9:23 AM. The small slits in my eyelids allow me to see the clock. I pull my pillow over my head to block the light, and turn onto my side, letting out a heavy sigh. After a while of lingering and deciding whether or not to get up, I throw off my covers and force myself away from my Friday night hibernation.

Feeling the chill from not being in my nice warm bed, I grab a blanket and put it over my shoulders as I walk upstairs. My feet feel like bricks as I walk up the stairs. I rub my eyes and yawn, then push open the kitchen door, and automatically begin to open the kitchen cabinet for a bowl.
But wait. Something’s different. I can see a figure out of the corner of my eye. There is someone here. This doesn’t make sense… there shouldn’t be anybody here this early in the morning. What is going on?
I should probably see who it is instead of just looking confused into the bowls. I turn my head, and there standing in the middle of my kitchen is Cody. Cody is my neighbor, and always has been. We used to be best friends when we were younger. Throughout preschool, elementary school, and middle school, we had every class together, our lockers were right next to each others, and we sat together, just the two of us, at lunch. We were inseparable. We used to sneak out of our houses in the middle of the night and go to an open field down the street to watch the stars. We would count how many shooting stars we saw, and talk for hours about what we would wish for. We would talk until morning, and then we would walk back to one of our houses, grab a box of cereal, turn on the Saturday morning cartoons, and fall fast asleep on the couch from being up all night. But that doesn’t happen anymore ever since we got to high school. We fell into completely different social scenes. Everyone fell in love with him, and he completely forgot about me. I tried to find myself some new friends.
So what is he doing here? Why is he in my kitchen? Oh God, I can’t believe this. I wish I could make him leave. Make him go away. It’s 9:30 on Saturday morning, and I just woke up. I’m still in my pajamas! Of course he comes here when I’m wearing my bright purple yoga pants with white paint handprints on the butt. And the ape slippers that when you squeeze the nose, they start to… make whatever noises that apes make… Oh, and not to mention my shirt. “Where are the sour patch parents?” with a sad looking sour patch kid on it. Thank you, Bo Burnham. The shirt is bright orange, and matches perfectly with my purple pants. Not to mention I put my pink blanket over my shoulders like it’s a cape and I’m a superhero, or something. My make-up is probably all over my face from the night before, and I’m sure my hair is all over the place in a mess. And there he is, smiling like he’s a model, all beautiful. Obviously he’s already taken a shower today. He’s chuckling at me. Probably laughing at what I look like right now. But he looks genuinely happy to see me. Why does he look so happy?

“Hey,” he grins. He smiles a smile so perfect that I forget to breathe for a second. Then I give him a confused smirk back.

Instead of telling me why he is there, he grabs two bowls from the cabinet and fills them with Frootloops and milk. He hands a bowl to me, and escorts me to the living room, and turns on cartoons. We sit there for hours singing the Spongebob theme song and laughing at Jimmy Neutron and eating endless amounts of Frootloops. The longer we sit there on the couch, I notice the closer we seem to get, sitting there together. Our shoulders meet, and I don’t even notice, but when I look down, he’s holding my hand. I bite my lip trying to hold back my smile, and squeeze his hand a little tighter.