“Really, Isabel? Because using me to make sure I’m not getting in the way of the guy your friend wants is not what friends do. Making me a stepping stone to someone else—getting an invite from me to his room…” I can’t even continue. It’s all so pathetic. I am right back where I was a few months ago, a tool in the quest for two people to find each other while I lose everything.

How am I back here?

“I gotta go.” I stumble out of her room to the sound of her calling my name, the cards fluttering from my hands to the plush carpet below.

It’s a relief to make it to Rumson without bumping into anyone, and when I get back to my room, I do something I never do and lock the door. There isn’t a soul on earth I want to see right now, or for the rest of the day. All I can think about is who’s using me, and am I ever going to be someone who just gets to have a life and friends and a boyfriend without there being an asterisk on it all?

Okay, you’re going to make yourself crazy. I can’t be alone with my thoughts. I need some noise to drown them out. I flip open my laptop and open up a music app.

I’m about to put on one of my usual comfort choices like Taylor Swift when I decide I need a change of pace. What were those bands Salem mentioned again? After all, he gave newer music a shot when I suggested it; it seems only fair that I try his.

I look up Nirvana, thinking of the shirt he wore on the first day, and he’s right: a lot of this isn’t bad. From there, I follow “If you like this, you may like that” suggestions that take me from Hole to Veruca Salt to Letters to Cleo. I explore Foo Fighters and Soundgarden and Mad Season. I take a quick break to pick up food from the Beast and bring it back to my room so I can listen some more.

Some of the music is good. Some of it is awful. Some of it reminds me of sitting in Craig’s basement and watching him maneuver soldiers and elves through virtual battlefields while barely acknowledging my existence. Some of it makes me think of Sierra for no reason at all other than that it feels like her vibe and apparently my brain and this shit with Isabel are determined to pull me back into the past.

And finally, after I don’t even know how many songs have passed, I do the thing I’ve been determined not to do.

I go online to look up all the people I left behind, starting with my sister.