“Oh god,” Abigail says, startling me with her minty breath in my face as she plops down next to me in English a couple weeks after Gene dropped my heart like a hot potato. “You look awful, Cham.”

I rest my head on my desk and talk into my arm. “I saw them at lunch today, and he was just hovering around her like a fruit fly on a banana, and not just any banana—a smart, highly cultured blond one.”

“What a dick,” Abigail says, unzipping her bag and taking out her class “necessities”: highlighter, notebook, Post-it Notes in two different colors. “You should’ve thrown the kickball at his balls in gym.”

“I’d rather not think about the things inside his pants. It’s too depressing.”

I squint at what Evelyn’s written on the board:

EXISTENCE AS IT IS, IS UNBEARABLE.

I MUST HAVE THE MOON OR HAPPINESS OR SOMETHING.

“Caligula said that. Or something like it,” Evelyn rambles. “Okay, get out last night’s homework, please.”

I point to Abigail’s book. “When’s that due, anyway?” I ask her.

“Uh, today.”

I rub my temples. If it were any hotter in this classroom, it could be the post-gym-class sauna. “Fuck.”

Abigail laughs. “How do you never know what the homework is? She says it like eight times in class, and we get e-mail reminders.”

I lower my voice to a whisper. “This is confidential, but I can’t remember things I don’t care about.”

Just then Doug walks in. He’s very deliberate about not looking at me, which just seems unfair. Shouldn’t I be the one ignoring him? It was his best friend who left me for someone who doesn’t even go here. Or did I lose the right to properly grieve this breakup when I launched potato morsels at Gene’s head?

“Here, I’m about to save your ass.” Abigail slides her copy of Caligula toward me and starts talking very quickly, breathing apparently optional. “So this emperor’s lover who is also his sister dies, and he realizes the world is a steaming pile of shitty nothingness.” She points to the chalkboard and the yellow crescent Evelyn is drawing. “So then he becomes freaking obsessed with the moon because he wants something out of this world, something that—”

“Why the moon?” I ask. “Seems kinda random.”

She shrugs. “Well, technically, the moon is outside this world, and let’s be honest, people throughout time have had a major boner for the moon.” She twists a piece of her hair, and I get a whiff of her flowery shampoo. “It’s kinda fascinating up there in the sky, just so big and sad and with us all the time like—”

“Maybe you should take the moon to prom instead of Hilary.”

“Anyway, so he’s all boohooing about the moon because even though he’s so powerful, he can’t have it. Then he kills everybody. Then they kill him. The end.”

I blink at Abigail. “No wonder you got accepted to State in December,” I tell her.