"Broke up with you? When? How? Why?" Fiona asked, then stopped herself. She rubbed Delphine's hands with her thumbs. "You want to talk about it?"

Delphine nodded and sat up. "He broke up with me after trick-or-treating. Right after I said I love you."

"You said I love you? So soon?" I asked, scooching closer so I didn't fall off the bed on my face.

"We were doing great. I thought it was time," Delphine said. "I told him when we were at the gate I needed to tell him something. He said me too. He told me to go first. So I did. I said I love you. Then he said he's breaking up with me, that it doesn't feel right and he thinks it's for the best. He didn't even use the classic, 'it's not you, it's me,' he just said he thought it was for the best."

I frowned. I wanted to say that didn't sound like Luas at all. But I held my tongue while Fiona asked Delphine more questions.

"Did he seem off at all while you guys were trick-or-treating?"

Delphine shook her head. "He was laughing and talking and stuff the whole time. Pretty normal."

She looked at Fiona like she was seeing her clearly for the first time. "By the way, how was it with Brandon?"

"This isn't about me," Fiona said, although her face was pink. I'd asked her the same question that morning and she'd waved it off.

"This is about you right now, Delly. How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Better with you guys," Delphine said. "It just sucks. I mean, I had just told him I loved him. It sucks, you know?"

"I'll take your word for it," Fiona said, with a hint of a smile. She and I had secretly joked a lot about being 'single ladies' while Delphine was going out with Lucas.

Delphine sighed. "I'm bummed out. But...I'll get over it."

I couldn't believe how mature she was being. This behavior I could expect from anyone but Delphine.

Delphine slowly got dressed in her walk-in closet, then toured us around the house. To say the tour took an hour wasn't an exaggeration, by the time she showed us the countless sitting rooms, her sister's room, and the indoor pool.

"Del, were you trying to torture us by not inviting us over?" Fiona joked as we left the pool.

Delphine shrugged. "Didn't cross my mind. But...ya know... feel free to come surprise me with your swimsuits anytime."

We stayed with her for the rest of the day, making sure she was okay. We finally left at about seven.

"What happens now?" I asked Fiona after she had called her mom to come pick us up. "What do we do about Lucas?"

"Shun him, I guess," Fiona said. "He's our best friend's ex."

"But he's our friend," I argued. "We can't shun him."

"I know," Fiona said, and I could tell she was being genuine. She knew it wasn't fair to him either. "But it's for Delphine's sake. I don't want to do it either, but... girl code, I guess."

It still didn't feel right to me, and I could tell Fiona definitely wasn't buying it either, but I shut my trap and went along with it.

The next day I walked around by myself in recess looking completely lost, but only because I didn't know who to hang out with. Delphine was still absent and Fiona was with Brandon, and Lucas was with Walker, more than surprisingly.

I ended up bumping into someone much shorter than I was.

"Sorry," Jasmine said, looping a hair tie around the end of her long braid. "I wasn't looking."

"That's okay," I said, smiling.

She was so much shorter than me. Her dark skin, not quite a tan but not African American like Delphine, and dark hair contrasted against her teal eyes so well, something I hadn't quite noticed when I met her. Such bright eyes.

"Who are you looking for?" she asked me.

"Not really anyone," I replied. "It's complicated."

"Me neither," Jasmine said. "Usually, I spend recess periods with my sisters, but that's been hard to do for these past few years."

"Your sisters?"

"I have triplet sisters. Lily and Rose. They don't go here. And they don't have what I do," Jasmine said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Cancer."

I stopped dead in my tracks. "You have cancer?"

Jasmine nodded. "Leukemia. It's been hard to grow out my hair because of it."

"That's what you're worried about?" I asked incredulously. I doubted I'd be able to sleep at night in her place.

Jasmine shrugged. "I don't like to think about the downsides, y'know?"

When I shook my head, she said, "I don't want to think about possibly dying or whatever. Life is short anyway. I want to focus on what's important to me, not society. So yes, my lovely hair is what I'm worried about."

I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. "You, Jasmine, have such a different way of seeing this world. How do you do it?"

She shrugged. "My mom always says that."

It hit me how different people could turn out depending on their parenting. Jacqueline was a rebel with the dirtiest mouth ever because of her dismissive and cheating mom. Lucas and Fiona were both intellects, but differently. Lucas was more on the quiet side, while both Fiona and Freya were taught to be proud about whatever it was they did. Jasmine saw the world through rose-colored glasses, because her mother had taught her to.

I rubbed her arm. "Well, props to your mom. That vision's working out for you, isn't it?"

Jasmine smiled up at me, teal eyes even sparklier. "Definitely."

And that was the routine from then on. Instead of Lucas, I walked around the school with Jasmine, who told me about her triplet sisters and how they'd been supportive of her since the start, through her fangirl phase and her cancer. She described them in detail; Rose was much taller, with the same dark skin but brown eyes, and she'd recently gotten her hair in dreads. Lily was the same height as Jasmine, again with the dark skin and hair, and she had heterochromia, with one teal eye and one brown eye. Lily also had curly hair, not sleek and straight like Jasmine and Rose's.

Jasmine told me there had been some sort of genetic incompatibility in her parents that they'd discovered after she and her sisters were already born, which was why Jasmine had cancer and Lily had two differently colored eyes. Rose, she told me, kept insisting that she also had some sort of case, trying to make her sisters feel better.

Jasmine was good company.

Almost as good as Lucas.