“What? I’m happy to leave with you since you’re obviously upset, but it’s getting colder by the day, and I’m not catching pneumonia for you.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

She resumes staring at me in a way that unsettles me at a molecular level. “So,” she eventually blurts out. “To be clear, I’m inquiring about your emotional health and not gossiping, but what happened with Evie? Did you guys break up?”

“We were never dating!” I answer, maybe a smidge too emotional for public transport. “I just . . . I thought we were one thing, but we were another. I guess? I honestly had no idea she wanted things to be more serious between us.”

“For someone so good with people, you’re also pretty thick.”

It doesn’t sound as brutal of an analysis coming from her.

“But I believe you would never hurt someone on purpose,” she continues. “You just happen to hurt people on accident.”

“Thanks, I guess.” I sigh. “So, how did things go with Marvyn? He seemed enthralled on that couch.”

Corinne leans against the railing for support as the train jolts to an uneasy stop. “He’s very boring and kept calling me ‘babe.’”

“Ha!” I laugh. “I hope you told him so.”

“I did! The more I called him boring to his face, the more interested he seemed. He kept saying he liked my flirting style.”

“I’m not one of those people who go around saying, ‘I told you so,’” I remark. “That would be petty.”

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know how you do it. Spend time with people you don’t actually like. I would go nuts.”

“I do like Evie, you know. . . . I wasn’t using her or anything.”

“I know,” she says matter-of-factly but without any harshness.

“I guess I thought she was using me, which frankly would have been the best thing for everyone involved. I’m just not, y’know, the dating type. I’ve never even had a ‘girlfriend.’” I mime exaggerated quotation marks around the last word because the notion truly is ridiculous.

“Why not?”

I shrug. “Who has the time? Besides, it’s too late anyway, right? We’re seniors. Next year, we’re going to be in college. Everything about this year, FATE, it all feels . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Temporary,” Corinne completes, staring ahead as we ride.

And that’s the perfect word for it, isn’t it?

“So, if you’ve never had a girlfriend, then are you still a virgin?” she posits, way too loudly, after another long stretch of silence.

My eyes widen at her sheer volume. The young Black guy sitting to our left chuckles openly after glancing my way.

“I already told you,” I whisper. “I’m not discussing that.”