Avery was the worst kind of people pleaser. A failed one who didn’t know how to make other people happy but attempted only to her own demise. When Sienna asked Avery if she wanted to steal, the yes was out of Avery’s mouth before she’d heard the question.

At the convenience store, the woman was dead behind the register. Or maybe asleep. Avery poked her just to check. The woman’s eyes opened just in time to see Sienna slip a candy bar into her pocket. She smiled and waved at them as Sienna grabbed Avery’s arm, pulling her into the hot, smoky sunlight.

What were you doing?! Sienna asked.

When Avery explained, she laughed.

My boyfriend told me he used to steal from them allll the time. She doesn’t care. Avery hadn’t met her boyfriend yet. She imagined that he was a braver thief than she was. She pictured someone older, high school maybe, probably someone that their parents wouldn’t approve of. Avery didn’t ask.

Sienna and Avery met at the start of the summer before sixth grade. With her blond hair and long grasshopper legs, Avery assumed that Sienna was at least a year older than she was, but they discovered that they were born exactly nine days apart.

A week after they first spoke, Sienna and Avery hid in Sienna’s bathroom and dared each other to sip each other’s urine.

Butterscotch! They proclaimed, dipping their tongues into tiny glass jars. On the bathroom floor, laughter tore apart their stomachs. Sienna told Avery that she was the funniest person she had ever met, the freakiest, weirdest, coolest girl, not just a friend, but a sister. Avery glowed. Later that night, they stretched across Sienna’s purple bed, surrounded by candy bar wrappers, when Sienna pressed her chapped lips onto Avery’s.

For practice, for later, Sienna whispered.

A hand, her hand, curled itself into Sienna’s hair.

Sienna giggled and pulled away.

Silence. And Avery understood that it was time to go.

The kiss propelled Avery through the cooling summer air. As she rode, she imagined zooming down a hill on her bike with a popsicle in her mouth, eyes closed, somersaulting over the top of a car, the popsicle stick driving itself into her throat and through her spine. If you are paralyzed, I’m not wiping your ass, her mom would say. Avery’s mom was a doctor, but Avery didn’t think a popsicle stick could break her spine.

On the bike ride to school the next week, Sienna told Avery how the former principal once dated a teacher who quit, but before that, she had dated a kid’s parent who was also a lesbian. Or maybe a thespian. Lucy is a thespian. Lucy and Maddie are Sienna’s best friends, not counting Avery, of course. Sienna rode ahead of Avery on the sidewalk, and at recess, she said, they all play capture the flag with Maddie’s dad, Jack, who is the P.E. teacher. When Sienna talked about Jack, her voice became breathy and excited. Avery followed Sienna through the prematurely yellow leaves and she felt the same hope balloon in her stomach.

At school, it was a relief to be near Sienna. When Avery was with Sienna, she knew to make her handwriting large and loopy, to lean forward in math class and furrow her brow in concentration. When Sienna wanted milk at morning break, Avery wanted it too even though she was lactose intolerant. It was nice to know how to be, how much to laugh, and for how long. At lunch, she accidentally followed Sienna to the bathroom and had to pretend that she was just getting a drink of water. When she returned, Sienna was standing and telling Maddie and Lucy a riddle. The man is afraid to go home, the man is afraid to go home because the man in the mask is there. Why? They spend all of lunch trying to guess why. Double homicide? Infidelity? The answer was simple: the man was playing baseball.

~

Jack could squeal like a demon pig. Avery first heard that squeal when Jack rallied the class in the park during recess. The shrill, tinny sound startled Avery and delighted Sienna. As Jack passed out jerseys for capture the flag, Avery noticed that he had even more freckles on his arms than she did. Avery shoved her head through the pinnie, her eyes on Sienna.

Sienna was taller and definitely cooler than Avery, but Avery knew that she was faster. The game began.

Avery chased Sienna who chased Jack across the field. Everyone cheered them on as Jack sprinted with the bandana curled around his fist, bringing the flag from one end of the field to the other. Just before he crossed the dividing line, Avery tackled Sienna, who tackled Jack, who flew forward. They thudded on top of him, and he spun into a series of somersaults. Avery ripped the bandana out of Jack’s hand.

You hound! he cried, squealing that demon pig squeal.

She tried to do it back, but couldn’t. Somehow, she thought, on the walk back to class, it occurred to her that Jack didn’t seem old enough to be a dad, even though his blond hair was mostly gray.

After school the next week, Sienna invited Avery to Jack and Maddie’s house, where they all watched in amazement and horror as Jack sat with them and scarfed down a mayo sandwich, pretending to gag.

I ate it, but I hated it the whole time, he declared.

Sienna laughed and asked why he kept eating it.

Jack said that he was hoping it might get better.

Avery put a spoon in the mayo jar. She caught Sienna’s eye. Licked it. Jack laughed. Sienna wrinkled her tiny nose.

That night, Avery woke up to Sienna clawing at her. When Avery realized that Sienna was asleep she lay very still. It was like watching a dog. Her eyelashes fluttered and her eyeballs darted around in her skull. And then on other nights, she would whimper or try to run. Avery watched, wrapped in the lavender sheet next to her, she decided that if Sienna got too scared in her dreams, Avery would have to wake her up.

The leaves began to yellow. During recess, Sienna didn’t want to play capture the flag. Instead, she wore short skirts and watched from the sidelines with Lucy, Maddie’s best friend. When Avery felt Sienna’s eyes on her, her legs lengthened, lungs expanded and she darted through the grasps of the boys in their class with the bandana in her hand.

