"Holy fucking shit, Amanda!" Arti ran up to me in the airport, and before I could stop her, she had me wrapped up like a python and its prey.

"Watch your fucking language. We're in public," I said into her hair.

"Thank you so much for everything. We've spent our entire lives together, and now that that's changed, it's like, it's like—"

"There aren't words for it, I know."

She pulled away from the hug, then pressed her cold hands to my cheeks. "I just missed you. I thought California would be just extra enough to keep me distracted, and it was most of the time, but it's not home."

I knew that feeling.

"You have any good stories?" I asked.

"So my roommate and I are both majoring in gender studies, but you would not believe how much of a fucking asshole she is. I love it," Arti said with a laugh.

I always thought gender studies was an impractical major, but I never told Arti. It was important to her, and therefore, I had to live with it. I had learned to keep my mouth shut about stuff like that.

"An asshole like us, or an asshole like Eleanor?" I asked.

"Like us, of course. There's no way in hell I could live through another Eleanor situation. I'd kill myself before I let that happen." She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Wow, it's almost been two years."

I nodded as we wandered through the airport, trying to figure out where the hell the exit was.

"Anyway, I think you met her over the phone one time, but her name is Rachel," Arti continued.

"She seemed rude enough. I think we could get along."

"Oh yeah. You, her, Blaine, and me, we'd fuck shit up together. Plus she's not bad on the eyes, you know?"

Arti always had an appreciation for beautiful people.

I laughed. "Yeah, she seemed like the exact opposite of your two previous choices—"

"We don't talk about either one of those. It was a dark time in my life." She smiled. "God, I could just start crying right now."

"Please don't."

"Yeah, I know about your long list of allergies. Peanuts, bees, pollen, emotion, inefficiency."

I smiled as we found the exit. "Glad to see I haven't completely slipped your mind."

"So I know your social life has probably gone to shit, so how are the academics?" Arti asked.

"It hasn't gone to shit. I've made, like, one friend and three acquaintances."

She stared at me. "In four months? Damn, that's actually better than I was expecting."

I smiled and fluffed my hair. "They say college changes a person."

"I don't think it changes you, I think it just helps you figure out who you actually are. I got that from my philosophy class." She smiled. "I'm so smart and filled with useless knowledge."

"And I'm genuinely shocked that you've gone to a class."

"That was from the one day I went." She laughed. "Anything after syllabus week is bullshit."

I laughed. "Especially the general education shit. God, you would not believe how I got into it with my sociology professor."

"I would believe it, but please, do tell," Arti said.

We got into the car, and I told her about the first day of sociology, how Caroline probably kept me from getting kicked out immediately, how I wore a trash bag to his class to prove a point, how he told the entire class that I was a piece of shit, and how I ended up giving a speech to get me out of that class with a solid B when I certainly should have failed.

"Oh my god, dude. That same thing happened to me!" Arti said.

"No, it didn't."

"Okay, not quite the same thing, but one time in my intro to gender class, I fell asleep, and when I woke up, everyone was gone."

"How long did you sleep?"

"How the fuck would I know?" She laughed. "Dude, I just couldn't be happier right now. I know I keep saying that, but it's true."

I smiled. "Don't get too happy. We still have to wait for Blaine to fly in tomorrow."

"God, I love that piece of shit. And I can't imagine how excited you are, assuming nothing's changed of course."

"Yeah."

I thought for a moment. Had things changed on my end?

According to Viktor, they didn't, and an answer that I didn't come up with was certainly better than not having an answer at all.

"You know, that's assuming we don't all die tomorrow night. I heard there's supposed to be a snow storm that kicks the shit out of Bloomington," Arti added.

"He'll be here in the morning, so it shouldn't be a problem. But honestly, we should be used to the whole Snowmageddon thing. There's at least one good storm every year," I said.

Arti laughed. "Ha, I think you're forgetting I spent the last few months in southern California. Blaine was in fucking Waco, Texas, so it's gonna hit him hard too."

