August remembers changes in her friend group. Gigi was admitted to a performing arts high school in Manhattan, and Sylvia began to attend a private school, St. Thomas Aquinas. Sylvia’s father suddenly sees her friends as “ghetto girls” (108), and she can now only hang out with them in the park after school. August remembers spending that winter “watching people move” (111). At mosque, her father told the women that “their mother is gone” (111). August recalls repeating a conversation with her father, once again asking him what was in the urn in their apartment. He grew angry at her questioning, and she began to speak to her mother at night.

August remembers the girls’ increasing closeness as they became teenagers. Sylvia threatened to run away if her friends couldn’t come over, and her father relented. At her house, they shared pizza and news of their periods. They practiced kissing with each-other and whispered “I love you” (116). Although the girls have long comforted each other, it began to take a different form: they began to kiss and stroke