The newly finished wooden floor burns the small of my back, heated by the warm, lazy air from the heating vent beneath the kitchen cupboards. My parents spent a fortune on this floor, a huge improvement from the previous- peeling black and white tiles. I roll onto my back and breathe in my cat’s tuna breath. I hear a loud purring as she nudges my hair with her nose. Her whiskers tickle my cheek and I laugh out loud. This is my place. Today, I’m sharing it with two amazing friends-Melissa and Mackenzie.


“Mack! Can you feel my ribs?” I demand drowsily.


“What?” She’s preoccupied, texting her boyfriend. Seth wouldn’t be my personal choice, big, blonde, and bug eyed, but I’m still jealous that she has one.


“Come ’ere, I want to see if my ribs can stick out.” I’ve been pretty out of it all morning, with the combination of lack of sleep and sugar as my excuse.


“I know mine don’t,” Melissa says moodily as Mack continues to ignore me.


“Come on Melissa, what are you talking about? You’re totally gorgeous.” Melissa and I go to the same Weight Watchers meeting. We weigh about the same, the only differences being that she’s shorter than me, and though we’re both insecure, I try not to care what other people think and she’s pretty unconfident.


“No, I’m not,” she says, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind her ear.


“Well you’re better than me; I was up this week.”


“So was I.”


“Yeah, but with you it’s harder to tell.”


“How so?”


“I dunno, you just can’t.”


“Look at me, I’m totally fat.” Mackenzie interrupts our bickering, as usual, with a not so well thought out statement.


“Dude! You’re like 100 pounds!” Melissa says indignantly.


“110 pounds,” she says, patting her flat tummy.


“How is that fat?” I say, getting pissed off.


“I eat like a fat person.” Mack says, walking across the kitchen and opening the fridge to demonstrate her point.


“Well then don’t say you’re fat, say you eat a lot; you know how that pisses me off.” I say sullenly, joining her.


“I’m hungry,” Melissa declares.


“What do you want?” I ask, dragging myself off the floor, walking across the floor, and pulling open the fridge door.


“I dunno,” Melissa says, also getting up.


“Bleh, just pick something,” I say, exasperated.


“I'm an indecisive person!” She says indignantly.


“I like your articulative-ness,” I mumble as I take some bread out of the freezer and put it into the microwave for 30 seconds.


“Ooh look, frosting!” Says Mackenzie, who had also gotten up. She immediately snatches what's left of my brothers' vanilla frosting, that he will later claim took him an hour to make. I shrug it off. It's rude of him and Deidre to keep their food in the kitchen, and expect it to be left alone. They should know it's going to be devoured if it gets in my line of vision.


“You know what, screw Weight Watchers,” I say, receiving a high five from Melissa. She’s my partner in crime. I pull two eggs, four slices of bread, and a thing of Cracker Barrel out of the fridge. I cook the eggs, defrost the bread, and slice the cheese. As I hand Melissa her food, the doorbell rings.


“Gabbi!” I squeal, my fuzzy socks slipping on the floor as I rush to open the door. She enters, cute-outfitted and smiley as always, and the other two girls immediately attack her with hugs. She is unbelievably skinny, but still manages to have curves. Gabbi is probably my best friend at CAPA. We knew each other in pre-school, and rekindled our friendship in 6th grade. She's a vocal major, but excels at everything and it's hard to remember her many interests. Gabbi's hair has a very interesting history. Last year, in an attempt to make her hated ex-boyfriend “stop liking her,” she dyed her hair red.


“But Gabbi,” I protested at the time, “Guys love red hair!”


Either she didn't care or she did, indeed, want to make him like her, because she showed up to school the next day with brilliantly red hair. This year, when she realized that she was sick of red and missed being a blonde, she got about a bazillion blond streaks, so now her hair just looks unnaturally orange.


Needless to say, Gabbi+Mollie+white frosting=A Very Questionable Afternoon. I won't go into detail, but I will say that it has something to do with our filthy minds. The rest of the afternoon is spent on the beige living room couch, documenting our empty day with the camera. I have a marvelous idea that we include the frosting in our photography, and immediately receive a white mustache from Mackenzie. Melissa snaps one of me trying to lick it off. Eventually we end up lying on the carpet, exhausted from posing. Melissa is tracing the patterns in the carpet with her finger, Gabbi is pretty much painting my arm in Sharpie, and Mack is back to texting Seth.


“Guys,” I whine, “I want a boyfriend!”


“So do I,” Melissa sympathizes.


“I don’t,” Gabbi says, lightly placing dots on the inside of my wrist. “Single Awareness Day, guys!”


“Obviously Mack likes it, seeing as how she has a booyfrieend.” I singsong. She smiles devilishly at me and goes back to texting.


“At least you guys have had boyfriends! I’ve never even kissed anyone!” Melissa says, depressed.


