2010 Kimmy Kimm & Lulu Chu Work -

Lulu grabbed Kimmy’s hand. Kimmy squeezed back.

In the hazy, glitter-glued summer of 2010, Kimmy Kimm and Lulu Chu ruled the narrow hallway of Westbrook High’s freshman wing. Not with cruelty, but with an unspoken, two-person empire built on shared ringtones and identical butterfly hair clips.

They didn’t know that in two years, Kimmy would move to a city with better prep schools, and Lulu would find a crew of art kids who painted murals on abandoned walls. They didn’t know that Facebook would become ancient history, or that their BBM chats would vanish into the digital ether. 2010 kimmy kimm & lulu chu

All they knew, in the summer of 2010, was this: they had each other’s backs, they had a terrible sense of style, and they had a song that belonged to no one but them.

A pack of eighth-graders sneered as they walked by. “You two are so weird.” Lulu grabbed Kimmy’s hand

They came in fourth place. The winner was a boy who played “Wonderwall” on an acoustic guitar and cried afterward.

Kimmy was the architect. She was tall, with a planner color-coded in six shades of gel pen, and she knew that the key to their future was visibility. Lulu was the heart. She was small, quick to laugh, and could make a friendship bracelet out of dental floss and sheer will. Not with cruelty, but with an unspoken, two-person

But after the contest, sitting on the curb outside the mall with a shared soft pretzel, Lulu leaned her head on Kimmy’s shoulder. “We were the best, though.”