We used all this as an excuse to fuel our self-indulgence and pretend we were caught in the throes of existential angst, which is, as everyone knows, the best kind of angst there is.

Usually we met at Jack’s for underage drinks in between classes. They let us in because Jane was all legs and always wore shorts, even in the winter, when she’d just add a layer of sheer, ripped black tights under the denim cut-offs. We drank our wine through straws so we’d smell less drunk when we returned to campus for our afternoon and evening classes.

At night, sometimes we would get the kind of drunk where we’d run screaming down the streets and into bars, scaring sober strangers and befriending drunk ones. At other times, we would drink a box of Franzia and lie on Asher’s bedroom floor in the dark, listening to ‘Konstantine’ on repeat, talking about how unhappy we were even though we didn’t know why, and singing along when our favourite part came on.

‘It’s to Jimmy Eat World’ would send us song-tripping, and we’d follow band after band named in song after song.

And when I was exhausted, when I couldn’t casually feel everything anymore, I’d go home to Thomas, which was an easier pretence. He wasn’t as smart as Asher and Jane, not as effortless as them. He understood less, cared about the commonplace. And I could keep him at the periphery of my attention as I zoned out to a sandwich and America’s Next Top Model.

Asher and Jane felt like strobe-lit nights on pure-cut MDMA. Thomas was the slow, comfortable haze of being softly high—marijuana, not acid or Ecstasy. And reality was, well, it wasn’t, really. Delving into myself was, of course, never an option. How boring. How scary.

It started because, why not? We were bored. We made brownies. We laughed at everything. It was such a great time, at least for a while. Four giant brownies later, I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. I could hear the others talking but was finding it harder and harder to follow their train of conversation. Why was I the only one excluded? It had to be because I was different, because I was Indian and not American, like them. It didn’t matter how well I thought I merged into life here, didn’t matter how comfortable I felt in this country, America would never accept me completely. No, this had to be the weed; I had never felt this way before. I was Thomas’s best friend. I knew he liked me more than he did Asher and Jane. Or did I just think that? Everything seemed very clear, but what if this clarity was wrong? What the hell was going on here?