Indy did not know the definition of small. The entire junior class of Valle Vista High was stuffed inside Aunt Brandy's house. My sister was at the center of all.

She and a few members of the dance team were doing their routine to a remixed version of some popular song. Everyone hyped them up. Especially the guys. Indy was feeding off the attention. She was made for the spotlight.

"Why aren't you out there with them?"

I turned to find Romeo. Technically, his name was Jerome, which was shortened to Rome by most people. I called him Romeo. Only me. He hated it. And I loved that he hated it.

"Rom--" He shoved a donut hole in my mouth before I could finish. "Rude," I said as a chewed the sugary goodness.

"Says the girl talking with her mouth full." He had a napkin of tiny glazed donut holes in his hand and crumbs on his yellow sweater. The color complimented his dark-brown skin nicely. His tight curly hair looked freshly cut.

I narrowed my eyes up at him and he simply smirked down at me.

"Really, though, isn't that the dance you were helping Indy with last month?" he asked, eyes glued to the girls moving their bodies for the crowd.

Indy wanted to move up the ranks of the dance team. She wanted to help come up with the dances and pick the music. She was determined to prove herself to the dance coach. Last month, she started choreographing her own dance to show Coach Winters. I helped, if it could even be called that. The dance was all her.

"Help is a generous word," I said as I stole another one of his donut holes. Not that he noticed. He was hypnotized by the dancers. "And you know I don't dance in public."

Romeo was my best-non-blood-related-friend. (Indy insisted I called him that because she was my best friend).We meet in sixth grade when I found him trying to get his shoe from the top of the vending machine. He used to be a lot shorter back the--even I was taller than hi--and that made him a prime target for cowardly bullies.

After returning his sneaker in some gender-swapped version of Cinderella, we were inseparable. It was just us two trying to survive middle school.

And when Indy transferred to Valle Vista freshman year, it became the three of us.

Now, nearly six years and a major growth spurt later, we were still the best-non-blood-related-friends and trying to make it out of Valle Vista High unscathed.

The song ended and Romeo finally took his eyes off the dancers. The girls bowed and thanked their admirers as the crowd whooped and hollered.

Indy glistened with sweat as she came over to us. Her face split into a wide grin when she saw me.

"This is not a small party."

She ignored what I said and stole Romeo's last donut hole. "I thought I was gonna have to come drag you out the house. What took you so long?"

I held back a laugh as Romeo frowned at his empty napkin and turned to my sister. "Well, my mom isn't at a concert and she had a lot of questions about where I was going."

After babysitting, I went home to shower off the sticky strawberry-banana smoothie and get ready for the party. When my mom saw me with my make-up bag, she wanted to know who, what, when and where.

Indy's eyes flew open wide and she gripped my shoulders. "Daya, what did you tell her?"

"Nothing!" I told her. "Now get your talons out of me before you draw blood."

She loosened her grip, but didn't let go. "Seriously, Day, if your mom comes here--"

"I told her we were going to the movies." It was the only thing I could think of that would require make-up. I didn't wear it often and my mom always got suspicious when I left the house looking a little too put together. Especially on a Friday night.

But my mom thought Indy was an angel. As soon as I mentioned her name, my mom relaxed. My sister had that effect on parents. She always knew the exact thing to say to make them trust her.

"And what did she say?"

"To be home by curfew."

Indy relaxed, a let me go. The ghost of her hands still squeezing my shoulders. "You and your freakin' curfew. Doesn't your mom know you're too old for a bedtime?"

I'd lost count of how many times Indy dissed my mom's rules. Her mom was more easy-going. All Indy had to do to was text her mom every so often to let her know she was still breathing. My mom wanted a five-page summary of where I was going, what I was doing, who was going to be there and when I'd be back.

"I'll be sure to bring that up during tonight's breastfeeding."

"I did not need that image in my head," Romeo said, looking haunted.

I smacked his shoulder. "No one told you to picture it, pervert!"

"I hear words. They form pictures in my brain. I can't control it."

"The sad thing about that," Indy said, focusing on me, "is that I one hundred percent believe she'd still breastfeed you if she could."

"Jealous?" The conversation was getting old. I was running out of ways to defend my mother's slightly overbearing parenting.

"No, I'm worried she's keeping you too sheltered." It shocked me how genuinely concerned she sounded. It lasted only a second before her eyes landed on Romeo. "Where'd the donuts come from?"

"Home," he said, sounding kind of bitter. "And thanks to you two, I have no more."

Indy patted his head. "Next time, bring enough to share with the whole class."

He glared at her as she rushed into the crowd to yell at some guy smoking to take it outside.

"She has a point," I said, also craving more donuts.

He turned his evil eye to me. "I'll point my foot up your ass."

"How about you picture your foot up Coach Wolff's ass?"

His face went slack with what I guessed was a very unfortunate mental image involving our P.E. teacher. "I hate you."

I smiled sweetly at him. "You're welcome."

He mocked a laugh, balling his napkin up. Someone bumped into me from behind me. For the second time that night, I had a drink spilled on me. The scent of alcohol burned my nose as the warm liquid ran down my back. The person didn't even mutter an apology. Asshole.

