[ Quote Aesthetic of the Chapterish ]

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SOMEWHERE STARS ARE WEEPING

And so here we are. Down to three screens left on the call: Me, Emmy, and Brody/Lauren.

"Okay, well I need to sleep or I'll die," Lauren says.

"Yea, she needs her bridal beauty sleep," Brody announces, eyes rolling.

"It's true." She nods.

"I'm exhausted too. Don't know how you guys stayed up. It's almost 1 AM for you." Emmy yawns.

"Same," I lie. In fact, I've reached a new level of wide-awake.

"Sleep later. You need to get going on that speech," Brody says to me.

"Don't stay up too late kids." Lauren blows a kiss before abruptly ending their screen.

I wait about 10 seconds to see if Emmy also hangs up, despair waiting and ready to creep in as soon as her screen goes black.

"Glad we're both on the West Coast," she says.

"Right? How'd we manage to be the lucky ones on this end?" I grin, hoping she doesn't feel weird that it's just us now.

"Figures we'd be the last ones left," she says, poorly stifling another yawn.

"Busy day?" I ask.

"Hardly," she scoffs. "Actually, Zoë and I took an early day."

I stretch back onto the couch, relaxing now and eating into my newfound euphoria at having Emmy all to myself. I could cut it with a knife.

She tells me about her day and asks about mine. I explain all about the new collection launch and the party and Miles ordering too many pizzas and the three boxes on my countertop right now.

After 10 minutes she gets up and I'm expecting her to head for bed, but instead I see her kitchen.

"Hungry?" I ask.

"I always have an 11 PM snack," she says, shrugging.

"And what's it going to be tonight?" I ask, holding up my hand. "Want some cold pizza?"

"Do you deliver?" She jokes, opening up a cabinet.

Emmy digs into a box and I hear drawers opening and what sounds like plastic paper. She appears back in the frame smiling.

"Sixty seconds you'll find out," she says.

I hear a beep in the background when her microwave countdown reaches zero. Her hair flashes back into view as she scampers across her loft and jumps onto her bed. Fuck, I miss her bed.

"Ah, popcorn." I roll my eyes when she holds up the brown bag. "Should have guessed. I'll just be here with my pizza."

"Do you have popcorn? Could make a popcorn pizza," Emmy suggests.

"That would be nuts, but nope. No popcorn." I shake my head. "Kitchen is pretty barren."

"Ah, Cece do all the shopping?" She teases.

"Ouch. But yes, actually."

"Still can't believe you managed to fuck that up too," she laughs. "On second thought, I can."

I wince, feigning a lance to the heart. "I did. Didn't I? Maybe I didn't."

"You're asking me?" Emmy raises her eyebrows, eyes wide.

I laugh at her laughing.

"No, no. Cece was-" I breathe in, my brain searching for words. "She was great. She was everything. Absolutely perfect. Part of me wanted her forever. But she was without."

Emmy's eyes seem to speak to me, or they're trying to. Or maybe I'm desperate for her to feel something. To understand what I'm saying.

Now's your chance.

I ignore my intrusive thought, determined to keep this cordial and light and not to mention fair. I can't do this again. I won't do it again. She is happy with somebody else!

"Now you have to convince a second girl to marry you someday," she jokes.

"Third, if you want to get technical." I don't miss a beat before I say it.

I can almost see the popcorn and whisky pop into her mind. I wonder if she can feel the phantom water bottle label ring around her finger the same way I can remember tying it there.

"I will excuse myself to fix your numbers. I'm disqualified," Emmy says waving her hands, perhaps in hopes of dispelling how fucking awkward I just made it.

"Kind of you," I smile. "But I don't think that's how it works."

"Sure it is! You think everyone includes their sixth-grade husband or wife as part of their count? You know how many Sitting-in-a-Tree husbands I have?"

"Hey! I thought I was the only one of those. Don't tell me it was the whole class," I crack up, just thinking about a 12-year old Emmy and Brooks on the playground.

"Mhmm, 12-year-old me got around," she laughs.

I watch her sink back into her bed, still laughing. It's the midnight delirium hitting. I want to ask about Josh. About how soon their engagement will be. I want to excuse myself from her count too, but I can't. My heart swells at the thought that I'll forever be the first person she agreed to marry. Maybe not in a schoolyard type of way, maybe not with a $50k diamond ring kind of way, but still in a real way. An us way.

I want to keep the one thing Josh will never have.

Time comes and goes. We reach midnight no problem. Popcorn bag discarded on her nightstand. One pizza box down. Somehow we stir up 100 inside jokes and add a few dozen more to our arsenal. We talk about movies and TV shows. During the 1 AM hour we make a playlist of High School Hits. Then it becomes 2 AM and we laugh about how much it feels like we're back in senior year, staying up late and talking like we'll see each other before homeroom tomorrow.

The whole time I'm thinking how we are just two kids sitting on separate beds miles apart, our laughter riding metaphorical phone lines. Just two people who decided to stay on the phone when everyone else hung up. It feels like we've both been waiting for this -like we can't grow out of this feeling. Another The Starting Line reference to enjoy.

And I wonder, I can't be alone in this feeling. Can I? Shit.

