Juliette:
The night at Anna's was like medicine to my soul.
We’d giggled like we were kids again, tipsy on cheap wine and dripping pasta sauce on our shirts. We’d danced in her tiny kitchen to all the new radio hits, screamed the lyrics with no shame, and shared secrets in the way only two best friends can—layered between laughter and long silences that said everything. It was healing, like pressing a warm cloth to an old wound.
I didn’t know how much I needed it until I finally stepped out into the night air, warm and thick with late-summer heat. I still had the cookie cake container in one hand—Anna had insisted I take the rest home—and my purse slung over the other. The street was quiet, except for the hum of distant traffic and the occasional rustling of leaves in the breeze.
By th
