Today, she is dressed in a cherry red skirt with a blue translucent top that slides off her shoulders in a waterfall. Her hair is donned up in black clips shaped like butterflies and she has the most sparkly shade of lipgloss I've ever seen.

She looks almost like a mirage, glittering and shiny in the lights. She reflects off the glittering convertibles of the too-rich and the beat-up POS of the too-poor. Heat is rising off the pavement in depressed waves, and it dances around her feet like adoring boys.

I want to reach out and touch her. My fingers itch against my side, and I press them against my side. I feel like I am two sides of myself; half of me wants to go and kiss her until she can't breathe and I'm a sobbing mess in her arms, and the other half wants to keep my pride, make sure that she can't see how much this is hurting me.

I am tough. I am strong, independent, and I don't need her at all. I can do this. I am-

"Cat!"

I clamp my hand over my mouth because how can I be so stupid? I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience, because I don't know this spontaneous, crazy girl who's buried under my skin and talking from my mouth. I don't know these thoughts raging through my head; they are not my own. I am dead. I am a figment of my own imagination, because this beautiful girl has changed me and morphed the pieces of myself into something unrecoginzable.

She runs over to me while I am fighting the parts of myself and tackles me in a hug. The Real Me would scream at her and make a sarcastic remark, but the Now Me simply wraps her fingers around Cat's shoulders and twines through her fingers through her cupcake locks of hair.

"Jade! You're not attacking me!" She holds onto my skin way too long and laughs against my side. I am not blushing. I am not. I am simply sick and-

She grabs my arm, threading her limb through mine, and we walk in step through the parking lot, and this shouldn't feel so perfect. This should feel awkward and unnatural and wrong, but it doesn't, and that scares me.

Nothing scares me. I'm Jade West, damnit, and nothing scares me. Only, this scares me, what I'm feeling right now scares me, and I'm way too frightened to even pretend like I'm not scared.

"You look… vulnerable today," she remarks as she watches my face, and then her hand is on my forehead and that snaps me out of this freaky revene I'm in.

"Don't touch me," I tell her and yank my arm out of hers. I start storming through the parking lot, stomping my feet against the dark pavement of the ground, watching the glittering lights reflect off of rich girls' BMWs before I stop. The glittering of chrome and black reminds me of the sparkle of her eyes, and I can't be mad at her. She may be too pretty and too wild and too beautiful, but she was still too, too much. I stop, turn around, and scream her name at the top of my lungs.

She turns around and I stalk over to her like I'm a hunter (and girl, you better prey) and I grab her wrist. Fear flashes in her eyes, and all I can see is how her eyes looked under the stars, as her eyelashes fluttered against my cheek and her hand slid up my shirt, butterfly-touches against my skin-

I reach out, grab her by the back of the neck, and kiss her. She answers back just like that night, from what seems so long ago, and her fingers find their place under the hollow of my neck, and I twine my fingers in the hem of her shirt and pull hard.

I pull back and her eyelashes are fluttering against her skin, and her cheeks are the same hue as her wild, flaming hair. She looks like a giant rose, and that look in her eyes is all mine.

She opens her eyes and breathes out, "Oh," and it sounds like a whisper in the wind. Her body is shaking like a tornado, and she reaches out to touch me, but I pull back because I remember where I am. I remember who I am, who she is, and what role we're supposed to play in this messed up game.

I lick my lips and taste her lip gloss on my tongue. I stare at the burning embers of her eyes and I want to tell her how beautiful she looks, how much of an angel she is, how much I wish I could love her like she deserves. I want to tell her how sexy she is and how much my skin is on fire from her touch, but I'm Jade and she's Cat and we just don't work.

So I say the only think that I can think of and whisper, "I miss you," against my hand, kiss it, and press it to her forhead.

And like a mirage, I am gone.