my second sister.

I met my best friend when we were five. She was the new girl in town, and something drew us together, effortlessly and easily.

We are inseparable as we beg our parents for sleepover after sleepover, so afraid of asking that we say, “Can / we / have / a / sleepover?” together, each one of us speaking alternating words to soften the fear.

We explore my parents’ backyard, making nature soup and pretending to be the orphans from Annie as we scrub their backyard patio with sponges dunked in buckets of water.

We build roads with chalk on my cul-de-sac, pretending our bikes are horses.

We learn to rollerblade, whizzing down my inclined driveway at frightening rates, using the garage door as a crash wall.

We moon bounce on my trampoline, sharing secrets and gossiping about boys.

We jump in her pool and flip our hair upside down, pretending to be Martha Washington.

We make up nicknames for each other and wear matching two-piece Juicy outfits.

We buy books that come with friendship bracelets or necklaces at Scholastic book fairs, always two halves coming together to make up a whole.

We decorate sugar cookies that my mom has baked for us at my birthday parties, sitting in wet bathing suits on my backyard furniture. Mom has laid out bowls of icing, dyed all different colors, so we can bring our cookie creations to life.

Eventually, we are in middle school and then high school and our playdates lessen. Sometimes drama follows us and wedges us apart, but we somehow find each other eating our lunches in the bathroom, or in quiet moments in the hallways, or after school when other people have disappeared.

Our hearts are connected even when we aren’t.

We sit together in my tan Toyota Corolla on college breaks and catch up about everything.

In our twenties, I slowly fall apart, and she is there; she slowly falls apart and I am there.

Sometimes it’s in the foreground, sometimes it’s in the background, but the drumbeat, always connected, is there.

We sit together on the same couch in her different apartments around New Jersey when I visit home from my new life in California and then Colorado. Cut vegetables usually sit between us, or a home-cooked gluten-free pasta that she’s crafted specifically for my visit.

no time has passed between us, despite all the time that has.

We head down to Six Flags Great Adventure together most summers, our favorite friendship tradition.

We mail each other letter after letter, our main way of staying in touch when we are apart. Seeing her handwriting brings me closer to her than a text ever could.

We meet up in cafes and restaurants just to steal two hours with each other when I find myself back East for fleeting moments.

We always find each other.

And when she bought a new home in New Jersey with her husband-to-be, I knew a detour was going to be added into mine and Adam’s drive back up to my parents’ house after spending a week down the Jersey Shore this past September.

I will always detour to steal a few hours with this girl who knows my heart as intimately as her own.

Her and the love of her life have been planning a wedding, a wedding that I knew was a destination, family-only wedding. It is the perfect celebration for her, one that I couldn’t wait to hear all about once the knot was tied and honeymoon over.

We walk around her new home, the four of us, and I externally admire decorations while internally sitting with the disbelief that those little girls are all grown up.

Little Courtney inside of me feels like this is just another playdate, like maybe we should go draw some chalk figures in the driveway or run around and play tag.

How time flies.

When she says, “Courtney, come out here with me for a second,” motioning to her screened-in porch, I think maybe she’s going to show me something we missed on the tour.

As I follow her out the door, I see two chairs next to each other, facing the trees in the distance, just beyond the screen, and she tells me to sit while handing me a gift bag.

“What’s this?”

“Read the card first.”

I take out the envelop and pull out the card. It has a light pink background with white lace cutouts. It is stunning. I look up at her, wondering.

As I read, I am living out our friendship again and tears cloud my vision. I laugh and take a break to wipe them, and she laughs with me.

When I reach the end, she has written an ask for me, in so many words: You are my family, will you join me for my wedding?

I am searching for words as I look over at her and see that she has manifested a tin tray from somewhere with eleven white-frosted sugar cookies on it. “Will you be my maid of honor?” is written on them in pink icing. I immediately recognize them as the same sugar cookies we used to decorate at all my birthday parties.

I realize that I’ve always had two sisters—we have been family since that day in kindergarten.

My heart explodes as we laugh and cry together.

“Of course.”

Always.

xx

Court