My mouth is a little parched, actually, so I swig from my water bottle before answering. “Sorry. Yeah. I just...you know.” Not sure I can do this I want to say, but don’t. She doesn’t need to hear me say that out loud even though I’m sure she suspects it already.

The deal had always been that Jenna and I would attend Cascadia State University together, that we would be roommates, but Jenna got a last-minute offer from an art school in California, and no way was I going to get in the way of her pursuing her dreams.

Unfortunately, Jenna Fletcher is my only real friend. Also my opposite in just about every way. From her boho wardrobe to her extroverted passion for hanging out where, cue internal shudder, people congregate. Luckily, opposites attracted us to each other in elementary school. I think it started when she pity-invited me to sit with her at lunch one day. And then every day after until she moved away this summer, leaving me to figure all this social stuff out on my own.

Over the years, she dragged me to a few parties and sporting events in high school, but for the most part, we had our outside lives that we lived separately from our friendship. Which was fine. And it worked. She had her friends, and I had my books, and we had each other. But without her now, I have zero idea what I’m doing. Nobody drags me to parties anymore. Nobody explains social interaction to me when I get confused. And I get confused a lot.

“How’s your psycho roommate?” she asks, and I shudder.

I try to make my voice neutral. “She went home for the weekend.”

There’s an unnatural pause on the line. Okay, it’s a natural pause considering the source. Jenna knows things somehow. She’s always been able to sense extra stuff in a conversation. I’m hardly able to understand the actual words people say, but she finds the meaning beneath them. The subtext. If she’s pausing, it means she’s digging deeper.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

See?