"That's what you guys get for leaving me," I said, and it came out much harsher than I meant it to.

Arti rose her eyebrows at me. "You said you understood. Don't fucking change your mind on me."

"I do understand why you both left. You needed to get away from what you know, and Blaine wanted to go back to an old life he used to have. And me, I had to stay for Viktor. We all had to go in different directions. Doesn't make it any easier, though."

She let out a sigh. "Dammit."

"That pretty much sums it up, yeah."

I looked away from the road for a second, and I could see the wheels turning in her brain. She wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but when she actually bothered to think, the products of it could be just as destructive as the ideas I put together on a regular basis.

Arti spent the rest of the drive home keeping those thoughts to herself, which was incredibly odd. She was much more extraverted and talkative than me, and anytime she had a thought, it spilled right out of her lips, whether it was true or not.

As we pulled up near the house, there were a couple of nets and guys in the middle of the street. I stopped the car and sighed.

Matt and Viktor playing street hockey.

There wasn't much snow on the ground, but they played through it like it didn't even exist. I wasn't a street hockey expert, but I assumed it would be more difficult if the street was slippery.

I rolled my eyes to hide my secret joy. "Jesus, they need to get out of the road before I run them both over."

Arti looked over at me, then back at them. "I got this."

She opened up her car door, then gave Viktor and Matt a smile that I was certain they didn't miss. "Hey, fuckers, please get out of the street."

"No, thank you," Matt yelled back.

"You sure about that? I don't do 'attitude' unless it's mine or Amanda's," Arti replied, then walked toward them.

I covered my eyes with my hand. "Oh god."

"Give me the hockey stick, or I'll fucking smack you with it," Arti said to both Viktor and Matt.

"Are you actually mad or..." Viktor asked, trailing off, probably trying to find the word he wanted.

"I don't know what that means. Just move the nets out of the way, so Amanda can get through. It's not that hard, unless you're both stupid or something."

Verbally harassing people. Arti's favorite activity.

I shook my head and smiled.

"I'm the smartest one out of the three of us here, so just shut up for one goddamn second. You didn't even give us three seconds before you started screaming at us," Matt said.

"You literally said, 'no thank you,' when I politely asked you to move," Arti said.

Viktor rose his hand, then spoke. "You called us fuckers, though, so that's not exactly polite."

Arti crossed her arms. "Did I say please? Yes. That's as polite as I get. You should be grateful."

She did say please, which was indeed a rarity with her.

Matt rolled his eyes. "Let's just move our shit. But it's not for you, Arti. No one likes you."

"Y'all can't hate me any more than I already hate me, so get a move on. Go. Go. Pack your shit." Arti pointed at the street hockey ball. "Shit, is that glow in the dark?"

Viktor nodded.

"You know glow in the dark stuff causes ovarian cancer, right?"

"Who the fuck cares? We don't have ovaries," Matt said as he picked up one of the goals off the street. "That's probably bullshit too."

Arti looked back at me with a smile.

I gave her a thumbs-up.

She climbed back into the car.

"Does it actually?" I asked.

"Does what actually what?" Arti replied.

"Does glow in the dark shit actually cause ovarian cancer?"

"I don't fucking know. Maybe." She laughed.

I pulled the car into the driveway, and we both got out. Both of us were typically pissed off at everything, but that day, we were happy. (Plus a little pissed off, but we couldn't expect a 180-degree turnaround.)

That evening, Arti and I refused to be separated. We ate together, then watched TV, then fell asleep in my bed. It still made me uneasy that there used to be a spider in my room, but I figured Arti would charm it to death or something if it made a reappearance.

The next morning, she and I even got ready together. She showered while I brushed my teeth and did my hair.

Best friendship was kind of the best thing ever.