"So," Emmy says, propping herself up, appearing to adopt a sudden seriousness.

"So?" I repeat, hesitant.

"I have to admit something and I loathe it," she says, starting to smile again. Her ceilings pops into view and she tosses her phone down. I hear her shuffle off her bed and grab something out of sight. She reappears in the phone, holding a bag with a logo I'd recognize in my sleep.

"You didn't." I shake my head.

"I did. I did. I had to." Emmy pulls open the clear garment bag and holds up a hoodie. The same one I'm wearing, actually, just in a different color. It's from the men's collection. "And I hate that I'm obsessed with it. How's it so soft, baby clouds?"

"I could have given you a million," I laugh. "Free!"

"Yea well, you know. Support small businesses or something. Not that it's a small venture anymore." She pulls the hoodie over her head.

"We match," I tell her.

"If you tell me you're also wearing leggings and Uggs..." Her sentence trails.

"Just one of the two. And you don't get to know which." I spit out my tongue.

"Fine," she says, fake pouting. "Then tell me another secret."

"A secret?" I ask. It feels like we are tiptoeing into less friendshipy waters. And I'm here for it. Drown me. "You go first."

"Cop out. You can't pull that card." Emmy shakes her head. "It's like rule number one."

"Okay, okay. A secret," I repeat. I rub my eyes, trying to think, and exhale.

"Too tired?" She asks. "It is like 2-something by now."

"No!" I blurt out. In zero way am I ending this call because I'm tired. "Just thinking."

"Geez, I didn't think you had that many secrets from me," she jokes.

"Fair point. Alright. Here's one. Ready?"

"Ready," she answers, poised with a straight face.

"And don't judge me-" I begin.

"No preludes!"

"I ...wrote you ... a letter," I confess. The words escape my lips slowly, like they know they're betraying me. I can't believe I'm admitting this!

"HA!" She starts giggling uncontrollably and shaking her head.

"Stop. Stop. Your turn, and now I'm going to laugh."

Emmy holds the phone out with one hand and covers her eyes with the other, pretending to be hiding.

"I wrote you a letter!" She screams out.

"Shut up. You did not." I am giddy as fuck. As. FUCK.

"I did. I did," she admits, her cheeks slightly blushing.

"Wow. We would. We so would," I say. "So where is it? In the mail?"

"As if!" Emmy laughs, shaking her head. "It's never seeing the light of day is where it is."

"Hey! No fair," I tell her.

"Well, where's mine then?"

"It's ...with yours," I joke.

"Mhm, exactly. I don't really remember everything if I'm being honest. I just know I wrote it a lot for me, too. If that makes sense." Emmy almost frowns.

I focus on the oversized hoodie sleeve she's bringing to her lips, trying to cover up her smile. Jealous of a hoodie.

"It makes perfect sense." I nod. "I wrote mine for the same reason. Except, I remember everything."

"You do not!" She accuses.

"Yup. In fact, I could recite it. I'm not going to," I laugh at her shocked face. "But I could. If I wanted to."

"Jay Brooks. Writing and memorizing letters for girls. What have you become?" She teases.

Yours, I think.

"Are we kind of ridiculous?" She asks, head half buried in her pillow.

"Yea," I sigh. "I think we kind of are."

We are right in the middle of a heated debate about that Animorphs show from the '90s when 3 AM hits. Side bar: There's never a good time to talk about Animorphs. And naturally, as conversations go, talking about teenagers turning into animals led us to talking about souls.

"I mean, an animorph might not have a soul, but if they did would it be their human or animal soul self?" She asks importantly.

"Okay, are you writing a thesis? You are not allowed to ask questions after-" I tap my phone to show the time. "-3:27 AM."

She laughs at me and rolls her eyes.

"But it would be the same soul. To answer your silly question." I shrug. "Next."

Emmy's face glows warm beneath her string lights. Maybe it's all the nostalgia tonight, but I swear she looks 17 again. I'm lying in bed, phone above me, and my heart is hammering in my chest. There are so many things I want to say, to ask, to share with her. I want to live inside this night forever. A crestfallen thought when I remember she still has Josh.

"When's the last time you stayed up all night?" She asks, her sleepy voice infiltrating my daydream.

"Besides tonight?" I rub my eyes.

"Is that what we're doing? When did we decide that?" Her laugh (ani)morphs into a yawn.

"I think when neither of us hung up," I smile. "Come on. We're so close."

"Fine." She rolls her eyes and closes them. "I think you could talk me into anything."

"Likewise." I close my eyes too.

A minute of silence passes.

"Still there?" I ask.

"Mhmm. You?"

I crack a smile, laughing. "No."

"Good, me neither," she laughs quietly.

I can feel us both falling asleep together. It's cruel to feel so close and be so far away, but I'm also aware that it's more than I deserve.

I replay our whole night as I drift into sleepspace, Emmy still breathing and there on the phone beside me, even if she's falling asleep too. I run our conversations on a loop. The 2006 playlist, the popcorn pizza, the letters, the souls.

And I know tonight countless souls are sleeping, warm and content. Their lives feel right. But somewhere out there -somewhere stars are weeping. Wondering where they went wrong, why we didn't play along.

I wonder why I didn't play along.