I stood in front of my mirror in my room — evaluating my appearance, quite bluntly. Charlie and I had chosen the perfect flower from the neighbour's garden (she wouldn't notice one missing cosmos, right?) and then we bid each other farewell for the reason he, a far more compelling person than I, had a meeting with his family to be in one of those knock-off 'react' videos. He said he would have rather stayed and helped me pick out the impeccable apology-outfit that conveyed an equal mix of flirtatiousness and humility.

Okay, a voice inside my head said, just become 2000% skinnier, get a smaller head with bigger eyes, and take the... volume of your thighs from a 10 to maybe a 4. Oh, also you have a pimple on your nose.

I KNOW ABOUT THE PIMPLE. How 'bout instead I don't eat the croissants that mom makes for a week and you shut up?

How 'bout you skip the croissants and I don't ever shut up?

Fine, I cave, but, hey, guess what is this sweater made of...

Polyester.

Girlfriend material.

....I hate you.

I snickered and withdrew myself from my room, slammed the door and knocked on Phil's.

"Phil! I'm out! Tell mom that!"

"Wait!" he yelled from inside the room. He yanked the door open and glared at me. "Do you have makeup on?"

"Oh, this? I accidentally dropped a rainbow pie on my face, idiot."

He blinked twice. "Where are you going?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Why don't you sit on it and spin?"

"Okay," Phil said. "When will you be back?"

"Like, an hour, maybe."

"K', see ya." Phil shut his door and I turned to walk down the stairs. I bounced down the steps and grabbed the doorknob with ill-advised confidence. As I opened the door, a fist hit me between the eyes. I jeered and raised my hand to my forehead.

"Oh, my god, I'm so sorry!" Rae said, wincing.

Rae.

My eyes focused and, even though Charlie and I had not created a procedure for this specific occurrence, a smile grew on my face.

"I was about to knock on your door and then it opened," she said. "I suppose you opened it. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I mean, I wanted to apologize, I—"

"No, I should be apologizing. I overacted the other day." She looks down like she's ironing out the words in her head. "You know how some people fear being alone? I fear being... misunderstood, you know? Having assumptions made about me. It's probably because the kids at my school in England would always treat me like the queer American girl."

I felt my brain curlicue within itself. She just said 'queer'; did she mean 'gay' or 'weird'? I decided to discuss it's definition later with Charlie — now I had to listen.

"You assumed I wouldn't want to date your brother, and you were right, but I guess I just flashed-back to the past, and I called you an ass. And I am sorry. But I'm also thankful, because you helped me figure out all that stuff about myself I just said. So, uh, thank you, too."

I broke my stare into her boundless brown eyes and walked past her towards the sidewalk. I stepped over some moist dirt in the neighbour's yard and picked a flower. I speed-walked back to Rae. I meekly held out my hand with the blossom resting in my palm — as we had practiced earlier in the day — with a sweet smile and puppy-dog eyes.

"I'm sorry, too." I said.

Rae took the flower in her hands and smiled at me, then throwing her arms around me and embracing me like I had given her a diamond ring instead of a stolen cosmos. She let go and held the flower gingerly in her hand.

"Thank you," Rae said, stuttering a little, and beamed with misty eyes. "I was going to do this on my own, but, just out of curiosity, did you ever feel... bad for what we did the other night?"

"The TPing? Not really. Why?"

"Before Phil asked me on a date, I asked about why we were defacing his teacher's home. He didn't give me a satisfying answer, so I went to Simon. He said the man hadn't done a thing to them, just failed them. I felt really guilty, and I still do. So, what I'm asking is, do you want to come with me to apologize to the teacher and help clean it up?"

I was torn. The truth was I hadn't felt an ounce of shame for what we did. I thought it was stupid and juvenile and I wouldn't have abetted in it if Rae hadn't been there, too — but no guilt. It only made me admire her more that she felt responsibility for a plot she didn't even conceive, and, though I was ready to stop saying 'apologize' every two seconds, I wanted to spend as much time with her as physically possible.

"Sure," I said. She grinned easily.

We walked in the same direction as we had the night earlier.

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Yeah, ok, hi. *awkward, robotic wave*

How are you guys doing today? I'd love to know.

Thanks for reading this chapter!

Well, anyway, see ya, I guess..