“Why aren’t we in love?” Grace was laying on Samuel’s bed with her head hanging backwards off the edge. Samuel was sitting against his closet door, a notebook full of his drawings in one hand and a pencil in the other.

“Almost done, just a second.” Samuel didn’t look up from his drawing.

“‘Kay,” Grace said, letting her arms hang down behind her head and grabbing the dark blue microfiber blanket that hung down in a uniform length all around the bed. She looked around the room she spent half her time in, there were the same dinosaur stickers that were there when they were in kindergarten. The same tinfoil spaceship on his bookshelf she had made him for his eighth birthday. Nothing ever really changed in Samuel’s room, he just accumulated more things. It might have looked like a mess to anyone else, with books and clothes and papers with elaborate drawings strewn all over the floor, but Grace knew that everything had its place and Samuel would lose everything if he, or more likely his mother, cleaned.

“Sorry, I’m done now,” Samuel said, putting his art pad on top of a pile of shirts, “What did you say?”

“I asked why we’re not in love.” Grace rolled onto her stomach and stared down at the ratty beige carpet. She sounded as if she was asking about nothing more significant than the weather. And she wasn’t, not to her.

“Probably because we’re not, right? I mean, I love you yeah, but like a really cool turtle, or if I had a twin sister.”

“But wouldn’t it make sense for us to be in love? We’re real teenagers now, shouldn’t we be doing that sort of thing?” Grace sat up on the bed, criss-cross-applesauce, and leaned her head back against the wall.

“What do you mean? I guess we are supposed to be dating people now, but why each other?” His voice, like Grace’s, didn’t sound like they were having some kind of profound conversation. They were both just curious about the situation.

“The teen movies all say that one day you’re going to look at me and realize that you never want anyone else. And then we’ll date until the end of time and be disgustingly in love. And have lots of sex, I guess, but that’s in like a couple years.”

“Why me, specifically?”

“Because we’ve been friends since you can have friends that aren’t your mom’s-friend’s-kids. We’re together literally all the time, and neither of us really like being around anyone else.”

“I guess, but to be fair, have either of us tried being around anyone else? I see your, point, but yeah.” Samuel stretched his legs out in front of him, propping his feet up on a pair of jeans he couldn’t remember washing.

“And like, you’re quirky and weird and a nerd and I’m kind of pretty and do gymnastics. And I have too tried being around other people, Remember when you had chickenpox in the third grade and had to stay home for like a month?”

“Two weeks!” Samuel interjected, laughing.