They say time moves differently when you're happy. I never put much stock into that. Time had always felt the same to me. It had always been measured in exits and endings. But then there was Alaina, and somewhere along the way, without me noticing exactly when it happened, the days stopped dragging and started...slipping.
Seventh grade became eighth. Eighth became ninth. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't counting down the days until we'd move again, wasn't bracing myself for the moment everything would reset.
My dad kept his promise. We stayed in Silver Hollow.
And Alaina became permanent.
Not in the fragile way I'd come to expect from people, where everything comes with an expiration date you just haven't discovered yet. She was permanent in the way mountains are, the way constellations show up night after night whether you're looking for them or not—steady, reliable, and there.
By the summer of 2023, we had our own way of communicating that didn't rely on full sentences. It wasn't exactly words. It was rhythms, shorthand, small signals that carried more meaning than they should have.
I could tell when she was about to make a terrible joke just by the way she tilted her head and the way her mouth curled at the edges ever so slightly. She knew just by the way I was blinking my eyes when I was getting tired.
We had inside jokes that had folded in on themselves so many times we'd forgotten where they started.
"Hamster wheel."
That was all it took. Two words, dropped into a conversation, and I'd know exactly what she meant: this is pointless, this is repetitive, and we both see it but we're stuck in it anyway.
Or I'd glance at her during a particularly absurd moment. Like, when someone was explaining something loudly that they clearly didn't understand. Or, a teacher going off on a tangent about their weekend. She'd catch my eye and just barely raise one eyebrow.
That was enough.
Sleepovers became routine. Her apartment. My house. It didn't matter.
We'd stay up too late, sprawled on her bedroom floor or mine, talking about everything and nothing. She'd steal my snacks without asking. I'd critique her taste in music. She'd argue back.
"This song is a masterpiece," she'd said, turning it up like volume alone could prove her point.
"It's a song about spending all your time on a chaise longue...among other things."
"Exactly," she'd replied. "Art."
And then a pillow came flying at my head before I could say anything else.
Sometimes we didn't talk at all. We'd just exist in the same space—her sketching, me writing, both of us comfortable in the silence.
That kind of quiet doesn't happen with just anyone. It only works when you trust someone enough to stop performing.
I noticed everything about her. Not because I was trying to. It just...happened.
Her hair, for one thing. The way it changed depending on the light—darker in the shade, almost pale in the sun. I'd catch myself watching it fall over her shoulder when she leaned forward, the way she'd tuck it behind her ear without thinking.
Her eyes had stood out to me from the beginning—cool blue, a mix of ice and steel—but they weren't static. They shifted constantly, reacting before she said a word.
When she was excited, they lit up in a way that was hard to ignore. When she was annoyed, they narrowed just slightly. And when something was bothering her—something she wasn't ready to talk about—they went distant, like she was somewhere else entirely.
And the freckles. Faint, scattered across her nose and cheeks like pixie dust. She hated them. She called them "cootie marks" because when she was little, her mom told her they were "beauty marks". I thought they made her look more like herself, like they belonged there in a way nothing else could.
I learned the smaller things too.
Her favorite song was "Birthday" by the Sugarcubes, which might be one of the strangest songs I've ever heard. The lyrics are insane, the sound is all over the place. But, Alaina had gone through a Björk phase and that song stuck with her.
I knew that she liked bees. She had read a book about what the world would be like if there were no bees. How it would affect the ecosystems, and how many species would suffer due to lack of food.
One day, we were sitting at the park near her apartment and a bee flew right at my face. I swatted at it and Alaina said, "Don't hurt him! He's important."
I knew she hated hospitals. Not just disliked them, hated them. The smell, the fluorescent lights, the way everything felt too clean and too wrong at the same time.
"It's like they're trying to make death look sterile," she'd said once, shivering as we walked past St. Mary's on the way home from school.
I knew her worst fear wasn't something tangible like spiders or heights. It was failing someone. Not herself. Someone else.
"What if I see something happening," she'd said once, late at night, her voice quieter than usual, "and I just...freeze? What if I can't do anything?"
"You won't," I'd told her.
"You don't know that."
"I do."
And I meant it. I'd seen her step in, over and over again, without hesitation. That's who she was.
I knew pieces of her history too, the parts people don't usually volunteer. She'd never met her father. Her mom met him on a mission trip to Ukraine, the summer before college, and by the time she realized she was pregnant, she was back in the U.S. with no way to find him again.
She knew that my mom had died of breast cancer when I was ten and that my dad had just started to date again. She knew how I felt about it, how I wasn't ready.
Alaina and her mom had the kind of relationship I'd only seen in movies, the kind that always felt a little unrealistic until I saw it up close. It was natural and real in a way that didn't need effort.
