I couldn’t have gotten much sleep last night, but I don't wake up for good until Reece shows up and storms around the bedroom as she gets dressed.

"Sorry," I groan. "We took over your room." Right. We ended up leaving the attic for a little one-on-one time. I got hard-core friend dumped last night. Okay, not dumped in the literal sense, but broken up with. And it's hard to imagine going through this with a boyfriend feeling much worse.

Nadine and I are no longer best friends.

I didn't realize how much being Nadine's best friend had been part of my identity. I'd seen my sisters go through several best friends for as long as I can remember. They'd announce new ones, rank their friends from best to worst, and meet new people faster than I could eat lunch. But my best friend had always been Nadine, and she'd come all this way to tell me that everything had changed.

God, had she only come out here because she didn't want to dump me through a text? Why was it necessary to even tell me this at all? Okay, I would have been pissed if she hadn’t told me or if I found out some other way. This would have crushed me no matter how it played out.

Nadine is still asleep or at least pretending to be. She has always been a ridiculously deep sleeper, her mom is constantly banging around the house doing renovations. Still, I can’t be sure whether she can hear everything going on around her right now. I signal to Reece to be quiet before disappearing through the bathroom to my own room. Unsurprisingly, Rhiannon and Marybeth are already up and gone, which begs the question of what time it is. Also, where is my phone?

Mornings are really not my thing.

I give up on accomplishing anything more than changing into jeans and a shirt and make my way downstairs. Years ago, my dad would put together a big post-Thanksgiving breakfast. This time, it looks like he's simply stacked a variety of cereal in the middle of the table, put out nine bowls, clearly having gone back to bed. It’s kind of sweet he thought to do anything at all.

We all owe both our parents so many thank yous once this weekend is over.

Reilly and Lily are still sitting at the table eating breakfast a couple of the bowls are already in the sink. I fill up the one closest to me with Rice Krispies, eating them as fast as I can before I take off, not saying more than a few words to anybody. I don’t want to deal with anyone right now, there’s still nowhere I can go to get a little privacy. Going on a walk might've been an option if it wasn't already around freezing outside.

I plant myself in front of the TV, turning on some cartoons, hoping everyone will get the message that I'm not awake yet and not willing to deal with people.

I only move when Nadine comes downstairs to eat. Okay, it was kind of lame of me not to wait for her or woken her up, especially because I knew she wouldn’t be comfortable coming downstairs on her own. Instead of heading to the kitchen to keep Nadine company—I still don't know what to say to her—I move around the house at a frantic pace, cleaning up anything left behind from last night's dinner. As much as everyone wants to take the morning to finish digesting, we are still having people over tonight, it'll be the first chance anyone here has to see the house.

Too weird.

Any other day, I’d be annoyed that absolutely no one moved to help me, but we hadn’t made that much of a mess last night. The less people working to tidy up, the longer it would take me. The longer I could avoid talking to Nadine.

So much for hiding how much she hurt me, but it’s not like she has tried to talk to me yet either. She probably thinks I’m avoiding her. Which I am. I still need more time to process.

The hours pass and I eventually crack, talking to Nadine, but only when there are other people in the room. I don’t want to be petty, I can tell I’m making things weird for everyone, but I’m also not ready to talk about what happened.

This wasn’t how this weekend was supposed to go.

T-minus-three hours left until everyone else should arrive, and my parents force us into a board game day. It’s something we did almost weekly in Richmond but haven’t gotten back into since moving to Fairview. The joy of kicking Rhiannon’s butt at Ticket to Ride is almost enough to take my mind off everything else.

When Nadine and I end up at the same table to play Scrabble, we somehow manage to talk like nothing has changed. I guess for her, nothing has. She’s known about this for a while now, I guess. How long has she been thinking of ways to let me in on the news?

I’m basically an idiot, but I force the thought away. If I dwell on this enough, I’ll start crying again. I need her to think I’m okay. It doesn’t need to be true, but she needs to think it is anyway.

For a second, I search the seven letters in front of me to find some passive-aggressive way to get my frustration out, but the best word I can come up with is ‘fork’, that hardly seems appropriate. Though, if I play it right, it may get me at least a few points.

