I’m about to tell him to leave me out of his dirty schedule when Damien presses his palm to the surface of the table aggressively, causing our trays to jump. He gives James a dirty look, his jaw tight.

“Can you stop being such a pervert?” he snarls. “She’s my girlfriend, for God’s sake. Fuck off.”

A thick fog of tension envelops the table, and anger radiates from Damien’s body, but James seems immune. I don’t really need defending, and I’m not a fan of being labeled as his girlfriend when our relationship is currently on life support, but I swallow those sentiments, trying to think of something to calm him down.

“It’s all right, Damien,” I say nervously. “He’s only joking.”

“It’s not funny to me,” he spits out, standing from the table. He gives James another vicious glare before looking back at me, softening slightly. “I’ll see you at the game, yeah?”

I nod quickly, not wanting to worsen the situation. “Sure.”

Turning on his heel, he vacates the cafeteria as if the room is on fire, and the three of us who remain at the table watch him leave wordlessly. If James feels any remorse about what just happened, it doesn’t show on his face. Zoe lingers on the spot Damien last stood for a beat longer before she straightens out, reverting back to her usual self.

“Well, that was dramatic,” she says breezily, uncapping her water bottle and taking a sip.

“Maybe you should apologize,” I suggest, looking at James.

He lifts a shoulder. “It’s kind of fun to piss him off.”

The lunch bell rings after that, and I head to my next class with a frown. The dynamic of our whole friend group seems to be fundamentally flawed, a fact I become more aware of every day. Zoe and I have a strange, underlying tension, and Damien seems to be harboring some unaddressed anger toward his best friend. From afar, we look polished and perfect. But upon closer inspection, it’s easy to see that everything is tangled and broken, and nothing functions the way it should.

I’m starting to think it never did to begin with.

Hours later, on the way to the infamous soccer game, I can’t shake the dirty feeling I get from the idea of spending a whole evening with my friends. I have to wonder if I always felt this way, even before my accident, or if nearly dying and forgetting everything I’ve ever known has just given me a new perspective.

When I was in the middle of the hurricane, it must’ve been easy to get swept up in the excitement of the storm. But now that I’m on the edge of it, I find myself wanting to stay as far away from the epicenter as possible.