The Amity Pact

The Quiet One

I stood in the mirror at my house, trying to fix my make-up and self-consciously pulling at the strings of the new bikini I had bought precisely for this occasion of our sleepover.

I was Addilyn: the sweet, quiet girl in the town of Brinnon. Best friends to Delilah and Lucy. It had seemed I had known them for my whole life, and now after twelve years of being best friends with Delilah and another seven equally-as-fabulous years with Lucy, we were grown-ups…

It seemed that all I had ever known as “Addilyn – the girl from the little town of Brinnon” was going to change. The three of us were going away to different colleges; as we knew was inevitable since we all had different dreams… No more best friends that saw each other every day; no more sweet, little girl that lived in Brinnon. I would become a new girl that was going to new places with new dreams and new visions.

Of course, this would never be the final good-bye with two other girls that I had known for so long. That was why I had suggested the letter writing; it was something to keep us together while we were apart.

For this weekend though, as the weather became nicer and it wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been, we had planned a little sleepover at a lake not too far from Jackson Cove. Surely it would be one of the last times that we would get a chance like this, so I was glad that the girls had let me arrange a sleepover for us.

There was a small lake house cabin along the sandy beachfront that I had rented out just for the special occasion. It would allow us some time together for probably the last time – gosh, how sentimental and serious that sounded… It was almost like a dream that I still couldn’t believe quite yet.

I arrived at the cabin early in the morning to gather what needed to be arranged. Movies, party snacks, blankets and pillows, nail polish and make-up for some pampering? Check, check, check, and check.

I was ready to have a good time with my best friends… It was hard to imagine that it seemed like just yesterday that I was walking into kindergarten holding onto my mother’s hand and now I was getting to the point where I would have to depart from my best friends in the entire world…

It wasn’t going to change our friendship though; we were going to be closer than ever while we couldn’t be together.