“Yeah, but that just makes us hoe bags. You’re waiting for the right guy, nothing wrong with that.” Gabbi says in that optimistic voice of hers.


“Think about it, Melissa.” I interrupted helpfully. “How many guys have you liked?”


“I dunno… four?”


“How many guys have you told?”


“Two?”


“Exactly. I’ve liked pretty much every guy, told all of them, and mostly got rejected.”


“What’s your point?”


“I mean, you can’t get discouraged if you barely put yourself out there! So far, out of ALL the many guys I’ve liked, only three have liked me.”


“Yeah, but I’ve never had a guy ask me out. Guys always ask you out!”


“No they don’t! And that’s only because you don’t talk to guys.”


“I guess.”


“Either way, tomorrow’s gonna suck for all of us. Except Mack, that is.” I say, lying down on Melissa’s lap as Gabbi finishes my arm.


“Do you think Seth will get you a heart gram?” Gabbi asks her, looking up from my arm.


“I don’t know, I don’t think he has any money.” Mack says, her face falling a little.


“Naw, I think he knows he can’t beat the Valentine I made you.” I joke. I made Valentine’s for Mack, Gabbi, Perry, and Hannah. Mackenzie is in my inner group of friends; there are five of us: Mackenzie, short tempered, flirty, and naive; Hannah, dark and cynical; Perry, light and carefree; Gabbi, loyal and passionate; and me, Mollie, who I haven't quite yet defined. All I know is I'm thirteen, I'm blonde, and my eyes are denim blue. I overanalyze, procrastinate, and just generally need to grow up. But I guess I have time.


Mack kicks my shin, and I let out a fake scream. I grab her leg and bite it, Gabbi laughs, and Melissa looks on, amused.


“Guys!” I shriek, “Let’s prank call someone!” We decide on Jaia, after going though our contacts. She is really funny and amazing, but she’s lost some of her self since she moved to Penn Hills and had to switch from CAPA to a stuffy private school. The first time, we prank call her, and she hangs up. The second time, we confess it’s only us, and she laughs.


“Jaia!” I scream excitedly into the phone, “I miss you!!!”


“Hey, guys! I miss you too!” She says, but she sounds more reformed, less like Jaia. I want to wake her up.


“Guys! Tell her my secret!” I say.


“Which one?” Gabbi asked.


“You know…” I say, hinting with my eyes.


“OH! That one.” She says, overly dramatic as usual.


“GUYS, just tell her that Mollie-“ Melissa says, exasperated after five more minutes of hinting.

“Shhh! My parents are upstairs!” I hiss at her.


“Okay, okay, chill!” Melissa says. “Why don’t you just go in the other room, so we can tell her without you interrupting.”


“Fine!” I exclaim, and go into the kitchen to wait. I happily anticipate Jaia’s reaction when I am invited back. “So…. Did they tell you?”


“Yeah,” Jaia answers.


“Yeah?” I say, crestfallen at her reaction.


“Um, gotta go, guys,” she responds, and hangs up the phone.


“Wow.” I say, staring at the phone.


“I know,” says Gabbi.


“What’s happened to Jaia?” I ask.


“Private school,” Gabbi replies as she puts her phone back in her purse.


“Let’s go upstairs,” I suggest, and start to walk up to my room with Gabbi and Melissa, Mack still trailing behind us as she texts. Once in my room, we prank call a couple more people, namely the hated Roger. All of us have gone out with him, except for Melissa, who liked him. He is a self-proclaimed playa, and has been known to explain his cheating strategies while going out with a girl. We all think he’s a dirtball, but I get the feeling that Melissa still likes him.


“Um, hello, this is Chiquita Marie Sanchez,” I say after he answers the phone, going with our go-to prank name.


“Hello? Do I know you?” He drawls in his Roger-like voice.


“Yeah…we used to go out! What, so now you don’t remember me?” Chiquita always has a heavy Spanish accent, and a lot of attitude.


“No!” Roger protests, confused. “I mean, yes!”


“Oh no, you can’t pull this on me again! I’ma hang up the phone right now little boy!” I say amidst giggles.


“But I don’t even know who you are!” Roger says, his voice cracking pubescently.


“Oh no you di-idn’t! Five months of relationship and you don’t even know me? Forget you!” I say, singing the last sentence like Cee Lo Green. After I hang up, we all start laughing, and talking about our own unique experiences with the jerkward, Wilmus Roger Randolph III.


After Melissa and Mackenzie left, Gabbi and I went upstairs to my parents’ room to Skype on my dad’s computer. I brought the huge bowl of frosting up so that we could gorge on it while we video chatted. I had by now gotten used to the sugary taste, and the way it melted on my tongue. We fought for my dad’s rollable chair, and she ended up sitting on my lap for the rest of her visit. After she left, my legs were asleep, but I still had that light feeling in my abdomen that occurs after a laughing fit. I love that I have friends who I can just waste the whole day away with.