Seventeen.

I hadn’t planned anything in advance. We had to stop off at Madison’s house to get the movie she wanted me to watch - Aristocats, it was called. I told her to grab a few more movies too, just in case we wanted to watch another. After all, we had quite an uneventful afternoon planned.

“Do you want to bring your Polly Pocket?” I asked.

She gave me a strange look, curious and uncertain. “Why?”

“You’ve seen these movies, that’s all. If you got bored you could play with her.”

I guess that was the right answer, because Madison went back upstairs to get her Polly Pocket. I couldn’t possibly understand the appeal of playing with a small plastic doll for as long as she did. I’d catch her mumbling to it sometimes, but nothing above an inaudible whisper. I wondered if she had any stuffed animals; I’d never seen her bedroom before.

Our next stop: the gas station. I actually needed gas, but it was a great place to pick up snacks too. Madison went straight to the candy aisle and I tried to find a bag of chips that wouldn’t eat up what little spending money I had. I wasn’t sure how Madison felt about off-brand chips, but they would have to do.

“Which one are you going to get?” she asked me. She was holding a bag of M&Ms, three sticks of Sweetarts, and a Ring Pop.

“I have chips, see?” I held them up.

“But don’t you want some candy, too?”

“One more candy for me is one less candy for you, isn’t it?”

Madison stopped to think about that for a minute. Almost everywhere we went, Madison paid. This was a very rare exception, and she wasn’t used to making such arbitrary decisions regarding money.

“I’ll share with you,” she finally said, nodding her head with absolute certainty. I had to stifle a laugh.

“You do that. Now what do you want to drink?”

“Pepsi. Or Mountain Dew. Orrr…”

I followed Madison to the wall of fridges, watching her pour over the colored labels. She was sure in a good mood today, wasn’t she? I thought again about Polly, the swing sets, the rabbit hole…

“Why don’t you get some juice instead?” Madison was just pulling a Pepsi out of the cooler when I made the suggestion. A very weird suggestion, a suggestion one teenager doesn’t make to another teenager. It felt awkward; it felt wrong on my lips. But I’d gotten the words out already. The hard part was over. “Juice is good for you,” I went on, “and you have enough sugar there for ten Madisons. Right?”

She just stood there, staring at me, bewildered… had I done something wrong? Had I overstepped? I wished I could read her mind, but not even the brightness in her eyes gave away what she was thinking. Whatever I’d done — whether good or bad — had clearly caught her off guard.

“I… uh.” She looked down at the bottle of Pepsi, then at the pile of candy in her arms. Standing there in silence, hanging on a syllable… she reminded me of a watch that stuttered on the second hand. Tick. Tick. Tick. But she didn’t move forward, not until she did. Tick. “Alright.”

She put the Pepsi back in the fridge and went down the aisle to find a bottle of juice instead. I finally let out a breath; I hadn’t even noticed I was holding it in. Why was I so nervous over this? Why was this so difficult?

Madison and I met in the first grade: we were both six years old. She was a very quiet girl back then, but she was always a good student. She didn’t make a lot of friends until middle school. Her color blindness bought her a lot of interest, and after some attention her disposition was radiant. By the time high school started, everyone knew about Madison Bell in one way or another. Everyone liked her. Except me. Maybe I just liked to buck the trends.

But now, here I was, a sixteen year old high school girl babysitting that same six year old from ten years back. She’d grown into a beautiful young woman, and at the same time, hadn’t changed a day. Maybe this was too weird for me. Maybe it wasn’t worth it. But when she turned around and her eyes met mine, when I saw that shimmer of excitement burning her up in the best, brightest way… well, what really isn’t worth that?

“Is this okay?” The bottle she came back with was topped with Winnie the Pooh and a spout for her to drink from. She pointed to the label. “It’s apple.”

“That’s perfect,” I said with a smile I swear could rival hers if someone wasn’t paying enough attention.

But wow, her juice bottle was expensive. After paying, I could only put six dollars in my gas tank. I took the bag in one hand and, without asking, used my other to take hers. I felt a small twitch in her fingers as I led the way out of the gas station, but she didn’t pull away. Was that progress?

My house was remarkably cold when we got there, but the heat kicked into gear pretty damn fast. I unpacked all the groceries and got the DVD player set up in my bedroom. It was just after four in the afternoon and the sun was still up. It seemed silly to suggest changing into pajamas so soon.