Romeo winced, then offered me his crumpled napkin as a joke. I laughed, despite how annoyed I was that it was apparently Dump A Drink On Daya Day.

"Is there a sign on my back that says 'pour a drink on me'?" I mumbled as I pushed through the crowd to get to the stairs.

Romeo followed me up to Indy's bedroom, where I planned on stealing one of her dresses. "No, but you do have a giant pink stain."

I groaned, pulled him into the room and closed the door. "I think the universe has a problem with my fashion taste. This is the second outfit I've had ruined today."

Romeo sat on a zebra print beanbag in the corner of Indy's room while I went through her closet. "Maybe the universe is just concerned that you're not getting enough fluids."

I threw a hanger at him. Unfortunately, he ducked in time.

Indy and had very different styles. She liked short and tight, while I liked preferred comfy and flowing.

She had an amazing body and legs for days. I'd show off my assets if they looked as good. But I didn't like anyone looking at me. Blending into the background was more my thing. Nothing in my sister's closet was going to accomplish that.

"Have you been on HALLZ?" Romeo asked, scrolling through his phone.

At the mention of that app, my palms started to sweat. I still hadn't replied to LaterTofu. He left two more messages that I couldn't bring myself to open. He could've been pissed I hadn't responded. I didn't want to deal with that.

"Not recently," I said, pulling a dress out of the closet that was about as long as a headband was thick. "Why?"

"Someone just got exposed for catfishing," he said, coming over to show me the Cafeteria message board. "Someone was pretending to be Andre Walker and asked some girl to send them a hundred dollars. After she sent it, she asked Andre in person if he got it. Of course he said no."

Andre Walker was on the football team. Some girls at our school went crazy over him. Evident by the fact that some were willing to send him money, no questions asked.

"That's disgusting." I suddenly felt better for not replying to LaterTofu. What if he was one of those catfishing weirdos? "Can she get her money back? Won't it be easy to find the person since we have to sign up with our student ID numbers?"

He turned back to the messages on his phone. "Yeah, that's what people are telling her. Everyone is already reporting them."

"What's the username?" I asked, going back to looking through Indy's clothes.

"WasOmlette." He grimaced. "I hate these usernames. Why are they all foods?"

"Maybe the creator was hungry?" I shrugged and closed the closet. There was nothing in there I was brave enough to wear. "When are you going to tell me your username on there?"

"Never," he said, slipping his phone into the pocket of his jeans. "I told you, you have to find me."

That was his game since we made our accounts freshman year. He didn't want to exchange usernames and he covered his ears whenever I tried to tell him mine. Instead, we had a code word, well, a code question.

What's your favorite movie?

Our answer was Kazaam. It was a really old movie where that ex-basketball player played a genie. Romeo's dad had us watch it once in eighth grade.

No one we knew had heard of it and according to the internet, it was one of the worse movies ever made. It was safe to say we'd be the only two people to say Kazaam was our favorite.

In almost four years, we still hadn't run into each other on that app. Our school wasn't even that big.

"At least tell me where you hang out." There were about a dozen different chat rooms on HALLZ. They were sorted by subject, like school classes, and included the cafeteria, different sport fields, and even restrooms. He could've been anywhere.

"Six years of friendship and you can't figure that one out?" He put a hand over his heart, looking wounded. "That hurts. It really does."

I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. "Does it really look that bad?" I asked, straining to see my back in the mirror over the dresser.

He touched my shoulder, gently turning me so he could get a better look. "If I squint, it looks like tye-dye."

"Excuse me." I jumped at the sound of my sister's voice. "Whatever you're about to do is not happening in my bed."

"Ew!"

"I'll try not to be offended by that," Romeo said, dropping his hand from my shoulder.

"Someone spilled their drink on me," I explained, showing her my back.

That mischievous glint was back in her eyes. "And Rome was helping you undress?"

"That's my cue to leave," he said, rushing out of the room.

His skin might've been too brown for me to see him blush, but the lack of eye contact and the way he all but ran out the room was evidence that he was. Plus, the whole word-to-image thing he had going on. Was he picturing me naked?

My cheeks warmed at the thought. Unlike Romeo, I didn't have an extra dose of melanin to hide my blush.

Indy's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, were two about to...?"

"No!" Now my entire body felt like it was on fire. "I came up here to steal something to wear."

My sister laughed, finding my mortified state hilarious. She then went to her dresser and pulled something from the bottom drawer. A familiar blue dress. My dress that I thought I'd lost.

"For the future, that bottom drawer is all stuff you've left here," she said, handing over the dress.

"Really?" I got to my knees and pulled open the drawer. Shirts I thought I'd lost for good were in there. Along with lost lip balms and an American Girl Doll book about Addy I forgot to return to the library back in fifth grade. "You had this the whole time? Do you know how much money I owe the library? What time is it? Maybe I can return it."

"Oh my god." She pulled me up from the floor. "Where did I go wrong with you? We're at a party and you're talking about overdue library books?"

"Late fees are no joke."

She held my face between her hands. "Neither is life, and you're wasting yours worried about the wrong things."

What did that mean? Before I could ask, she demanded I put the dress on. The promise of trouble was alight in her brown eyes again. "I'm going to make tonight the best night of your life."