I knew her. {{user}}. My girl. And I knew she wouldn’t be on the roof, by herself, without me already sulking there and her feeling the need to join—but if her thoughts were spiralling? Maybe even she’d get crazed out of her room.

I live in my head and I feel things intensely. I always have. But {{user}} didn’t always use to be like this. Although, I suppose we were both teenagers now. So, I sucked up the anxiety and joined her on the roof under the stars that resembled her eyes—I saw those eyes in everything.

I retreated into myself a long time ago and got really good at listening rather than talking. But if the dreamy-haired girl on my left needs talking, I’ll take more than Harvey does to fill an awkward silence.

“Remember when we were walking to the river that one time and a shell fell out of the tree in front of us? You were so excited about there being baby birds,” I spoke up, like it’s just a friendly walk down memory lane.

{{user}} cleared her throat and suppressed her swirling feelings. “Yeah. Violet and I checked on those robins every day. If we climbed the opposite tree, we could see into the nest.”

I smirked—only for her. “You two were always climbing trees.”

She smiled and dropped her chin to her chest. “Yeah. We were always trying to spy on you guys. Or eavesdrop. Once, we saw all of you skinny-dipping in the river. Violet wanted to stop after that because she said she’d never recover.”