Her mom, Amanda, was a nurse at St. Mary's. She worked long hours with unpredictable shifts. It was the kind of job that wears people down. But she never brought that exhaustion home in a way that affected Alaina.
When she came home, even if it was late, even if she looked like she'd been running on fumes for hours, she'd sit with Alaina and ask about her day.
I'd seen it firsthand during sleepovers at Alaina's apartment.
Amanda would come home in her scrubs, drop her bag by the door, and immediately zero in on us sprawled on the couch.
"How was school?" she'd ask, already moving toward the kitchen.
"Fine," Alaina would say.
"That's not an answer."
"It is if you don't push."
Amanda would smile, tired but real, and Alaina would sigh like she'd been caught, then start talking anyway. About the test she thought she failed but actually aced. About the argument she'd gotten into with a teacher over something that didn't matter. About me.
I was always included. Not in a forced way. Just...naturally.
"Mara, how's your dad?" she'd ask.
"Good. Busy."
"You eating enough? I know he's not the best cook."
And then there'd be leftovers in the fridge with my name on them, like it had always been that way.
Amanda treated Alaina like a person, not something to manage. She trusted and respected her.
But she was also protective in a way that felt less like control and more like safety.
"Text me when you get there."
"Lock the door."
"If anything feels off, you call me. I don't care what time it is."
And Alaina never rolled her eyes at that. She just said, "I will."
They had this thing they did—this ritual I'd watched dozens of times.
Before Amanda left for a shift, they'd meet in the doorway.
Amanda would kiss the top of Alaina's head.
Alaina would say, "Love you."
Amanda would say, "Love you more."
Alaina would grin. "Not possible."
Every time, without fail.
It was small, the kind of thing people overlook. But I noticed.
I always noticed.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped just noticing Alaina. I started feeling her.
It wasn't sudden. There wasn't a moment I could point to and say that's when it changed. It built slowly, quietly, until it was just...there.
I'd catch myself watching her when she wasn't paying attention. The way she smiled at something small. The way she said my name, like it was familiar, like it had always been hers to say.
And something in my chest would tighten—not painful, not exactly, just...aware. Like something inside me had woken up and couldn't go back to sleep.
I told myself it didn't mean anything. She was my best friend. Of course I noticed her. Of course I cared. That was normal.
Except it didn't feel normal.
It felt like something I couldn't name. Something I wasn't ready to look at directly.
So I didn't. I buried it. Deep. Where it couldn't ruin anything.
Because saying it out loud, even to myself, felt impossible.
What if I was wrong? What if she didn't feel the same? What if admitting it broke everything we'd built?
I'd spent most of my life losing people. I wasn't about to risk losing her.
So I kept it quiet. Locked down where it couldn't interfere with anything.
And most of the time, that worked.
Except when she laughed at something I said and her whole face lit up. Or when she fell asleep during a movie, her head on my shoulder, her breathing slow and even.
Then it wasn't fine. Then it was everything. But I never said anything. Not to her. Not to anyone. Some things are safer left unspoken.
◆◆◆
July 16, 2024 started like any other summer morning. Hot, bright, nothing unusual about it.
I was sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal I wasn't really eating, scrolling through my phone.
My dad had already left for work. The house was quiet in that familiar way I'd gotten used to since my mom had died. It wasn't a peaceful quiet, just...empty.
Alaina and I had plans to meet up later. Nothing specific. Maybe the mall. Maybe just her place.
It didn't matter. We'd figure it out.
I texted her around nine.
You up?
No response.
That wasn't unusual. Alaina wasn't a morning person. She'd probably still been asleep.
I set my phone down and went back to scrolling, only half aware of time passing.
Then my phone rang.
Alaina's name lit up the screen.
I answered without thinking. "Hey, what's—"
"Mara."
Her voice stopped me cold. It wasn't right. It sounded tight, unsteady, and raw, like she'd been crying, or screaming, or both.
"Alaina?" I sat up straighter, my pulse already picking up. "What's wrong?"
There was a pause. Like she was trying to find words that didn't exist.
"Something happened." Her voice cracked. "My mom—"
"What? Is she okay? Alaina, what happened?"
"I don't—" She took a quick breath. "Can you come? Please?"
I was already moving.
"I'm coming," I said, shoving my feet into my shoes. "I'm on my way. Just stay there, okay?"
"Okay."
She hung up. Her voice sounded so small. So unlike her.
I grabbed my keys and ran out to the driveway. My hands shook as I pressed the button on the key fob to unlock my car.
I started the engine, threw the shifter into reverse.
I drove faster than I should have, because whatever had happened, whatever had broken her voice like that, I needed to be there.