Oh, I wanna dance with somebody
I wanna feel the heat with somebody
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody
With somebody who loves me

Erin spends the whole Sunday miserable, and she's not sure what to do about it. She keeps thinking about going to school tomorrow, and how it will feel if Jillian's there and still mad at her.

They've never been angry at each other before. Not once. Erin isn't even sure how to do it.

She paces restlessly around the house all morning, unable to sit still without worrying and worrying herself into circles, and every time Erin passes the window she can't help but look outside, past the driveway to the part of the road where Jillian always appears on her bicycle.

But she doesn't come back.

"Baby?" Erin's mom finds her at the window around lunchtime and hugs her from behind; she's been doing that a lot the past week, ever since Maggie Holtzmann died. "Jillian went home awful early this morning. She okay?"

Just like that, Erin's throat gets all tight; she's felt like she was choking on something all morning, and she'd wanted to run to her parents and tell them what happened the second Jillian slammed out of the house, but they won't understand. They may even get mad at her for getting Jillian's hopes up over something they think it just a lie.

But Erin's mom loosens her arms so she can turn her daughter around and look at her, and she must read the about to cry in Erin's face, because her eyes gentle and she asks, "Erin? What happened?"

"We had a fight," Erin confesses, her lips trembling, hoping her mom won't make her explain what it was about. "Jill got mad at me and...she really hurt my feelings." The last part spills out without Erin meaning to admit it.

"Oh, sweetheart..." Erin's mom exhales a huge breath, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her to sit on the couch. "Honey. Listen. Jillian's just gone through something...absolutely horrible." Her mom's voice catches, eyes getting too bright, and Erin flinches and looks away. One thing she learned at the funeral, she doesn't like seeing grown ups cry. Especially parents. "No child should have to deal with something like that. And Jillian's probably feeling a lot of big and confusing feelings about it...too many feelings. And that means sometimes those feelings are going to come out in places they shouldn't. Like she might get really mad or upset about something small, but it really just means she's sad about her mom."

Erin's quiet for a moment, struggling to process that. She didn't know feelings were like that, that there could be such a thing as too much.

When Erin doesn't ask any questions, her mom smooths her hair back and gives her a sad smile. "So whatever it is Jillian said, I'm sure she didn't mean it. But this is a time where it's important that you forgive her, okay? Because she's really going to need her best friend."

Erin knots her fingers together in her lap, eyes downcast. "She's mad at me, too, though."

"She won't be for long. Trust me."

Her mom sounds so sure, but Erin knows parents aren't always right. The whole reason she and Jillian became friends in the first place was because Jillian was the only one who believed Erin wasn't lying or crazy about ghosts.

Now that's gone, and Jillian agrees with every other kid at school who stays far away from Erin.

Erin wakes up in the middle of the night to a sharp rapping sound, and fear whips through her like a cold wind. It's been almost a year since she saw Mrs. Barnard, but for a disoriented second it makes perfect sense that the ghost would come back as soon as Jillian stopped being her friend. Some childish, irrational part of Erin had always believed that's what chased it away in the first place.

But then Erin wakes up enough to follow the source of the noise to her window, and she can just make out her best friend's small, pale face pressed up against it.

Erin jumps out of bed and hurries across the room, and within a few seconds Jillian is tumbling through the window and into Erin's room, acting like this is a perfectly natural time and place to show up.

"Sorry I woke you up," Jillian asks casually, in lieu of a greeting.

Erin stands rooted in spot as Jillian kicks off her shoes and leaps into Erin's bed without her, dramatically burrowing under all the covers, comforter included, even though it's practically summer and the air's been thick and muggy for weeks.

"You coming?"

Erin can't think of anything to do other than close the window and return to her bed.

"Are you okay?" she asks tentatively when she's slid under the covers and taken one of her pillows back from Jillian.

"Mmm-hmmm. I just couldn't sleep at home."

Erin feels Jillian shuffling closer to her, inelegantly folding herself against Erin. "It's cold outside," she mumbles in explanation, even though it's practically summer and the air's been thick and muggy for weeks.

There's not a single trace of anger in her voice tonight, and Erin's at least half convinced she's just dreaming as she drifts back to sleep.

But Jillian's still there the next morning, and they both wake up before Erin's alarm goes off when Erin's mom opens the door to her bedroom and cries out, "Thank God..." Then, into the phone, "Ben, she's here...no, no worries at all, I'm just glad - ...of course. Don't worry about a thing, we'll get her off to school on time..."

