“Guys are so strange.” She laughs. “You’ll text and talk about the filthiest things imaginable, openly, loudly, in the middle of the school library, but heaven forbid you answer a direct question about your practical sex life.”

Still, she doesn’t push the topic further. The rest of the ride falls into a comfortable silence. The train empties at Times Square station as people pour out to catch the express train across the platform, but Corinne and I stay put instinctively, settling for two now-empty seats instead of rushing to save, at most, three minutes of travel time.

“I’m sorry I’m not very good company right now,” I say after a beat.

She looks at me, perplexed as she puts her earbuds in. “I’m not a master of it myself, but you really should try to think less about what people think of you.”

It’s not dismissive or rude, and before I can reply, she hits Pause on whatever she was listening to, rips a single disinfectant wipe from her bag, removes and thoroughly cleans one of her earbuds, and offers the earbud to me, shining clean like a fancy hotel bathroom sink.

“NPR,” she says, and I take it.

Eventually the train pulls into our station, and we walk out together, shoulder to shoulder. It’s not just proximity but also a weird form of familiarity I’m not entirely used to. We walk all the way to the Wyatt in tandem, shoulders occasionally bumping, both implicitly knowing the path.

“You’re sure Ming won’t mind that we ditched him?” Corinne asks by the mailboxes as I hand her the earbud back, wondering when we’d transitioned to jazz.

And as if on cue, I receive a selfie of a grinning Ming in front of Marvyn’s flat-screen. On the monitor is a gleaming Mario Kart trophy, and in the background, Colleen Patrick is caught midshout in defeat with a controller in hand.

Caption: YEAH U 2 BETTER RUN B4 THE NEXT CULLING!

“Ming Denison-Eilfing, ladies and gentlemen.”

Corinne laughs at the photo and takes two steps onto the staircase so she’s standing a bit taller than me.

“Well, thanks for coming along,” she says, currently distracted by her reflection in the glass door lobby, gently tapping at the poof of her wet hair now dried back with even more volume than ever before.

“Of course,” I say, shuffling my feet. “And I wanted to say . . .”

“Yes?”

Her entire attention is on me again, which does not make it easier to keep talking, but we are dangerously close to friends now and . . . if anyone deserves a photo finish to their high school experience, it’s Corinne.