Page 9 of Single Girl Rules #BFF

“Oh.” Ash’s eyes grew round. “No, these classes are like…frisbee. Which sucks because I’m terrible at frisbee. Every time I throw one I lose it.”

“Like…you throw it too high?”

“No. It like goes over a fence of an evil neighbor never to be seen again. Or on the roof. Or in a tree. That kind of thing.”

“We should probably skip taking that class then. Next semester we’re totally signing up for everything together.”

“We are?”

“Of course. That’s what best friends do. And speaking of best friends…that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was making out with Jock #3 in the library today and a magical book fell from a shelf. And inside was this list of rules to live by. Angelic music started playing in the library. I swear it was like I was in a movie. It was all very mysterious and amazing. And I’m pretty sure we’re going to have the best college experience ever. Slavanka’s going to translate the rules for me.”

“I have no idea what half of what you said means. And who’s Slavanka?”

“This super cool Russian exchange student. You’ll love her.”

“Wait, and she needs to translate the angelic rules?”

“Oh right. I forgot to say. They’re in Russian.”

“Well of course.”

“Right. Fancy rules are never in English. I really need to drop that class.”

Ash started laughing. And then she started laughing even harder. “What the hell are you talking about right now? Your train of thought is insane.”

“My train of thought? You just talked about taking a frisbee class even though you’re a frisbee disappearing act.”

She started laughing harder.

Which made me laugh too. I swore, if I’d said something like that to any other girl they would have flipped their hair over their shoulder and walked away. But not Ash. She didn’t mind when I told it to her straight. And I was glad she did the same with me.

I tried to stop laughing but it was hard because when Ash laughed her face got all red and for some reason that made me laugh more. “Girl, stop it! Don’t you want to know what the first rule is?”

“I thought Slavank

a was translating them?”

“Yeah. I’ll have the whole list soon. But the first rule is: Boys are replaceable. Friends are forever. I’m going to start living by that motto hard.”

“How hard?”

“So. Hard.”

“That’s what she said!”

I laughed. We’d been binge-watching The Office at night before bed. And one of our favorite things was “that’s what she said” jokes. I should have seen the hard comment ending that way. I’d totally set her up.

I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “Guess what else is on the list?”

“I don’t know. Like other basic girl code stuff probably. Like don’t go to the bathroom alone kind of thing.”

“These are not basic girl code rules.”

“The first one seemed normal enough…”

“Yeah, but the rest of them are filled with sex rules.”

“Wait. What?”

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