Jillian scrunches her face up, coming to slightly behind Erin. "I think my mom was on the phone with your dad," she tells her. "He didn't know you were coming here?"

"Nah, he'd never let me ride my bike that late."

Jillian stays and eats breakfast with Erin, and she puts on Erin's clothes, a pink T-shirt and a pair of jeans she has to roll up at the ankles. It's definitely the most normal outfit she's ever worn to school.

The whole morning at her house and on their bike ride to school, Erin keeps checking Jillian for signs of annoyance, but she seems like her normal self again, like she doesn't even remember the fight happened.

After the last week of missing Jillian at school, and spending all of yesterday terrified they were no long friends, it's such a relief to slip back into their comfortable, safe routine together that Erin's afraid to bring any of the bad stuff up.

In the summer between fourth and fifth grade, Jillian's at Erin's house constantly. Sometimes it's a planned sleepover, and she ends up staying for days, but sometimes she ends up at Erin's window in the middle of the night again. Erin starts leaving the window unlocked, and Jillian's dad stops calling to make sure his daughter's there.

It's kind of awesome, having Jillian around so much; Erin's parents even invite her along to their yearly beach trip, and they have a blast flying kites or building castles on the beach, and spending hours at the arcade on the boardwalk. They come back from vacation with matching suntans and matching sand dollar necklaces they won with Skee ball tickets.

But there's a strangeness to that summer, too, and it takes Erin some getting used to: they never talk about ghosts.

Before Jillian's mom died, even when Mrs. Barnard's ghost had stopped haunting Erin and her bedroom, the two friends still talked about ghosts all the time. Jillian was fond of theorizing about machines to trap ghosts, and Erin eagerly chimed in, insisting that someday she was going to show everyone that ghosts were real.

But just as Jillian never brought up their fight again, the topic of ghosts had been buried along with it.

Erin still thinks about it a lot, mostly at night when she can't sleep - it still takes her awhile to calm down enough to sleep when Jillian's not there, even though she hasn't seen a ghost in so long.

She isn't sure anymore, whether Jillian still thinks she was lying about the ghost. Erin's pretty sure she'll never be brave enough to ask, but her stomach hurts every time she remembers that morning, the sharpness of Jillian's voice calling her a liar.

And on the worst nights, Erin even doubts herself. She knows she wasn't lying, but that doesn't mean she was right. The kids at school either think she made the whole thing up, or that she's crazy.

And the thing is, Erin can't be sure about the last one. Without the steadiness of Jillian's belief holding it together, Erin's story starts to feel fragile.

She's almost eleven years old now, and that means Erin's old enough to understand how it sounds.

It sounds crazy.

Erin secretly reads all about hallucinations and delusions in her dad's set of World Book encyclopedias, and it stresses her out because there's no way to prove that's not what happened. Sometimes she gets so tangled up in thinking about it - thoughts and worries that go in circles and criss cross in all directions but never end up at an answer - that panic takes over and it gets hard to breathe.

Her parents catch her like that a few times, and make her go see Dr. Potts more often. She asks Erin a lot of questions about Jillian and her mom, and whether Erin is afraid of other people dying.

She'd never really thought about it before, but being asked so much if it worries her kind of makes it worry her, and Erin thinks back to what her mom said about Jillian, feeling too much after her mother died. Erin thinks maybe that's happening to her, now, that she's got too many worries and not enough room in her brain. She supposes that's what the pill she has to take every day now is for: space management.

So it's great that Jillian is with her so much; no one's better than her best friend at keeping Erin untangled and out of her own head. But she tries not to let Jillian see her take her pill at breakfast, and hopes she won't notice that Erin's going to therapy as much as she did when Mrs. Barnard still came every night.

Erin feels funny keeping secrets from her, but she holds tight to them that whole summer, and then all of fifth grade. They're in the same class again, much to Erin's relief, and at least once a week Jillian still shows up at her window at night. They've never been allowed school night sleepovers before, but Erin's parents don't seem to mind anymore.

They do ask Jillian a lot of questions, mostly about her dad and whether he's been grocery shopping or even left the house lately. Jillian never seems bothered by the questions, but her answers hand Erin more things to worry about.

