EIGHT YEARS EARLIER

I love this sweater. Like, so much.

I’ve never been much of a sweater person. But the shade of pink perfectly complements my skin tone. And when I run my hand over the

soft fabric, it feels like I’m touching a cloud. I turn this way and that, admiring myself in one of many mirrors of Ricardo’s—a busy clothing store at the mall.

“That looks amazing on you.”

I jump slightly at the sound of my friend Jade Carpenter’s voice. It’s funny because she is one of the loudest people I know with one of the biggest personalities, but sometimes she can sneak up on you like a stealth ninja. I turn around and she is standing behind me, leaning precariously against a row of size two blue jeans that would probably be too big on her.

“You think?” I say. I run my hand over the fabric again.

“Yes!” Jade tucks a strand of her pin-straight blond hair behind one ear. She put on far too much eye makeup this morning, and it’s caking on her eyelashes. “You never get new clothing for yourself, Amy. You always wear the same stuff.”

That’s not an entirely untrue statement. Yes, I can usually be found in blue jeans and oversized hooded sweatshirts. But I like hooded sweatshirts. They’re warm and cozy, and if it rains, you can put up the hood. They’re like the perfect clothing!

“Buy it,” Jade says. “Trust me.”

With those sage words, Jade wanders off to do her own shopping. Jade will leave the store with at least one new outfit, maybe two. And some

jewelry. She always does.

For once, maybe I should do the same. My mom gave me some money

—two crisp twenty-dollar bills which I broke on a bottle of peach iced tea (my absolute favorite drink in the universe), but the remainder is still sitting in my wallet. I could buy myself a sweater. I could have something nice to wear that isn’t a hooded sweatshirt for once in my life. It would be fun to show off the sweater at school on Monday.

I grab the price tag hanging off the sleeve of the sweater. And my mouth falls open.

Okay, I will not be buying this sweater today.

I shrug off the sweater, replace it on the hanger, and stick it back in the rack of clothing, trying to squelch my feelings of longing. How could a stupid sweater cost that much money, anyway? It’s just a bunch of yarn, isn’t it? I need to walk away before I develop some kind of dangerous attachment here.

While I’m standing in the middle of Ricardo’s, trying not to stroke the forbidden sweater, I notice a little girl standing on the other side of the clothing rack. She is about six or seven years old, wearing a pink dress that is the same color as the sweater, and with blond curls around her face. She is adorable, especially when she offers me a gap-toothed smile.

“That sweater would look pretty on you,” she says in her sweet little girl voice.

“Oh, thank you,” I say. “You should buy it.”

I smile regretfully at the little girl. “Unfortunately, it’s a little too expensive.”

The girl looks up at me. Her eyes are very blue, like two little pools of perfect ocean water, rimmed with long dark eyelashes. “You should take it then,” she says.

What?

I stare at the little girl, thinking I must’ve heard her wrong. I wonder where her parents are. A girl that young shouldn’t be all alone, should she? “Excuse me?”

The little girl flashes her gap-toothed smile again. “Nobody will see,” she says. “It’s a big store. They won’t miss it.”

She’s right. Ricardo’s is huge. And there are very few salespeople working on the floor. If I stuffed the sweater into my backpack, nobody

would notice. I could walk out of here with the sweater and it wouldn’t cost me a cent.

But I couldn’t do that. That would be stealing! I’ve never stolen anything in my life, not even a pack of gum. I couldn’t steal a whole sweater.

Before I can explain to this little girl that stealing is not okay, a hand closes around my forearm. Jade is standing next to me, a wild look in her blue eyes that are flecked with bits of yellow. She shifts her trademark red purse on her shoulder.

“Hey, Amy,” she says. “I’m ready to go. Let’s get out of here.”

Before I can protest, Jade is pulling me in the direction of the exit. It’s for the best, though. The thirty-seven dollars and change in my wallet won’t be enough to get me anything I really like here.

“Do you want to hit up Sally’s next?” I say as we weave our way through the clothing racks to get to the exit. “They have cheaper stuff.”

“Sure. Maybe.”

“Or maybe I can grab another peach iced tea?”

Jade laughs. “I’m pretty sure that if I cut you open, your blood would be like ninety percent peach iced tea.”

Well, what can I say? I love peach iced tea. There are worse vices.

Jade still has her skinny fingers wrapped around my wrist when we get to the store’s exit. As we walk through, a deafening alarm goes off. I freeze, surprised, and Jade’s grip on my arm tightens.

“Run,” she instructs me.

Before I can even think about it, Jade and I are running. A voice behind us yells for us to stop, but it’s obvious at this point we can’t stop. We run through the mall, stepping between families with little kids in tow, and I nearly trip over a stroller at one point. Jade almost mows down a woman with a cane. But after we turn two more corners, Jade pulls me into a little nook, and we finally stop running.

Jade is breathing hard, but also laughing. Her cheeks are bright pink, and her bleached white-blond hair is wild. “Oh my God,” she says.

I hug my arms to my chest, massaging a stitch in my side. “What was that?” I ask, although I’m afraid I already know.

Jade pulls open her red purse. I peer inside, and there it is: a shirt stuffed inside with the tags still attached.

“Jade!” I cry. “I can’t believe you did that!”

She shrugs. “That store was so expensive. I didn’t have a choice!

Anyway, it’s not a big deal.”

Jade and I have been best friends since the very first day of kindergarten, when we discovered we were wearing the exact same dress— white with a pink and purple heart on the chest. We had sleepovers every weekend from ages nine through eleven, she knows about every single crush I’ve ever had, and she swore she’d keep my secrets to the grave. I’ll never have another friend as good as Jade Carpenter.

But lately, I feel like I barely know her anymore. She used to be more like me: liked to go to school, liked to read, and followed the rules. But over the last year or so, she seems to get all these crazy ideas about things she wants to do. For example, last week she called me at two in the morning and asked if I wanted to break into Mrs. McCloskey’s pool and go skinny- dipping! No, I did not.

“You shouldn’t steal, Jade.” I don’t want to sound lame and give her a lecture about how stealing is wrong, so I just say, “What if you get caught?”

She waves a hand like this doesn’t concern her in the slightest. It concerns me though. Next year, we’re going to be applying to colleges. I don’t want to have to explain a shoplifting charge on my application.

“Everyone does it.” Jade gives me a pointed look. “You should have taken that sweater. It looked great on you.”

I snort. “You know, that little girl was telling me I should take it. Can you believe that?”

Jade pulls the shirt out from her bag and holds it up, admiring the glittery lettering on the front. “What little girl?”

“The little blond girl who was standing next to me.”

“I didn’t see a little blond girl standing next to you. What are you talking about, Amy?”

I roll my eyes. Jade’s powers of observation are not exactly stellar. How could she not notice that little girl? The girl stuck out like a sore thumb in her frilly pink dress, all alone like that. And she was right next to me.

Wasn’t she?