At the time, there was a girl named Amber. Amber liked Kellan. Kellan liked Amber. They hooked up on the regular. It drove me insane. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but they were both embarrassed about it (straight people, always ashamed of their hookups) and, preferring it to go unnoticed, denied it vehemently. Of course, being the crazy person I’d become, I insisted on confirmation, and Kellan insisted on denial, and I’d fall into a hole of exasperation and despair. It wasn’t that he was hooking up with some girl, I’d tell myself, it was that he was lying to me about it, even though it was quite obviously that he was hooking up with some girl and only a little bit that he was lying about it.

One night, after we’d all been drinking together in Kellan’s room, we said good night and went our separate ways. And then . . . here’s where it gets embarrassing and fucked up and cringe-worthy to even think about . . . I waited in the stairwell for approximately three and a half minutes, until I was confident Kellan had left his room to brush his teeth—a ritual he kept religiously every night—and, having heard the “clunk” of the bathroom door, I quietly slunk back into his room, shut the door, and hid inside his closet.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “What the fuck is wrong with you, you gay stalker fuck?! You’re a grown-ass man who literally climbed inside his friend’s closet . . . to do what exactly? Watch him sleep? Catch him masturbating? Filet his skin into tiny bits of jerky? Or were you just trying to be the biggest cock-block you could possibly imagine?”

And the answer is . . . I don’t know! I mean definitely not the filet thing, but still, I don’t know! I was gay and crazy and infatuated and jealous and lonely and in denial. I wanted him to love me back! I wanted to be the one who snuck back into his room after everybody had gone away, to tell secrets and make out and fall asleep side by side, and sheepishly left in the morning before the rest of the dorm woke up. I suppose I figured he’d walk back in and I’d jump out and he’d scream so loud he’d turn gay, and then we’d laugh and laugh until we collapsed into one another’s arms and fell softly into loving slumber.