Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler

particularly good at breaking rules, but I chalked it up to an overwhelming curiosity—what it would be like, what we would do if we were actually alone, no chance of my parents checking in to see if we wanted more soda or popcorn, no chance that they’d be able to overhear us through the gaps in the floors and the cracks in the walls of our early eighteenth-century farmhouse. Houses as old as mine typically felt like one big, open space—no walls, no closed doors. No matter what room I was in, I knew where everyone else was, what they were doing, what they were saying. Any sort of private life was impossible.
    Anyway, nothing really happened that night, much to Nate’s disappointment, probably, though he was too much of a gentleman to have ever said so. But it didn’t seem like the right time to tell Izzy and Hannah any of that. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t told them to begin with, actually—embarrassed by my own prudishness, maybe, or wanting some kind of secret that belonged just to me and Nate for once. Either way, I wasn’t telling them today. It seemed too suspicious now.
    Izzy was the first to start up the rickety old ladder, masterfully avoiding the rungs that had rotted and splintered over the years of neglect. “Let me test it out first, make sure it’s all sturdy,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at us as her arms and legs continued to climb, pushing and pulling, the familiar movements so etched into her memory. “I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come up.” She pushed back the limp strings of colored beads still hanging in the doorway, the wooden strands bouncing against one another and tinkling like rain, and disappeared into the house. Hannah and I kept looking up, hands shielding our eyes from the sun peeking through the leaves, waiting for the all clear.
    After a few long seconds, the house’s faded blue shudders burst open in a flurry of paint flakes and leaf bits, and Izzy’s grinning face popped out over the edge of the window. “Just like I remembered it, ladies, almost as if the last few years didn’t happen.” She sighed, her eyes glazed with contentment. “Anyway,” she said, yanking her head back as she vanished into the house, “I think it’s safe. The floors still seem solid enough.”
    Hannah motioned for me to go first, and we both started the climb up, more slowly and hesitantly than Izzy. I crawled inside and made room for Hannah to come in next to me, pausing then to soak in the makeshift all-in-one living room, kitchen, and bedroom that had been our home away from home for such a massive piece of our lives.
    There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, given the complexity of transporting it up twenty feet off the ground, and what we did have was a raggedy collection of well-worn, well-loved hand-me-downs that had been discovered stashed away in our parents’ basements and attics. We had three assorted wooden chairs that my dad had somehow managed to carry up all by himself without toppling backward off the ladder—I can still remember that day, watching from the ground with my mom, petrified, hiding my face in her skirt while she assured me that he’d be okay. There was a “table” made out of planks of wood and balanced on two bright green plastic buckets, a few shelves that displayed the treasures we’d dug up along the creek, and a barrel of old cups and dishes that were probably still caked with strawberry Pop-Tart crumbs and hardened scraps of pizza bagels.
    The walls, however, were our pride and joy, covered inch to inch in boy band posters and pages torn from glossy magazines that we’d slipped from our moms, our intricately hand-drawn maps of the woods, and other colorful drawings and photos that memorialized some of our greatest adventures together. I could have stayed up there for hours, poring over each page, each picture, remembering every