Aristocats was a very fun movie! Madison talked through the whole damn thing, popping candy in her mouth like her life depended on it. She went through her cup of juice faster than anything, but absolutely refused to pause the movie to get more. When the credits started to roll, Madison had finished two packs of Sweetarts and her bag of M&Ms.

“Whatcha wanna do now?” she asked with the energy of Madison Bell plus two sticks of solid sugar. The house was warm and comfortable. The sun was still up, but with my blinds drawn and the way my window faced, it felt like late evening. I checked my phone. Almost six.

“Let’s change into pajamas and we can watch another movie.”

“Have you seen The Emperor’s New Groove?” she asked me.

“Isn’t that about the guy who wore invisible clothes?”

“…no?”

“Then I don’t think I’ve seen it,” I admitted.

“Oh it’s amazing, we are doing that one next.”

She got up from my bed and fished her backpack up off the floor. Madison had spent a lot of time in my bed; it was more comfortable to hang out in my room than in the living room.

“I’ll go change and I’ll be right back,” she told me.

“I’ll get you more juice,” I said, and followed her out of bed.

I changed into my pajamas first; I had some plaid pants and a tank top I slept in most nights. That would do. Then I picked up her Winnie the Pooh cup and brought it with me to the kitchen. Mom always kept apple juice in the house, though she so rarely drank it. I checked the expiration date. Looked fine.

When I finished filling up Madison’s juice bottle, I screwed on the lid and held it up to get a closer look. It really did feel like babysitting, huh? Getting her drinks, watching kids’ movies. And this bottle didn’t help either, did it? I wondered if Madison liked sippy cups…

Madison was waiting in my room dressed in her yellow pajama set from Walmart, with You Are My SUNSHINE written across her top. The fabric hung loosely - maybe half a size too big - around her form, airy and light, gentle… personifying her. I almost dropped her cup.

I’d never seen Madison Bell so informally before. I’d never seen her without her hair curled or without her socks or without her cardigan. I’d never even imagined… no imagination could. I knew her top was sleeveless, but she was wearing a gray zip-up jacket I had never seen before. Her hands were in the pockets, but when she noticed me in the door she spread her arms wide.

“Cute, huh? I’m glad you told me to get them.”

“Very. Very. Cute.” Each word was its own breath — each word had to be.

“So, Emperor’s New Groove is amazing. Just wait.” But I wasn’t sure anything could amaze me more today.

I had hardly waited for the movie to start before suggesting it. Madison had already started on her last stick of Sweetarts.

“Could I do your hair?”

“Huh?”

“Like. Brush it or put it up or something.”

I expected bewilderment, like at the gas station. I expected curiosity, like when I mentioned bringing her Polly Pocket. What I didn’t expect was her mouth to hang open and her cheeks to fill up with a pinkness I had never seen in her skin. But that was what happened. She immediately lowered her eyes to the bedsheets and nodded her head. Okay…

“Sit over here, I’ll get a hairbrush.”

She didn’t talk. Had I said something wrong? Or was she shy? I didn’t know what was so embarrassing about doing hair — Polly and I did it all the time. And it wasn’t like we were doing anything else anyway, just watching the movie…

“Oh my god, your hair is so soft.”

Did she not use hairspray? How the hell did she get it to stay like that? I ran my fingers through the tips like water, twirling her curls, and letting them spring back into place. This close, she smelled like strawberries and cream…

I couldn’t explain the difference, not in actual words, but this was nothing like brushing Polly’s hair. This was… overwhelming.

“Sorry,” I muttered when the hairbrush got caught on one of the tangles. She raised her juice to her lips and sipped softly while the movie played. We didn’t talk, but I could feel her breathing whenever my hands would stray below her neck. Was the movie almost over? I had completely lost track of time.

“I was going to do a braid, but your hair is a little shorter than mine. Can I do pigtails?”

She nodded.

The disparity between this movie and the one before it was astounding. By the time I had finished pulling her hair up in two symmetrical pigtails, fluffed out at the end by her curls, I was sure she had slipped out of the happiness and into the dull quiet. I’d done something horribly wrong, and I had no idea what it was.

But when she turned to me, her eyes were glossy and bright, like she might cry, but I knew it wasn’t like that at all. She smiled, the smallest smile, the most insignificant thing I had ever seen on her lips, but it felt anything but insignificant.

“Thank you,” her lips said, but no words came out.

That was the first time I wanted to kiss Madison Bell.