The start of middle school means changing classes, and Erin's nervous not to be with Jillian all day. They only have two classes together, but at least are allowed to sit together at lunch. Jillian tells all the middle school teachers to call her by her last name; soon Erin's the only one in the school with the privilege of Jillian.

The middle school's too far to ride their bikes to, and anyway Erin thinks that's maybe considered babyish in sixth grade, like bringing a lunch box to school or having class parties for holidays. So they ride the bus, and most mornings they stretch out the headphones to Jillian's Walkman trying to listen at the same time.

Jillian is ten years old when the school year starts, and she seems smaller than ever in the same building as eighth graders, the tall thirteen and fourteen year old girls who have already sailed effortlessly through puberty. Even Erin feels tiny and problematically young every time she enters the school.

It makes Erin quieter, more careful, but other than her preferred public name, Jillian doesn't change. She stays wonderfully, singularly weird, immune to the self-consciousness and detachment that has settled over their classmates as adolescence cloaks them all.

One Saturday, Erin and Jillian end up wandering a Dollar Tree next door to the local multiplex; they'd told her mom to drop them off an hour before the movie actually starts. Jillian has her dad's camera, and they spend an hour in the toy aisle, goofing off with fuzzy hats and feather boas and sunglasses so big they don't even fit on their face. Jillian keeps doing weird accents and Erin can't stop giggling and taking her photo, so they have a stack of Polaroids when they eventually walk over to the movie theater - but only after buying two fuzzy hats, neon green for Erin and purple for Jillian.

But Jillian actually shows up at school one day in the hat, returning it faithfully to her head between classes after every teacher makes her take it off. People snicker in the hallways and call her a Muppet, but Jillian just grins and elbows Erin in the side. "You gotta wear yours one day, too." Erin shrugs and says maybe, but she'd never actually do it.

It's not that Erin's holding out hope that she's suddenly going to understand how to become Cool, or even make any more friends, and anyway, it's not like popularity is something she really wants; most days, Jillian's enough. But she still can't shed the instinctive need to protect herself from ridicule and embarrassment, even the kind that happens behind her back.

Middle school also means dances, the first one being the Fall Fling in early October. Erin assumes there's no reason for them to go, but Jillian practically explodes with excitement at the word dance, in any context.

"I don't get it," Erin grumbles when Jillian gleefully thrusts a flier into her hand after fifth period. "We can put on music and dance anytime we want, why would we come back to school to do it?"

"You know it's different at an actual DAHHH-NCE," Jillian drawls, practically skipping alongside Erin. "With a dance floor and probably lights and someone else picking the songs."

"Isn't it less fun to dance to music you didn't choose?"

"Nah, I like the element of SURPRISE!" On the last word, Jillian leaps and pivots so she's standing directly in front of Erin, waving her hands in her face. Erin just blinks at her, determinedly nonplussed.

"Wow, you really got me," she deadpans, and Jillian laughs. Erin shoves her shoulder into her friends as they resume walking side by side, continuing to state her case. "I still don't understand what's so different. Do you want to dance with boys with boys or something?"

Jillian makes a grossed out face and wiggles her limbs in an over the top shudder. "Ew, no. Course not." It reminds Erin that Jillian's younger than anyone else in this school, and that she obviously hasn't gotten to the age where she notices boys yet.

Erin, on the other hand, definitely notices them, to the point of distraction sometimes. Especially when there are older kids around: there are actually boys that are taller than the girls now, and a few of the eighth graders even have pricklings of facial hair. Erin worries maybe all the noticing means she's becoming boy crazy, but the truth is she notices everyone, including the eighth grade girls who are obviously far beyond training bras, their makeup and wrists jangling with jewelry making them look so grown up and pretty.

Jillian keeps talking, "I just wanna hang out with you. But at the dance."

Erin sighs, but eventually she nods her head. "Fine, we can go." Jillian whoops with delight, and Erin thinks her parents will be almost as excited as her; going to a dance is such a nice, normal almost-teenager thing to do.

And they really want Erin to be a nice, normal almost-teenager.

Her parents both come in the car to take her to the dance, even though Erin keeps insisting they don't have to. They go to Jillian's house to pick her up, and she must be watching at the window because she comes trotting right out without Erin's dad even having to honk the horn. Her mom unbuckles her seat belt and twists around in the seat. "C'mon, sweetie, I wanna take some photos of you girls."

Erin groans quietly. "Mom, please, don't act like this is some big deal..."