"Nadine, I can’t wait for you to meet Rosie. I think you guys will get along." I keep my voice light, Nadine watches me like I’ve gone completely insane. My dad and Reilly both nod long, looking excited and having no idea what’s going on between my ex-best friend and me.

Now I’m imagining how I will tell my sisters that Nadine has declared me not good enough to be her best friend.

Nope, nope, nope. This is not what we’re doing today. I only managed to get one of my new friends to come over tonight, and that’s what I need to focus on because my friends in Fairview are the people I need to learn to count on.

I chatter on about my new friends here for a bit longer before realizing Nadine can probably see right through all of this. When it comes down to it, she still knows me better than anyone I’m not related to. She’ll get exactly what I’m doing, and that I can’t stop obsessing about all of this in my head.

It’s not my job to make this okay for her! Frustration keeps hitting me in fresh waves, all I want to do is rant to her, to anyone. To get all of this off my chest!

Couldn’t she at least wait until her last night here before dumping this on me? She had to know how crazy this would make me. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have felt the need to tell me anything at all.

It’s only when the doorbell rings that I finally force myself to push all of this aside, at least for now.

A bunch of people I don’t recognize arrive first. I assume they’re friends with Reece, a moment later the black girl I’d seen talking to Reilly that day after the volleyball game follows in behind everyone else, talking with Jen.

Wait, Jen’s here?

I rush towards the door, eager to greet my first guest, even if it’s one I wasn’t expecting. I never heard anything from Jen or Frank after they’d first told me they weren’t sure whether or not they’d be able to come tonight. I assumed that was their way of politely blowing me off, but here she is.

"Hey, you’re here!" Okay, not the way most people would welcome friends to their house. I should try sounding less surprised when people want to hang out with me.

"There is literally nothing going on in my house, so my mom couldn’t come up with a good reason to keep me there. Besides, the holiday was yesterday. Today everyone was just sitting around and digesting or listening to my aunt’s Black Friday horror stories."

People pile into the house, introducing themselves to my parents before finding a place in the living room to sit. I hope my parents will realize that they need to get out of here soon or things will only get more awkward. By the time the doorbell rings again, they’ve already gone. They’re probably still hovering in the kitchen, listening to everything’s happening. At least they are not right here making things weird.

Although, things may end up being all kinds of weird all on their own. Parties are not my natural habitat. At least this time around both Reece and Reilly are there to help get things going, and, before long, Reece’s old friends are talking to her new friends like they’ve all known each other forever.

Jen is still hanging around with Reilly’s friends, which means Nadine is the only one left for me to talk to. If I don’t want to keep standing in the hallway looking like it’s the last place in the world I want to be, then I have to talk to her.

"I suck at parties," I say, more honestly than I intend, but it’s not like this is news to her.

"Don’t think of it as a party," she suggests. "It’s you and your sisters having people over. Like you did at home. This is a lot of the same people, it’s still your house. This is your comfort zone, own that."

It’s hard not to give an appreciative smile. I’m not sure if I think of this new house or these new people as my comfort zone yet, but I still welcome the advice. A big part of me understands there’s no reason not to be comfortable here. Her advice doesn’t help that much, but it’s a start.

Just when I’m starting to wish I’d found a way to get out of this party thing all together, Rosie appears in the front hall, jacket in hand. After everything else, I’m more than a little worried she’ll head over to Jen and join that group too, making it perfectly clear to Nadine how on the outside I still am with my new group of friends. Within seconds of taking off her shoes, she’s walking toward the couch whereas Nadine and I are doing our best to look engaged in conversation rather than left out.

Yup. I’m the life of the party.

"Hey," Rosie says with a wave. "This house is amazing. I’ve always wondered about it but never got the chance to see inside. It’s like this icon of the town, it’s weird to think that people actually live here."

"Thanks," I mumble before introducing Rosie to Nadine. "This is the part where I should jump in with some fantastic icebreaker, but as usual, I got nothing. "

"Actually," Nadine says, "Reagan was just offering to give me the grand tour."

I blink at Nadine. She’s been here for more than a day and has seen much every corner of the house already. She stares back at me expectantly, like she’s trying to tell me something.

Oh.

