“How could I possibly be someone you love? We’re not even that close as friends!” I shouted. I can’t believe I just yelled that. Ugh! That sounded so rude! I imagined thumping myself on the forehead. 

Anastasia’s mouth was as wide as a doughnut. Her hand was open-faced in my direction, with a slender stringed braid in her palm. A Martenitsa. Ana told me that it was a Bulgarian custom where you give a red-and-white bracelet for luck and good health to people you love. 

But that was the thing. 

How could I be someone she loved? 

What did I do for her to wish me luck and good health? 

Sure, Anastasia and I stole each other’s notebooks to copy down food webs that we didn’t have time to scribble verbatim during class, and we showered each other with “SLAY!” and “Yass gurl!” comments after a particularly tough test, but that’s about it. No Bratz movie sleepovers. No sharing tangerine slices. No globs of unicorn putty. 

Anastasia was an extrovert, simple as that. I remembered her for her brownish wolf hair that curled daintily at the nibs, and her copper strands that slipped like Texan rivers through square-edged combs. Oh, what a contrast to my ulotrichous mane! 

I was the classic nerd who was acquainted with everyone, and BFFFs (Best Female Friends Forever) with no one. I was the kid who envisioned a girl named Chloe whenever English essay prompts asked me to “describe the characteristics of your best friend.” 

My deep pondering about my lack of social skills was interrupted with a spontaneous burst of giggling. 

Anastasia was laughing. 

And it wasn’t the dainty and respectable laughing, it was the full-on, breathy, chaotic laughter that your dad spews after a self-proclaimed dad joke. 

I didn’t know what to do. I really, really didn’t know what to do.

“I’m sorry I’m laughing,” Anastasia said, after her unequal spouts of chuckling had died out. “It’s just, obviously, we’re best friends! How could you think that way? Sure, we weren’t ever as close as the other girls, but you were always there for me, through hallway traffic and other stuff. I just wanted to give you something that showed that I was always there for you, too!” 

From then and there on, I always placed the Martenitsa in my black glasses case. I never wore it, for I was too scared of dropping it falling off if I knot it too loosely. It was something I couldn’t live without. 

A life without that Martenitsa meant a life without red and white, a life without color. Because a life with color meant a life with strong, everlasting connections and relationships and support, and that was exactly what the Martenitsa meant to me.