The class erupted in cheers but when Avery looked for Sienna, she saw her resting her head on the plaid shoulder of a boy in their class. Avery stormed off the field. There was no point in trying to win.

Sienna tried to talk to her in Spanish class, begging to look at her homework. Are you mad at me? Sienna asked.

Avery couldn’t speak.

She imagined pummeling the boy’s head into the wet ground, guts spurting out of his mouth like jam.

Fine. Sienna said. Ignore me then.

And Sienna turned to Lucy.

Brown leaves swirled outside the window.

~

It was the week before Halloween. A bowl of cherries sat on the oak table in front of the four of them splayed across the leather couches at Maddie and Jack’s house that weekend. The topic of discussion was boys, why their Axe body spray smells so strong. How to ask them out. Avery wondered why she was even there. She tried to fit ten cherries in her mouth. No one laughed except Jack who looked up from his laptop to tell them that back in his day, the best part of a date was when he dropped Sienna off and let one rip outside of her house. Avery laughed so hard that she accidentally inhaled a cherry pit.

Sienna leaned forward and grabbed the lower, middle, and upper part of Lucy’s thigh. Do you like fat boys, medium boys, or skinny boys?! She asked.

Skinny boys! Lucy cried.

You like fat boys! Sienna grabbed Maddie’s upper thigh.

Sienna lowered her eyes to the ground and slowly looked up at Avery, grinning like the clown from It. It made Avery think of the chain emails that Sienna had sent to all of them that week. Subject line: how 2 flirt. It read: u must give ur hottie an intense stare that is both sexy and mysterious at the same time. BUT DON’T B CREEPY. stare at the floor and slowly raise ur eyes. once u caught his attention, give him a sexy but subtle smile. blowjob eyes. 😛

When Sienna stared at the ground and up at Avery, she didn’t make a demon face but flipped her hair over her shoulders and didn’t look away.

You look like a psychopath, Avery said.

The words sounded harsher than she meant them.

It’s not like you’d ever be able to get a boyfriend, Sienna said.

Avery took off her crocs and planted her feet on the table.

Again, no one laughed.

Avery felt everyone’s eyes rest on her and Sienna.

During every awkward silence, a panda dies! Lucy giggled.

During every awkward silence a gay baby is born, added Maddie.

Sienna leaned forward and rubbed Avery’s legs.

So prickly! Sienna teased.

Avery lurched away.

Avery might be our little gay baby!

Hey now– Jack said, his voice sharpening with an unfamiliar authority. The room was scorching. Avery reached for the cherries, shoving them into her mouth until her cheeks bulged like she was a giant hamster eating her young. Somewhere, outside of her, the conversation continued, her eyes fell, as they often did, on Sienna, who plucked a cherry and placed it between her teeth, holding onto the stem with her thumb and middle finger.

Don’t do that! Jack said.

Why? Sienna asked.

     It’s a very seductive gesture. 

Jack and Avery watched Sienna pulverize the cherry with her front teeth, her shiny red lips pursed as she scraped the meat from the pit and swallowed, tongue and teeth working furiously in tandem behind her lips. After a few moments, she took the stem out. It was tied in a perfect knot. That’s going to come useful to you later in life, Jack mused.

What is? Sienna asked.

Tongue skills, he said, smiling.

Avery noticed that Jack was watching her watch Sienna. She looked away.

~

The next week, Sienna came to school with a moonstone necklace. Lucy and Maddie marveled at the way it glinted in the sun as they stood outside by the oak tree.

Who gave you that? Avery asked.

My boyfriend!

Avery brought Sienna pastrami sandwiches every morning and her Spanish homework every afternoon, but she couldn’t give her anything as valuable as moonstone. Maybe her boyfriend had stolen the necklace from his mom, which was lame. Avery scanned the boys in her class, slapping each other’s butts, throwing sticks into the tree branches.

Who is your boyfriend? She asked.

I’m not allowed to tell you.

Why?

Because you’ll be jealous, Sienna replied, eyes glazed, fingers fiddling with the clasp of her necklace. 

It snowed heavily the day after Thanksgiving when they slept over at Maddie’s. In the early morning hours, Avery jolted awake. She saw Sienna staring at her. Her shoulders heaved with giant, soundless sobs.

I want to go home. Sienna whispered.

Lucy and Maddie snored a few feet away.

I can’t be here, she said.

A stream of words began pouring out from her mouth, but Avery couldn’t hear them because her cheeks flushed as she realized that she knew exactly what Sienna needed, exactly what would quiet the rising panic in her voice. Avery plunged one hand into Sienna’s hair as she kissed her, but it didn’t feel like she hoped it would, how she always imagined it might since Sienna kissed her that summer.

Sienna shoved her away.

What’s wrong with you?

For practice! Avery said, her voice lilting like she’s telling a joke, like she’s just leapt up after somersaulting down a hill, standing upright, fighting dizziness.

You’re a PERVERT.

Sienna trembled as she gathered the soft pink blanket around her body that slipped off Avery’s bare legs, leaving her alone with just the sheet tossed over her body.

Avery heard her tiny feet creep across the carpet and down the stairs.

A few moments later, the front door slammed.

She suspected that she should feel regret, remorse, or sadness, but instead, she felt the warm sensation of satisfaction as the sun began to fill the room.

Avery crept out to the kitchen where Jack was eating a bowl of cereal with a glass of chocolate milk. She sat down next to him.

He pushed the chocolate milk and cereal in her direction.

Avery poured the milk.

They sat together, chewing silently.