With Wings

4

A few hours later, Sam and I were sprawled out on the tiny porch of the Sea Cat Diner / Sam's house, lazily licking popsicles and listening to the crashing of the ocean waves that were just out of sight. The sun was just disappearing; darkness waited around the corner; the shadows were looming and growing, threatening to devour us.

We were talking; meaningless, empty chatter like always. It was the day before the Autumn Ex, so we talked about that, and were we ready?, and yes, we were. And it was two days before Halloween, and neither of us had figured out what costumes we were going to wear, or even if we were going to wear costumes; were we too old to dress up yet? At what point is one too old to dress up for Halloween? And all this while I thought of Opal, just as I always had for the past few weeks.

"Oh, God, you've fallen hard, haven't you?" Sam asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"For Opal."

I smiled slightly. "I don't know." She raised her eyebrows slightly. "You don't know," she started to say, but I held my hand up to stop her and continued. "I've definitely fallen for her," I said, "but-"

Sam got it immediately. "You don't know if you've fallen in love with her," she said.

"Yeah."

Sam rolled over from where she had been sprawled on her back so that she was lying on her stomach. She propped her chin up in her hands, stuck her empty popsicle stick between her teeth, and looked at me expectantly. I looked back at her blankly.

She yanked the popsicle stick from her teeth. "Well, don't stop there," she said impatiently. "Tell me about her." She pointed at me suddenly with the popsicle stick, and I stifled a laugh suddenly as I imagined Sam violently duelling with someone much bigger and taller than her with this tiny, wooden, round-edged weapon. "You weren't at drama today," she said in an accusatory tone. When I didn't reply, her eyes widened. "You were with Opal, weren't you? You were totally with Opal. Oh. My. God. Did you make out? Was it fun?"

"We didn't make out," I said. "And, yes, it was fun, and-"

Sam dropped her popsicle stick, and it slipped between the cracks of the porch. She was too excited to notice, however, and she clapped her hands together excitedly. "I'm so proud of you!!!!!!" she said. "Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!! My little Alex is finally growing up!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I am both older and taller than you," I said, "and if you'd just let me finish-"

"Fine, fine, yes, I'm listening," she said, and lapsed into complete, attentive, rapt silence as I went on to describe to her the proceedings of the day - not in great detail, but in relative detail. I pulled out my phone and showed her the playlist Opal had compiled for me, which I had named Opal Songs.

"Oh, my gosh," she said, smiling. "That is so damn cute. Like, when you guys get married-"

"Sam."

"-like, you already have your whole wedding playlist planned out. And there's an adorable story behind it and everything, like, 'the first time I gave my darling Opal a lift home, she played indie pop music for me, and compiled a playlist - this playlist - for me, and that was how I started liking indie pop music, and that was also when I realized that I had completely fallen head-over-heels for her-"

"Sam," I said, but I was laughing, and she had to stop because she was laughing, and we settled into a companionable silence with the sounds of our laughter still drifting up to the clouds.

"Do you think that a guy is allowed to have, like, a female best man at his wedding?" Sam asked suddenly.

I shot a quick glance at her. "If not, then that's completely stupid and a rule I have absolutely no interest in following," I told her. "Of course you'll be my best... girl, best woman, at my wedding, Sam. You're my best friend. There's no one else I'd rather have."