I learned to live with Jackie, and in fact, she was one of the better roommates I could have had, but Arti would always be my girl, my partner in crime (in some cases, literally), and my significantly eviler half.

As she finished getting ready for the day, she asked me, "What time should your idiot be here?"

"As long as his flight didn't get delayed, he told me he should be landing around ten thirty. His mom's gonna pick him up from the airport."

"You wanna break into his house and scare the shit out of him?"

I thought for a moment. She was a wizard when it came to sneaking into places, and I wanted my chance to study from the master.

Who knew when I would get another chance?

For a lack of a better term, it was a YOLO moment for me.

"Let's do it." I smiled.

Arti smiled back at me and we climbed into my car, then she turned to me.

"You know how I said that I hope you and Blaine break up?"

I looked back at her. "Uh, no. Not really."

"Oh, well, then I didn't. Never mind."

Should I have remembered that?

It sounded like a conversation I wanted to avoid, though, so I didn't really let the memory lapse bother me. I wasn't interested in her saying it again, especially since we had officially broken up in name, but maybe not so much in actuality.

Despite my minor bout of loneliness and shitty decisions that went along with it, Blaine Jacobs had me fucked-up in love, and there were few things that could scare me more than that.

When we got to his house, Arti grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me to the backyard as a light snow began to fall.

She looked up at the sky. "What the fuck is this bullshit?"

"That happens around here during the winter. It may startle you at first, but eventually you get used to it," I explained as if she hadn't lived in Minnesota most of her life.

Arti smiled back at me. "Look, smartass, did I ask?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"Ha, ha, ha. Aren't you just fucking hilarious?"

I smiled and nodded.

"But anyway, you ever broken into this boy's house before?" she asked.

"You see, when you're a pleasant person like me, you get invited inside. You don't have to break in," I replied.

"Oh my god, I'm going to leave you out here until you learn how to play nice." She rested her foot on the trunk of a tree that was just a little too close to the house for my comfort. I was always afraid it was going to fall and kill Blaine or something.

I placed my hand just above her foot. "I've never played nice in my life. Don't expect anything different. I swear to you, I'm the same petty bitch you've always loved."

She smiled. "Great. So what you have to do is climb this tree up onto the roof, then I'll handle the window situation."

Another reason why I hated that goddamn tree. He could have gotten murdered.

If anyone was going to murder Blaine, it was going to be Arti or me.

But I ignored that fact for a moment as I followed Arti's footsteps up the tree. It seemed that she had done it a million times, and her hands and feet certainly and efficiently scanned the tree and found places to land.

I followed, but I was certain it wasn't nearly as smooth. All I had to do was get from point A to point B, and whatever was in between didn't matter.

I pulled myself up onto the roof, where Arti had already pried Blaine's bedroom window open.

"I'm not even going to ask how the hell you did that," I mumbled.

She held out a long piece of metal that resembled a thin, impractical crowbar. "Good idea."

I took it from her hands, then she climbed into the room dropped down onto the floor without a sound.

How?

Why?

What the fuck?

I climbed in after her, careful not to fall and kill myself.

"Hoo boy, what a rush, am I right?" Arti asked with a laugh. "Damn, I missed doing that. He fucking hated it when I just showed up."

I couldn't imagine why.

"Okay, so we're in. Now what?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. You think his mom has any tea here?"

"Probably. Raising Blaine was probably as stressful of a life as anyone could have, especially by herself. She has to have something."

"I'll go look. I'll be right back." Arti walked out of the room.

I sat down on Blaine's bed, which was made for once. It had been a while since he had slept in it.

And as if I wasn't pathetic enough already, it brought a lump to my throat.

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Hello, don't mind me, fangirling over my own freaking story. I'm sorry, but my heart belongs to Amanda, Blaine, and Arti. I'm just as pathetic as Amanda right now.

How do you think Amanda's reunion with Blaine is going to go? Will it be what Amanda hopes?

Thank you for reading! Don't forget to comment and vote!