Page 15 of The ABCs of You & Me

“I know it won’t,” I assure her. “What will hold him back is his age, and that’s about it.”

“Well.” Sophie sighs as we walk through the door to the parking lot. “How can I help?”

During the first week of March, another blast of winter blows through, dumping two feet of snow on the city. I’m standing on the basketball court with Pete and a couple other students, stacking giant snowballs.

As I prop the third ball at the top, I see Sophie walking across the yard, something orange in her hands.

“Someone told me there was a snowman contest today so I brought adornments,” she says, holding up two carrots.

“Two?” I ask, my eyes automatically going lower on the snowman.

When I look back up at her she rolls her eyes. “Men,” she mouths. “I brought a nose for each team.”

“You brought full carrots to work with you today?”

She laughs, the sound tinkling through the air like sleigh bells. She reminds me of that Disney princess. I almost expect cartoon rodents to appear.

“No, I had some time, and Jess mentioned what was happening this afternoon so I ran out to grab some.”

I gesture at the head. “Go for it.”

Sophie steps in front of me and twists the carrot into place. “You know what this snowman needs? A Twiz?—”

“Twizzler,” I finish and earn a big smile.

“You remember that?” she asks with wide eyes.

“Hard not to. My best friend ate half of them that night, and Cass was distraught the next morning when she discovered half the mouth missing.”

Her eyes widen further. “It was you?”

“I just said it was my friend.” I laugh, flicking snow at her.

She doesn’t flinch, just steps closer. “You swore you didn’t know what happened though. You swore on your PlayStation if I remember correctly.”

I stand my ground, even though the smell of her hair hits me so hard I’d be wise to step away. “I really liked my PlayStation.” I grin down at her. “I recall you liked it too.” There were many nights that ended with Sophie and me on the basement couch, the sound of rapid clicking, grunts of frustration, and hushed celebrations the only evidence that we were down there.

We stand like that for a few more seconds until the sound of laughter breaks us apart. Pete is flat on his back giggling like a mad man. “I slipped,” he squeals.

“You sure did,” I laugh, walking over and helping him up. “You good though?”

“I’m grrrrrreat!” he cackles as he slips his left arm back through the ring on his crutch.

When I look back to where Sophie was, I see her back as she walks to the next snowman and pulls another carrot out of her pocket.

EIGHT

SOPHIE

I slept like absolute shit last night because today is the day I’m doing it. I’m asking Foster to be my fake date to the gala. He’ll be here in—I look up at the time on my monitor—six minutes. I have six minutes to panic and pull myself together. I can do this. I can do hard things, and on the scale of hard things, this isn’t actually that hard. It may just be very embarrassing and make things extremely awkward for the foreseeable future.

There’s a knock and a creak as the door opens and I look up in horror as Foster Walsh enters my office three minutes early.

“Hey,” I say nervously as he sets our lunch on the desk.

“Hey?” He eyes me suspiciously while he unpacks everything. “What’s up, Soph?”

Okay, Sophie, here it goes, remember the worst thing he can say is no.“So, I have a favor to ask and it’s totally fine if you say no, don’t feel like you have to say yes. I mean it’s kind of bananas but I figured I’d at least ask because you’re kind of the only person I know who would possibly do it and it’s not like you’re a stranger, I mean, I’ve known you since I was five and you were six and just because we haven’t seen each other in years, anyway maybe I?—”

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