“Addison had made the last school year more tolerable than the previous two, but I hadn’t felt this sense of connection to her and the surety that I had a real friend who I could be myself with and bask in her total acceptance. It occurred to me that this was what Mason was lacking in his friendships, and that was why he felt like he didn’t have any real friends.
Alice threw her arms around me in a spontaneous hug, and I pushed Mason out of “my thoughts as I hugged her back. “You’re the best,” I gushed. “You’ll always be my best friend.”
“You’ll always be my best friend too, Ella,” she said as she pulled back to look at me. “It’s just not the same with my other friends. Nobody else knows me as well as you do.”
That prompted me to bring up the subject I hadn’t been sure how to b
