I laid back down, closing my eyes and relaxing now that we had sorted out all of our conditions. I don’t know what Dahlia was thinking or doing, but I did hear some shuffling before I heard, “Hey, do you want something to eat?” 

“Yeah, I’m starved.” I opened my eyes and sat up abruptly. “Let me help.” 

“Nah. I got it,” Dahlia said, brushing my offer away. 

“You sure?” I asked. “Do you want me to come for moral support?” 

Dahlia rolled her eyes and told me, “I think I can manage to grab some cookies from the pantry, but thanks for your concern.” 

I snickered at her sarcasm, and followed her as she left the room. 

“I don’t know,” I started. “What if you get lost on your way back up?” 

Dahlia gave me a look as I batted my eyelashes and smiled at her with mock innocence. 

“You never know!” I told her, shrugging my shoulders. 

Dahlia stifled a snicker at this, and composed her face again. “Yeah, you never know!”  

Dahlia easily navigated through the maze that was her house, and I followed behind like the absolutely lost puppy I was, until we reached the kitchens. 

“Man, I know I joked about you getting lost, but if you weren’t here, I don’t think I’d make it out alive!” I told her, still confused as to how we got to the kitchen. 

“Ha ha, you’re very funny,” Dahlia dead panned. She wasn’t looking at me and my perplexed expression, however. She was striding confidently through one of the doors that led to the pantry, heading towards the cookies. 

“I am not joking,” I told her, as I leaned on the doorway. 

She scoffed before asking, “Cookies or cupcakes? Or do you want brownies?” 

I blinked. 

“You keep fresh baked pastries in the pantry? Won’t they spoil or attract bugs?” 

“Huh? This isn’t the pantry! This is where we keep anything that’s baked! The pantry is the room next door,” Dahlia told me, gesturing to the room on my right with the box of cookies. 

“Wait, what?” I asked incredulously. 

“Yeah, this is the baked goods room. I personally call it The Bakery, though. As I said, the pantry is there, the Cool Room is there, and the Freeze Room is on the other side of the Cool Room.” As she said the name of each, she motioned with the box of cookies in her left hand towards whichever room she was mentioning. “And the main kitchen is behind you.” 

I was thoroughly confused. My brain was twisted up and doing loops as I attempted to unravel the maze that was Dahlia’s house. 

I guess I looked like a deer in headlights because Dahlia sighed and tried to regain my attention. 

“Hello? Earth to Iris?” she called loudly. “Which do you want?” 

“Whatever you want is fine,” I told her, still stunned about the house. 

“I think... Cookies,” Dahlia said. 

“Yup. Sounds good,” I told her weakly. 

“Come on, Drama Queen. Want some chips? Fruit? Soda?” Dahlia asked. 

She moved past me with two boxes of cookies in her arms, placing them on the counter. 

“Anything that you want is fine,” I told her, repeating my previous statement. 

She nodded in acknowledgement and set to work. She swiftly navigated through the rooms while I stood to the side and watched, very aware that I would just delay her. 

At the end, we had the two boxes of cookies, a bag of plain chips, a variety of cut and washed fruit, and two cans of soda, a Diet Cherry Coke for her and an orange soda for me. 

Dahlia gave me a bowl and the bag of chips, and I took that as a sign to open it and pour it into the bowl. While I did this, Dahlia pulled out a large plate and covered half of it with chocolate chip cookies and the other half with plain sugar cookies. 

Everything here was based on previous occasions. I loved chocolate chip cookies, but Dahlia preferred sugar cookies, so we got both to satisfy us equally. I always went with orange soda, while Dahlia chose some sort of Coke, usually a diet. She didn’t like Pepsi much, as I had learned, even though I could barely tell the difference between the two drinks. And we both liked our chips plain, so there was no disagreement there, and for fruits? 

Well, anything was fine. Anything but... 

“Okay, we’re ready!” Dahlia announced. She picked up the plate of cookies and the fruit, and walked towards the exit while balancing them carefully. 

I followed, my own hands holding the bowl of chips and the two sodas. My hands were going to be frozen when we got there. I groaned internally as the chill already started to numb my fingers as they slipped on the cans that were drenched in condensation. 

“Oh!” 

I looked up, startled. I had been carefully watching my footing and the items in my hands and hadn’t been paying much attention to my friend. When I saw her, I could only make out the edges of her brilliant red hair. She must have been standing just outside of the kitchen doorway. 

“Dahlia?” a voice said. “Are you ready to talk?” 

“Oh, um, not quite yet, Mother,” I heard my best friend respond. I froze in place, straightening my spine automatically. Dahlia’s mother was very kind, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t terrifying. I had no intention of getting onto her bad side. “I-I’m just... I’m getting snacks with Iris. Uh, could we talk... Later?” 

Gulp. 

