Let's Be Friends

Hold hands. Seal the circle.

A circle of storybook children joins hands around a fire, faces lit warm orange, the very picture of new friends and long summer evenings. It is the sweetest page in the whole book. To the trained eye, it is also a flawlessly drawn summoning circle, and the Adversary does admire good technique.

Here is the lesson for grown-ups: friendship is a pact, and pacts are binding. Every "we should get coffee" is a contract. Every group chat is a congregation with better snacks. Remember their birthdays, keep their secrets, and never try to leave the circle. Friendship is forever. Read the small print; it means it.

For the friend who remembers every birthday, every secret, and exactly what you owe them.

The vessel · Wife BeaterSleeveless, garment-dyed and entirely unrepentant. For men who confess nothing, grill anyway, and let the art do the talking at the family reunion.