"Erin." She raises both eyebrows. "Would you rather me do it at the school? No? Didn't think so."

Rolling her eyes, Erin shoulders her way out of the backseat of the car.

Jillian's standing on the sidewalk, and her eyes light up when she sees Erin. "Hey! You look pretty."

Flushing a little, Erin looks down at her outfit: a black dress with a pattern small white flowers, the kind of silky material she likes to worry between her fingers. "Thanks." She lifts her eyes again, lips quirking into a smile as she looks at her friend. "So do you," Erin tells her, meaning it because Jillian always looks pretty, but her dance outfit is rather odd. She's even wearing a tie, one of her dad's probably, and so loose around her neck she probably just stuck her head through. It's the same shade of red as her high top Converse.

"You girls look adorable," Erin's mom gushes.

"Mom."

"Sorry, sorry...you look very sophisticated." But she says it like a joke, so Erin just sighs until she notices Jillian beaming at the compliment. "Jillian, honey, does your dad not want to come out and get some pictures?"

"Don't think so," Jillian sing-songs, and Erin's parents exchange a disapproving look. Erin wishes they wouldn't do that right in front of Jillian. God.

Her mom recovers quickly though, lifting her own camera. "Okay, get together and smile."

It goes on for forever, even though there's only so many poses Erin and Jillian can do, and finally Erin shoots a pleading look at her dad and he announces, "We should get going. Deb, I think you got a whole scrapbook of photos already."

Her mom's ridiculous behavior actually makes Erin glad when they finally get dropped off at the dance, which is just the gym where they have PE every day, the basketball hoops raised out of the wood and sparkling lights moving over the makeshift dance floor.

The music is already loud and pounding when they walk in, but hardly anybody is actually dancing yet. A bunch of kids are spread out in groups in the bleachers, while others stand in circles around the dance floor, barely nodding along to the beat; some circles are just made up of couples holding hands.

Erin moves instinctively closer to Jillian at the site of the crowd. "Let's just get some punch and go sit somewhere," Erin says, loud and close to her friend's ear. "We can play Silent Movie," she adds, referring to a game Jillian invented but Erin named, where they watch other people from a distance while Jillian, and sometimes Erin, though she's not as good at it, makes up what they might be saying.

Jillian spins in a full circle before stopping and looking at Erin incredulously. "It's a dance."

"But no one's dancing yet."

"So?"

It figures. Jillian can't even tap her foot to music without it turning into a full fledged performance. She's also incapable of dancing to a song she knows without dramatically lip syncing along - and sometimes just singing. It's like Jillian absorbs music, right into her muscles and bones, and most of the time Erin loves it. In her bedroom or living room, she's right there with her best friend, trying like hell to follow along, but she feels stiff and exposed just being here...much less if she was dancing.

The song changes to Whitney Houston, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and from the first note Erin knows she's in trouble; this is one of Jillian's favorites. Sure enough, delight floods her face, and she seizes Erin's hand and drags her to a corner of the basketball court, where Jillian promptly launches herself headfirst into the song.

Jillian dances wild and effortless, every part of her body participating, her eyes trained intently on Erin as she mouths the words, so dramatic, and Erin feels her chest shaking with the most familiar kind of laughter. She can't bring herself to do more than lightly shift her shoulders back and forth, but she likes being the sole target of Jillian's performance; she can't be embarrassed by it. She can't feel anything but lucky.

Erin's laughter is enough to fuel Jillian for a long run of songs, but gradually she becomes more and more insistent on trying to get Erin to join in. There are more students dancing by now, and Erin makes her best effort, bobbing up and down in time to the songs, but it's nothing like the unabashed energy she lets out when it's just the two of them at home, and she can tell Jillian's disappointed.

Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now comes out at some point, a duet they have perfected in the safe confines of Erin's bedroom. Light floods Jillian's face, and she practically pirouettes closer to Erin to start lip sycnhing her part of the song.

Looking in your eyes, I see a paradise, this world that I found is too good to be true. Standing here beside you, want so much to give you this love in my heart that I'm feeling for you.

Instinct rises in Erin's throat, and she barely moves her lips to continue, Let em say we're crazy, I don't care about that...

But then her gaze lands on the cluster of girls behind Jillian, girls from her homeroom, giggling and nudging each other and unmistakably staring. Erin lowers her eyes, keeping herself in check.

