Meanwhile, Troy had shifted his pillows to obstruct his exposed lap, and the squishing had abated. I maintained the pretense of being half-asleep, fully vertical in bed with the bottle of water still dripping on my lap, but my eyes still closed. I made an exaggerated effort to reach for my cell phone and lay back down, facing the wall, with my phone illuminated against my face. There would be no mistaking now that I was awake.

Defeated, I heard Troy shift on his sheets, pulling his boxers back up, and then the sound of him stumbling toward the door and down to the bathroom, presumably to complete whatever business he had to attend to.

Vindicated, I turned off my phone. And in beautiful silence, I was able to finally fall asleep.

In the days that followed, Troy gave off very little indication that he knew what had happened, or at least managed to convince himself he’d been stealthier than he had been. Though, of course, I wouldn’t expect him to walk in and say, “Hey, that was crazy last night, wasn’t it?!” But it would’ve been nice to detect at least a hint of shame in place of his typical bravado.

I didn’t hesitate repeating the story to my friends the next morning: the Almighty Ladies’ Man, Troy, staggering home on a Friday night, drunk and dejected, vigorously massaging his neglected manhood. I happily admitted to being the unwitting dope in this story, if only to expose Troy and his shameless semi-public masturbating.

•  •  •

One afternoon, not long after The Night of the Incident, Troy stopped me in our room. A rare moment of communication.

“My parents are coming this weekend,” he said. “They want to take us out to brunch.”

It wasn’t a question, more a delivery of an uncomfortable fact that neither of us wanted to hear, like announcing that a nearby nuclear plant just exploded.

“Oh,” I said back, and then, without thinking, “Um. Sure. I’ll be around.”

Goddammit. Why, in this moment, I didn’t think to come up with an excuse—literally any excuse—is beyond me. This is what I do. I panic. I say yes to things. I can’t say no, especially not to food. What was I supposed to do now? I considered driving my bike into traffic just for a believable pardon.

“Oh, OK. Cool,” Troy said. I could tell he was thinking the same thing. I wasn’t supposed to say yes. He was just delivering the message, one I’m sure his parents forced him to deliver. Either that, or all of his other friends were too obnoxiously fratty to bring around, and I was simply the safest option. As far as they knew, I was Troy’s only friend.