After a few minutes, I start reading the book Evelyn gave me. Honestly, this guy Rilke is boring as hell, but not as boring as waiting for the universe to get its shit together and grace me with its presence. I turn one of the pages and see that Evelyn’s underlined a whole passage. I read it, and then I read it again.

“Universe, you weird and wonderful thing,” I say once I’ve read it a few times: Live the questions. Like Brendan said in his presentation, it’s as if this old, long-dead dude is talking to me, and as I read, we are becoming friends.

The bathroom door opens, its hinge so well oiled it hardly creaks. I close the book quickly.

“Cham?” Abigail’s voice floods the bathroom. I get off the toilet and peek under the door. There are her snakeskin heels, pausing outside my stall. “Ew, get out of there, Cham!”

“Germs are my friends.”

“Chamaroooon!” Hilary sings as the door opens again. I wait for her plastic, totally see-through heels to stop in front of me. “We see your sneakers in there.”

“Hi, friends,” I say, butt cheeks regaining feeling after so long on the toilet seat. “I wasn’t hiding, I swear. I was researching.”

“Researching what?” Abigail asks, pounding on the stall door so hard it rattles.

“My poop’s horoscope.”

Abigail sniffs the air theatrically, and her heels take her toward the mirror. “It doesn’t smell like you’re pooping, and, ew, why didn’t you tell me my lips have melted into my chin?”

“You’re beautiful, Abigail,” I say, flushing the toilet, just in case it wanted a reset.

“We got bored at dinner without you,” Hilary says as I open the door. She’s leaning against the counter, and the mirror is reflecting her cool blue hair back at me. “Here, we brought rolls.”

She passes one to me and I pop it in my mouth. “You angel, you prebuttered it.”

As I chew this squishy, salty treasure, I sift through the prom kit on the counter: a basket full of bobby pins and spray-on deodorant and mouthwash and condoms. In the mirror, Abigail is licking her finger and attacking her chin with a cotton ball. I want to tell them about Nicaragua, but just because I can go doesn’t mean I should.

“Okay, all fixed,” Abigail says, applying a fresh coat of lipstick with her face a centimeter from the mirror. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not leaving until I have a sign from the universe,” I tell them. I back toward the woven basket of hand towels with my arms crossed. “I will stay in this bathroom until my teeth fall out, and then I will get the denture creator to come in here.”

“Shut up, Cham,” Abigail says, rolling her eyes in a very unsympathetic way, considering her dad isn’t dying. “You don’t have to decide your whole life right now. You’re gonna miss prom if you try to do that. Actually, you’ll probably miss your whole life if you do that. Just let go for one night and shake your tight little runner’s ass.”