Chapter 5: Willow

Willow Finch has seen every inch of me—not because I’m always naked, but because she actually looks.

Here’s something I haven’t told you yet: Willow and I weren’t always lovers.

We were best friends first. The kind of best friends who finish each other’s sentences, who have inside jokes that no one else understands, who can sit in silence for an hour and still feel connected. The kind of best friends who look at each other one day and realize that best friends aren’t big enough anymore.

That happened for us in the winter of freshman year. I was fourteen. She was fifteen. The snow had shut down the town, and we were trapped in my apartment for three days, the two of us and a space heater that could barely keep the living room warm.

We were lying on the floor, wrapped in the same blanket, watching the snow fall outside the window. I don’t remember what we were talking about. Something stupid, probably. Something that doesn’t matter.

What I remember is the way she looked at me. The way her eyes held mine for a second too long. The way my heart started beating faster for no reason I could name.

“Kate,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

The snow kept falling. The space heater kept humming. My heart kept beating, faster and faster, like it was trying to escape my chest.

“I think I’m in love with you, too,” I said.

She kissed me. It was soft and uncertain and perfect. Her lips were chapped from the cold. Mine were probably the same.

We didn’t do anything else that night. We just lay there, wrapped in the blanket, holding each other, while the snow piled up outside and the world got quiet and still.

That was the beginning.

Present: Willow’s Bedroom, 10:30 PM

Tonight, after my shift, after the register was short again, after Rowan walked in on me changing and I had to have that whole awkward conversation about being normal—tonight, I just want to be with Willow.

She’s sitting on her bed, cross-legged, sketchbook in her lap. She’s been drawing for the past hour, her pencil moving in quick, sure strokes. Her hair is down, falling over her shoulders, and she’s wearing an oversized sweater that keeps slipping off one shoulder.

I’m lying on my stomach beside her, my cheek on the pillow, watching her work. The lamp on the nightstand casts a warm yellow glow across her face. She’s beautiful in the way that familiar things are beautiful—not because they’re perfect, but because you’ve memorized every detail.

“What are you drawing?” I ask.

“You.”

“Me?”

She turns the sketchbook so I can see. It’s me—naked, of course, but that’s not what she’s captured. She’s captured the way I look when I’m tired. The softness around my eyes. The curve of my mouth. The way my hair sticks up on one side from sleeping on it.

“I look exhausted,” I say.

“You are exhausted.”

“Romantic.”

She laughs. “I’m not trying to be romantic. I’m trying to see you. Really see you. The way you are right now.”

I reach out and touch her knee. She’s wearing sweatpants—gray, soft, the ones she’s had since middle school. Her skin is warm through the fabric.

“Come here,” I say.

She sets the sketchbook aside and lies down next to me, facing me, her head on the same pillow. We’re close enough that I can feel her breath on my lips.