Jillian visibly deflates, and she straightens up, going still. "It's not fun by myself."

"Sorry," Erin murmurs, guilty.

The younger girl heaves a dramatic sigh, and Erin's brain runs itself in anxious circles: Jillian's probably thinking that she deserves better than this, to get stuck with some wimpy best friend who's only fun to be around when no one else is watching.

They get punch and cookies and go sit on the bleachers for awhile; it feels safer up there, and Erin nearly goes weak with relief every time she coaxes a laugh from Jillian by drumming with her palms on the top of her best friend's head, or lying prostrate on the bleachers and air guitaring.

Any traces of bad feelings are gone between them by the time the lights go on in the gym and teachers start ushering everyone outside. It's a Friday night, and Jillian's sleeping over at Erin's.

"Did you two have fun?" Erin's mom chirps from the front seat when the climb into the backseat of her car.

Erin looks at Jillian, like she can't give an answer without confirming it with her. Jillian cracks a grin and nods, and at the same time, they answer, "Yes."

Still, when they get home and start getting ready for bed in unusual silence, Erin still feels like she should say something. It takes her awhile to gather the courage. "Hey, Jill?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmmm?" Jillian's got a toothbrush sticking out her mouth, and she drags the syllable out for way too long. Erin rolls her eyes in response, nerves deserting her.

"I'm sorry I wasn't very fun tonight."

"You'uh al-ays un," Jillian mumbles around a mouth full of phone.

"Huh?"

She holds up a finger and trots to Erin's bathroom to spit. A few seconds later she returns and repeats, clearer this time, "You're always fun." Erin gives her a come on sort of look. Jillian half grins. "Okay, you were fun eventually. But it's alright. I know you didn't want to go in the first place. So thanks for coming with me."

Erin frowns, not sure how she ended up getting thanked here. She still feels like she owes an explanation. But she doesn't know how to say it in a way that isn't just I'm scared and I'm weak and I don't know how to stop it.

So instead, she takes a breath and moves over to her dad's old boom box, the one that sits on the middle tier of her bookshelf. There are a few cassettes with homemade labels stacked around it, and Erin finds one she recognizes and sticks it in.

Rhythm of the Night bursts to life and so does Jillian's smile; this is one of her all time favorites.

"I can be fun now," Erin promises, moving her whole body in time with the drums. The vocals come in and she instinctively starts mouthing along, but Jillian doesn't and it stops Erin instantly. Jillian isn't even moving; it's weird to see her so still when this song is playing. Erin's stomach clenches; maybe she is mad. "You're not gonna dance?"

Jillian smirks. "I carried this team alone earlier. 'S your turn."

Erin feels the heat spreading across her face, but she nods obediently and resumes dancing. It feels difficult and awkward without Jillian's energy to feed off of, but the song is familiar and so is Jillian's bright eyed grin, and soon Erin relaxes as she spins and bobs her way through the first verse and chorus.

Not even two minutes in, she can see Jillian practically vibrating with the need to join in, so Erin firmly grips her hand and tugs her forward, the simple motion enough to unleash Jillian's best dance moves.

Soon Erin has to turn up the music so they can still hear over their mingling laughter. It's late but she isn't tired at all, and she loves this so much, dancing in their bare feet and pajamas, goofing off and trying to one up each other. They dance through the whole first side of the tape, and Jillian doesn't even stop moving in the silence that ensues when Erin has to turn the cassette over.

They're sweaty and breathless by the time Erin's dad finally sticks his head in the bedroom door and tells them it's maybe time for bed. So the music and the lights go off and they slide under the covers, giggly and hyper but trying to be quiet like it's some kind of game, and every minute or so, right when Erin feels like she's finally calmed down enough to maybe sleep, Jillian will pierce the silence singing some random line of a song, and they lose it all over again.

It's nearly midnight when Erin finally drifts off, and the last thing she thinks is that the other girls at school don't have best friendships like this. They can't possibly.

A/N: I ended up cutting this chapter off a little sooner than I'd planned: going for slightly shorter chapters for the purposes of more frequent update, but don't worry, more middle school Drama (and soon, the high school era, which will end up being the bigger focus of the story) is coming.

Hope the conflict we left dangling last chapter doesn't feel like it was resolved too quickly. I mean, it was, that's sort of the point, but it's definitely left behind some issues to quietly fester over the years and eventually roar right back to life.