“Missing you was my breakthrough, I think. We can’t ever be apart for that long again.” She rests her forehead against mine.

“I missed you too,” I say, and even though I look her in the eyes, it doesn’t feel all that right anymore. I mean, I did miss her—kind of. Not as much I should’ve, but she was always on my mind—kind of always on my mind.

I flip her over onto the bed. I pull out a condom from my jeans as we strip down. I don’t slip it on yet because I haven’t quite taken off yet—I’m psyching myself out too much. She grabs me and I close my eyes because if I see her disappointed I’ll somersault out the window. The memory of Thomas taking his shirt off, running into the sprinklers, and doing push-ups overcomes me, and as much as I try to push it out of my mind to focus on my beautiful girlfriend, suddenly all systems are a go.

Thomas is not Genevieve, and Genevieve is not Thomas so this terrible ping-pong in my head over them is bullshit. They both play very different roles in my life. I know this; I swear I do. Genevieve is the girl I love and the one I will always miss more whenever there’s distance between us. Thomas is just my best friend, the one I trust a lot, but he won’t ever get any secrets out of me that I can’t tell Genevieve. So what if Genevieve won’t race up bleachers with me or care to count trains go by? So what if sometimes I randomly smell Thomas’s cologne on a stranger and instantly relive our hangouts?

If I were faced with Sun Warden’s decision—whether or not to save his girlfriend or best friend from a dragon—I’m sorry to change my mind, but Thomas would fall away without me moving a muscle. And I would make that choice without a doubt because the bottom line is that Genevieve is my girlfriend and I’m her boyfriend, and Thomas and I are just friends and that’s that.

All this doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate Thomas’s existence on the exact day my girlfriend returns after a three-week leave.

He matters too much to be dicked over by friends two years in a row.

Thomas has strict instructions not to come up here on the roof until I go down to get him. I’m the only one who got him a gift, naturally. Well, Baby Freddy stole three bottles of raspberry Smirnoff from his mother’s liquor cabinet. (That kid might be a flakey punk bitch every now and again, but he definitely respects any opportunity to get twisted.) I’m hoping Thomas doesn’t think my gift is ridiculous or silly like Genevieve did when I told her what it was.

I impulsively bought a few cheap lanterns from a discount store on the way over here, but only two glow his favorite shade of green. We’re blasting Brendan’s Get Krunk playlist from his stereo dock, and Skinny-Dave is already grinding with our neighbor Crystal, while her friend hovers by the dollar store cakes I bought. I really wanted to get him an ice-cream cake from his old job and make it special, shaped like a director’s slate or something, but it costs too much money, which sucks.

“Bangin’ party,” Brendan says after setting the stereo down. “Didn’t know you had it in you after your beach party bombed.”

“I was twelve and Orchard Beach sucks. Let it go.” I look over. Genevieve is on her second drink. She’s been chatting with Me-Crazy for ten minutes; that’s an unhealthy amount of time to spend with him alone. “Can you go save Genevieve from Psycho over there?” I walk off and he calls me back.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m getting Thomas.” I haven’t seen him all day, only spoke with him at midnight last night to wish him a happy birthday, and again a couple of hours ago to let him know we’d be setting up soon. I miraculously shepherded everyone up to the roof without managing to get into a fight with the Joey Rosa kids.

“I hope you throw me an awesome party like this,” Brendan says, and it reminds me of that time in fifth grade when he and Baby Freddy competed over who would be my best friend on the school bus. Some friendships can never be as simple as sharing.

I climb down the fire escape and knock on Thomas’s window before sitting on the windowsill. He’s at his desk, shirtless, and reading something in his journal before looking up with a smile. “Happy birthday, yo. You writing down your words of wisdom for the day?”

Thomas nods. “Nah, I did that earlier. I was reading what I wrote at the end of my birthday last year. I was an angsty little guy.”

“Rightfully so. But you got it good upstairs. We probably shouldn’t have invited Me-Crazy to a rooftop where he’ll be drinking, but we’ll cross that bridge later.”

“Like when he throws one of us off?”

“I think we’re all safe except Skinny-Dave. He really likes throwing him around.”

“I owe you a hundred fist bumps for putting this together for me. I can’t wait to read my journal tomorrow after I drunk-write my entry tonight.” He gets up and walks over to his closet. I look at the posters around his room so I can stop staring at his back. He catches me up about all the great phone calls he got today from his family, and the birthday card from his mother with two hundred and fifty dollars inside.

“Not sure this party will beat a card with that much money.”

“BOO!” someone says behind me.

I jump and almost hit my head on the raised window. It takes me a second to register that it’s Genevieve. We have been taking a few minutes to come up. Not surprised she’s checking on us. Gen looks into the room, and Thomas is standing there, covering his bare chest with a striped tank top, and she looks back at me. “Is party central happening down here now? Let’s go up and drink! Wooooo!”

I’m not Genevieve’s biggest fan when she’s hitting the bottle because she turns into this party girl she always regrets being the next morning. She shifts my head toward her and kisses me intensely, her tongue tasting like raspberry vodka and cranberry juice as she shoves it down my throat. You would think she’s expecting Thomas to leave so we can use his bed. She squeezes my hand and leads me back up to the roof. Thomas follows a few steps behind. Some of my friends cheer for Thomas while others keep drinking or spitting game to the other four girls. Thomas points at one of the glowing lanterns, says it’s cool, picks it up, and it immediately dies.

Well, that happened.

I offer to get him and Genevieve a drink (well, another drink for her) and leave them chatting.

Fat-Dave walks over to me with a red Solo cup filled to the brim. It spills over his hand. “Cheers to your girl’s nice tits!”

“Cheers,” I say without a drink. I fill up three cups—20 percent liquor, 80 percent juice for Gen’s sake. Then I carry them—two in my hand, one in my mouth—back to Thomas and Genevieve. I hand them off right as Thomas asks Genevieve, “Are you a witch?” and I’m kind of confused on the crazy turns this conversation must’ve taken. “What the . . . ?”