like that you say what’s on your mind. It’s... refreshing.”
Elle cackled. “That’s one way to put it. My lack of a brain-to-mouth filter drives Darcy up the wall.”
“No way. Shelovesit.”
Elle worried her bottom lip. “Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to,” Annie said. “I know Darcy.”
Most days, she was convinced she knew Darcy better than she knew herself. And vice versa.
Elle continued to look skeptical.
“Look, did Darcy ever tell you how we became best friends?”
“She told me you moved in down the street.”
That didn’t even skim the surface of their story. “I did. My family didn’t move to the United States until I was seven. And even then, first we moved to Chicago, where my mom was originally from, and we were living in an apartment building and there were no kids close to my age. When we moved to San Francisco and I saw Darcy, I wassoexcited. I’d played with cousins, but they were either older than me or younger, so having someone my age around was completely new. I was a little... overzealous?” She laughed, memories flooding back. “I asked Darcy if she wanted to be my friend and she told me she already had a brother andhewas her best friend. She slammed her front door in my face.”
“Oh my God.” Elle laughed.
“Yeah.” Annie slouched against the wall beside the mirror and remembered the acute sense of disappointment that came with someone rejecting her for the first time. A laugh burst from between her lips, because Darcy’s hesitance had been no match for Annie’s dogged determination. “So, Darcy successfully kept me at arm’s length until October, when we had sex ed.”
Elle’s dark blue eyes widened comically.
“We had a unit on sexually transmitted infections and, look, Iknowthere’s nothing funny about syphilis, but it’s like there’s some sort of short inside my head that makes me laugh at the most inopportune times. I kept giggling, and Darcy was in the desk next to me, and for some reason our teacher sent both of us to the principal’s office.”
Elle’s jaw dropped. “No.”
“Right?” Darcy had fumed. “The principal asked us what was so funny about venereal disease and I just—I lost it. Round two. I couldn’t stop laughing no matter how hard I tried. All of a sudden, Darcy started snickering, and we were both... we were a mess. Crying, shaking, falling against each other, laughing so hard we couldn’t speak. It was contagious and terrible and amazing, and our principal finally threw her hands up and called our parents. We were both sent home and assigned two-page essays on the importance of taking sexual health seriously.”
Elle’s eyes were bright and glassy from laughing. “And the rest is history?”
“Well, the rest is that Darcy ignored me for three days because I ruined her perfect record—and honestly, what kind of middle schooler is concerned about their record?”
“Darcy.” Elle’s smile softened.
“Darcy.” She nodded. “Well, then she knocked on my front door and asked if I’d written my essay, only to berate me for slacking off and not turning it in early like she had. She harangued me into writing it and lectured me about the importance of condom usage, which, in retrospect? Hilarious.”
Elle posed in front of the mirror, tugging on the brim of her hat. She laughed and ripped it off, hanging it back on its hook. “Andthenthe rest is history?”
“Which is my long-winded way of telling you she appreciates your lack of brain-to-mouth filter. Because she’s put up with mine for about twenty years.”
“Okay, I’m convinced. I firmly retract my apology for being blunt.” Elle grinned. “Tell me about Brendon.”
Her face warmed. “I don’t want to be the type of person to make big life decisions all because of someone I’m seeing.”
“But is that really what this is?” Elle asked. “Or is it a little more complicated than that?”
“Complicatedis certainly a word for what I’m feeling.”
“Welcome to Gemini season,” Elle said, which meant exactly nothing to Annie.
“Ah.”
Elle laughed. “Gemini is a mutable sign, so it’s a good time to approach the possibility of change with an open mind and heart, meet a new lover, and reconnect with old friends. Being an air sign, it’salsoall about rationality. So I can see why you’re struggling. You’re a Sagittarius, right?”
