The group laughed at his joke, now comforted that we’d found our friend. Jake high-fived him. But I wasn’t so proud. I noticed beads of sweat dotting his brow. He appeared shaky.

Dylan wasn’t as quick to give Nash props, either. “Hey, you left two guys alone in the woods with three girls. I think the joke’s on you.”

“Not so fast…” Nash took my hand, protecting his turf. “It was just a prank.”

But I knew better.

We all hugged good-bye, and each couple got into their separate vehicles.

As Nash turned on the ignition of his car, his hands were still shaking. Nash had frightened himself — by his own story and by the timely howling animal. I slunk into the passenger seat and put on a brave face to mask my disappointment in my boyfriend’s cowardice.

“You really had them fooled,” I said flatly. “More so than you think.”

I’d lived my seventeen years in Legend’s Run in an average American four-bedroom house with my “still married” parents and snotty older sister, Juliette. I had a decent upbringing in Legend’s Run and didn’t have too many complaints about the town except that it was full of social tension from being divided into two parts — the affluent suburbs on the east side and the blue-collar, rural town on the west. The Eastside was built up with new developments and rolling estates, while the Westside, or Riverside, was more agricultural. The Eastsiders felt their new homes were superior to the country homes, and the Riversiders resented that cornfields and silos were giving way to concrete driveways and street lamps. Each community had its own elementary schools, but all the students were combined at middle school. In high school, each side was reluctant to mix with the other out of pride, ignorance, or habit. The two sides were labeled by opposing student groups as either “snobs” or “hicks,” though the truth was that neither label was entirely accurate. I smiled at everyone because it was the right thing to do. In addition, I always believed it took more energy for the two sides to stay apart than it would for them to finally come together.

Ivy Hamilton had been my closest friend since elementary school and lived in an adjacent subdivision in an estate home twice the size of mine.

It was my first day of first grade when a blond girl with a pale blue polka-dotted ribbon headband boarded the bus. I was sitting alone, watching the houses go by and wondering who lived in them, and inventing stories of their grand lives. Juliette had refused to sit with me and instead giggled with her friends a few rows back. The blond girl wore a tiny blue dress and matching sweater and a sparkling pink bracelet. The night before, my mom had brushed my tangled hair. I think I still had puffy eyes from all my bawling. I’m not sure what I wore, but I know it wasn’t something that was “dry-clean only.”

She was the only girl that day to wear a dress. She walked down the aisle of the bus like a contestant in a beauty pageant. I noticed the girl glaring at the boys and other girls. The boys were too shy to have her sit with them, while the girls were too jealous.

I was worried she would have to stand the whole way. When she reached me, I scooted over and smiled. Her glare turned into a big grin, accentuated by two dimples. She sat down beside me. She told me her name was Ivy and said I should get a dress just like hers so we could be twins. Even then I knew my mom wouldn’t buy me a million-dollar outfit. When it was time to board the bus back home, Ivy saved a seat for me. She gave me her pink sparkly bangle bracelet. When I said I couldn’t accept her gift, she insisted I take it. “I have five others at home,” she said. I still have the outgrown tiny bangle in my jewelry box.

As we grew up, Ivy was interested in the ABC’s — accessories, boys, and credit cards. She continued to be obsessed with fashion just as she was the first day we met. While she modeled clothes in dressing-room three-way mirrors for her mom, I sat cross-legged on the store bench doodling in my journal. I spent more time daydreaming and picturing myself in designer jeans than buying them.

In the eighth grade, Abby Kensington moved next door, or as I like to say, “next acre,” to Ivy.

Ivy and I were swimming in her in-ground pool when a moving truck pulled in next door. A girl with a dark ponytail hopped out of the car. When she saw us, without hesitation she came right up and said, “Hi, I’m Abby Kensington. I know we’ll be great friends.”

I thought it was odd, since she didn’t know a thing about Ivy or me. But it turned out Abby was right. She inserted herself into our twosome and we became an inseparable threesome.

Abby was athletic, with olive skin and black hair that waved like the sea, while Ivy was wiry and had alabaster skin and blade-straight blond hair. I fall somewhere in the middle.

At first, I was jealous of the new girl. Since Abby moved next door to Ivy, I was convinced they’d hang out together behind my back. They also shared a passion for designer clothes that I lacked. Abby was just as interested in scoring pristine high-end sports gear as she was winning a game. But Ivy never let anything sever our relationship.

Another attribute that my friends shared was accusing me of being too nice because I was cordial to everyone. Just because students were from various parts of the community didn’t make us that different, I tried to tell them. We are all united by the same town and the same school, I reasoned, but Ivy and Abby preferred to hang out with Eastsiders. I tell them they aren’t outright snobs but, rather, inward.

Juliette was of the same snooty mold. Two years older than me, she was cover-girl pretty. I was always in her shadow. Juliette did her best to make me a miniversion of herself, but it just didn’t take. She took modeling classes, and as much as I tried to follow in her footsteps, I couldn’t walk in a straight line even without a stack of books on my head.

While I ran around with Ivy and Abby, Juliette always kept company with one of the many adoring guys pursuing her.

Now that Juliette was a freshman in college, I was the only young adult in the house. I received more attention from my parents than normal and the house was much quieter with her absence, but I secretly did miss her. She didn’t seem to miss home, though, since she was super busy dating college guys with Greek letters on their sweatshirts.

Unfortunately, my love life wasn’t as glamorous as my sister’s, until one day when I was approached by a guy I had had a crush on since first grade — Nash Hamilton.

Nash, Dylan, and Jake have had consecutive numbers on their football jerseys for as long as I can remember. Ivy and Abby had been dating Jake and Dylan since ninth grade. Since the three of them were best friends and two of them dated my best friends, it was always assumed that Nash and I should be sweethearts. But Nash always had a girlfriend.

It was at the end of sophomore year when Nash broke up with Heidi Rosen.

Ivy, Abby, and I were at a football practice when the team had a break. My friends chatted with their boyfriends, and I was writing ideas for future stories in my notebook. I went to the water fountain, and Nash approached me.

He leaned toward me and asked me out. I thought I didn’t hear him correctly. When he repeated his request for a date, I almost laughed.

“No,” I said, and walked away.

“Hey, come back.”

It was then, I think, he really noticed me. Not as one of the popular girls, but as someone who was different. I don’t think a girl had ever said no to him before. And I know he never chased after one.

I really thought it was a joke. Nash was known for pranks around school — gum on chairs, funny sayings on blackboards, sticking naughty pictures in textbooks — and I’d yet to be picked as his victim. I was sure that at any moment the school photographer was going to jump out from the bleachers and claim he’d captured the whole thing on video.

But more than that, I wondered why a hotshot like him would want to go out with me.

Ivy and Abby hung by the bleachers with a “What are you doing?” look on their faces.

I realized, then, that Nash wasn’t kidding. It wasn’t a prank, a hoax, or a hazing. Nash Hamilton was really asking me out.

Nash was a great catch — literally. He was the star running back on the football team.

I stopped in my tracks, and he came over to me with a surprised expression.

“Where are you running off to?” he asked.