I pop up out of my seat. "Yeah. I mean, there’s not that much to it but if you wanted to check it out, you should come with us."

Rosie looks around and quickly seems to make up her mind, instead of simply taking me up on the offer she turns toward the other side of the room and calls out. "Jen! Reagan’s going to show me the house. Want to come?"

Within a minute, five different people are up and ready to check out one of Fairview’s oldest homes. Most of our friends from Richmond stay back with my sisters. As I look over the living room, Reilly mouths at me, "Want me to come?" I shrug helplessly, but in the end, she stays put. I’m on my own.

For the first time today, I’m glad Nadine is there with me.

"You guys saw the living room and dining room," I start as we move into the kitchen, trying to figure out something to say beyond the name of each room. "This is where we eat. It’s a kitchen. Really not that much to see." To my surprise, the group behind me laughs like I’ve said something funny.

"Let me guess," one of Reese’s friends says. "You guys redecorated? There’s no way Doctor Halbertz’s kitchen looked this good. I swear his entire office was covered in wood paneling."

As easy as that, everyone is chatting as we make our way through a quick rundown of the backyard and the laundry room, which we can barely see in the dark. Soon, we’re upstairs. The next stop is in front of our bedrooms, I explain who shares with who, popping the doors open but not stepping inside. I hope people will take hint, but instead they are soon sticking their heads inside our bedrooms and having a look around. I really wish I had thought this through and tidied up a little more, but thanks to Rhiannon, our room is never really that bad. Reece and Reilly’s on the other hand, is a disaster. No one says anything about all the laundry that’s everywhere, but I can’t help but notice that our room gets a few more compliments than theirs does, despite the fact that no one would ever accuse Rhiannon and me of being the cooler duo in our family.

"That’s my parents room," I say pointing to the end of the hall. "I’m guessing they’re hiding in there and don’t exactly want us going in. But it looks like a bedroom in all its bedroom glory. There’s two bathrooms on the floor as well, I promise they are not all that exciting. That is the attic." I say, pointing up at the hallway ceiling.

I lead the crowd upstairs, looking over my shoulder to see Nadine and Rosie chatting at the back of the group. "This is the attic. We’re still renovating it. The idea is it will be a bit more space for the four of us to spread out, since we can all drive each other kind of crazy if we’re stuck in close quarters for too long."

"This is amazing," Rosie says. There isn’t much here besides our desks that we’ve just moved up here and the couch. There’s even still a fair-sized pile of blankets in the middle of the room from the slumber party the night before.

I can’t help but grin. "This was totally my favorite part of the house before we moved here," I admit. "I love the idea of having a whole floor to ourselves."

"Not anymore?" This time it’s Nadine who pipes up with the question. "This place seems so you."

I have to think about that. I barely think of this house as home and even then, the effect is incomplete. "Too early for favorites."

Just like that the tour is done, we all head back downstairs to see what everyone else has gotten up to. Now, there’s both music playing, a TV on in the background playing a movie I don’t recognize. At first, the party mostly breaks up into Fairview people hanging out together and Richmond people talking in the corner with my sisters and I flitting in between. Yes, even me. It looks nothing like the high school parties I’ve seen in movies, but we make it work. Though that one, brief night is the one where our two worlds collide, it’s hard not to remember that one of those worlds is quickly slipping away from us. If we did this again in a year, what would the ratio be between people from our old lives and those from our new ones be?

If Nadine and I aren’t best friends anymore a year from now, will we even be friends at all?

The weight of betrayal hits me all over again but only for a second. I’m already kind of looking forward to Nadine going back home so that we can sort all this out from the safety of our computer screens and cell phones. There’s no way I’ll be ready to talk about this in person. I don’t even want to talk about it at all.

Around eleven, the Fairview parents start arriving to bring their kids back home. Looking back on the night, I’m happy enough with how things went. I managed not to make an idiot of myself, which is more than I manage at most of the parties my sisters drag me to.

Rhiannon and Marybeth quickly take over our bedroom once again, making it clear that who will be sleeping in our beds is not open for negotiation. When Nadine doesn’t try to make a play for the other bedroom, I’m not at all surprised. Tonight, I think we’re both happier sleeping in a crowd of people where we don’t need to face one another or our thoughts.