Page 226 of What We Burn

“Lashes it is.”

Amy pulls up the lash tutorial on her phone, propping it against the Nutter Butters box. “Okay. I’ll do yours first. Tilt your head back.”

I tilt. Amy leans in with the glue and the tweezers and the intense focus of a woman performing surgery. She places the first lash, presses it down, blows on it.

“Don’t blink.”

“I’m not blinking.”

“You’re blinking.”

“That’s involuntary, Amy. It’s a biological function.”

“Well, biologically stop it.”

By the time she’s done, my right eye looks like it belongs on a magazine cover and my left eye looks like a spider had a seizure on it.

“It’s a learning curve,” Amy says, tilting my face toward the lamp. “The right one is stunning though. You look like a sexy pirate.”

“Sexy pirate is not the vibe I was going for.”

“It’s the vibe you’ve achieved. Own it.”

I do her lashes next, and they come out surprisingly even, mostly because Amy can sit still like a statue and I’m working with the desperate focus of a woman who refuses to be out-lashed by her best friend.

“Gorgeous,” I say, holding up the mirror. “You look like a Bratz doll.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

We admire ourselves, turning our heads, batting our new lashes at each other, taking a selfie that Amy posts to her Instagram story with the caption “Fear us.”

“More wine!” Amy says, jumping up and heading into the kitchen for the bottle. “Jamie should be here any minute now. So I think it’s safe to pick our colors and cue up the first movie.”

Amy pours the wine while I set the polish bottles out on the coffee table. Six colors, ranging from sensible nude to a shade called Homewrecker Red that I’m immediately claiming.

“This one’s mine,” I say, picking it up.

“Of course that’s the one you want,” Amy says, sitting on the couch beside me. She grabs a soft pink called Sunday Morning. “I’m going wholesome. One of us has to.”

“If you must,” I say, picking up my wine and holding it up to her before I drink.

“What movie should we watch?” Amy asks, taking a generous sip while simultaneously shaking her polish bottle.

“Something terrible. Nineties horror.”

“The one with the mask and the corn maze?”

“Obviously.”

I queue it up and we settle into the couch—cotton balls, remover, polish, and the quiet focus of two women painting their nails while teenagers make terrible decisions on screen. Amy does my left hand because I’m useless with my non-dominant, and I do hers. We put our drying toes on the coffee table and argue about top coat during the boring parts.

“Top coat is mandatory,” Amy says. “Nonnegotiable. A nail without top coat is a nail living in sin.”

“I’ve gone my whole adult life without top coat.”

“And it shows, Sage. It shows.”

This is what I missed. Not the snacks or the movies or the nail polish. This. A person beside me who doesn’t need me to explain why I’m quiet sometimes. Amy asks once, listens, and then lets me be. She sits with me and eats garbage food without scanning my face for signs of crisis.