“Iris?” 

I saw Dahlia take a small step backwards, coming fully into view as her mother’s head poked around the doorway. I straightened even more when I saw her, hoping that I wasn’t a burden. Or improper. Or impolite. 

Smiling, I nodded and greeted her. “Hello, Mrs. Brooke.”

“Hello, Iris! How are you?” 

“I'm doing pretty well, thank you.”

“That’s good! Well, I have to talk to Dahlia. Would you excuse us for just a minute?” 

“Of course! I’ll just take these upstairs, a-and I’ll... Yeah!” 

I nodded again to conclude my stuttering, and internally chastised myself for my awkwardness. I slipped past the two Brookes and stumbled towards the stairs. Oh man, I really hope I don’t get lost! 

As I started up the stairs, I racked my memory for the way back. Do I take a left then a right? Or two lefts? I took a random turn and walked down an unfamiliar hallway, deciding to just walk and see where I ended up. 

I was lost in Dahlia’s house, very disoriented when I heard voices drifting towards me. It was coming from my right, and so I followed it till I reached the stairs. It seems I’ve made a full circle! 

I laughed quietly and my lack of navigation skills when I caught wind of the conversation. 

“-Dahlia, you seem to want to stay because of her!” 

“She was the one encouraging me to go!” 

A pause. Were Dahlia and her mom arguing about... Me? Did Mrs. Brooke not like me? Did she think I was a bad influence on Dahlia? I listened intently as the shouting turned to quiet questions of confirmation. 

“What?” Mrs. Brooke asked, shocked. 

“Mom, she’s the one that thinks I should go! She believes that I should go because it’ll help me and my future! She even managed to convince me to at least try!” 

Dahlia seemed really aggravated. I knew that eavesdropping was wrong, but I couldn’t help but lean closer, wanting to hear every bit. 

“Wait, really?” 

“Yes, Mom!” 

“She... Did?” 

“YES!” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

I heard another pause as Mrs. Brooke realized that I had convinced Dahlia to go to boarding school. 

“So... You’ll go?” Mrs. Brooke finally asked. She sounded hesitant, probably a bit ashamed that she falsely accused me of being a bad friend for Dahlia, but also as if she was hiding her excitement. 

I heard a sigh from Dahlia, and I could just imagine her having crossed arms but letting them fall loosely to her sides as she resigned to her mother’s wishes. “Yeah, I guess so. If Iris thinks it’s best for me, it probably is.” 

I froze. If... I thought so? Me? Does my opinion really matter to Dahlia that much? 

“Thank you, Dahlia. This is for the best,” I heard Dahlia’s mother tell her. 

“I don’t have to like it,” I heard Dahlia snap. Whoa. Dahlia never snaps. “But I will try it.” 

I heard the conversation come close to finishing, so I scrambled away from the stairs and quickly walked down the hallway. I turned left, and continued to walk straight until I passed through two more hallways. When I made a right, I finally found the stairs. As quietly and quickly as I could, I sprinted up the stairs to reach the third floor. 

I managed to find my way back to the game room, but not without tripping on the fancy carpet a few times in my haste. 

When I was finally back in the game room, my hands were numb and the cans were slipping from my grip. I quickly put the sodas down onto the coffee table, and wiped my freezing hand on my leggings. As I shook the feeling back into my right hand, I gently put down the overflowing bowl of chips next to the two sweating cans. 

While I did this, I pondered the conversation I overheard. Dahlia’s mom wanted Dahlia to go to boarding school. Insistent about it, actually, but Dahlia didn’t want to go. The reason why could either be me or maybe some other reason. And now that I convinced her to go, Mrs. Brooke seems to like me more. 

But the most shocking and heartwarming revelation of the day was that Dahlia highly valued my opinion and trusted my judgment. 

I felt my heart swell and I smiled as I finally took in everything I heard. Dahlia trusts me as much as I trust her, and boarding school can’t take that away. 

The door opened, and I tried to smother my smile back down into the realms of ‘pleasant,’ and away from ‘oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-explode-with-joy!’ I turned towards Dahlia, who had entered, and said, “Oh, good! I wanted cookies!” 

Dahlia laughed, and held the plate out toward me.

“Here,” she offered. I graciously took the whole plate and put it down on the table, but not without swiping two chocolate chip cookies off of it. I didn’t want to accidentally smile too widely, so I bit halfway through one of them. 

“Everything good?” I asked her around the mouthful of chewy, chocolaty bliss. 

“Yeah, I think so,” Dahlia said thoughtfully, her own mouth filled with a sugar cookie. She placed the plate of fruit onto the table, next to the plate of cookies. 

We sat there together, eating our cookies in contemplative silence. It was nice, eating something sweet and just hanging out with my best friend. I’ve got to cherish these moments more. Now, there’s an expiration date.