I found Jojo in the kitchen, making her nighttime tea, grating ginger into a pot of water set to boil. I knew she would pour the concoction over a huge strainer and into a mug, squeeze in a lemon slice, stir in a spoonful of raw honey. She hadn’t heard me come in, and I stood in the living room, watching her. Say something. My pulse was in my ears. She stirred the pot, the steam wafting toward her face. Just say hello. But I couldn’t make the words come out. She tapped the wooden spoon against the side of the pot and laid it in the ceramic spoon rest and turned toward the fridge for her lemon. She saw me and jumped.

“Oh my God.” She put her hand on her chest, breathing heavily. “Fuck.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was going to say something, I just—I couldn’t—”

But she had started to laugh with relief, a laugh that soon blossomed into hysterics, uncontrollable.

“Are you…?” I said, and I had meant to say okay, but then I was laughing, too, slowly at first, then doubled over. “Hi, I’m home,” I said in between spasms, the joke being that it had come at least two minutes too late; as soon as I said it I realized it wasn’t funny and braced myself for the laughter to end, but she liked it, she liked my joke, and we were off again, gasping for breath.

Afterward, we sat on the couch, two cups of tea in hand—she’d made me one, too. But the mood had shifted; after the mania of our howling, I felt self-conscious again and then, remembering our last conversation, afraid. One spate of laughter couldn’t undo what I had done—digging my nails into her arm, fucking her brother, puking into the bushes. I pressed both palms to the hot mug, palms burning almost too much, then sipped it, feeling the tartness at my jaw.

“How was your day?” I asked tentatively.

“Good.” She nodded, holding my gaze. I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t, as though she didn’t want to let me in at all, even to the minutiae of her Sunday. Was it because she was figuring out how to broach yesterday’s conversation again, or because she really didn’t want to be my roommate anymore? I studied her face for signs but found it unreadable, and took another sip of tea, breaking our eye contact.

“I spent the day with Sam,” she said with an exhale. “I wasn’t sure if I should mention it. But yeah—we hung out in the park.”

I chewed on my thumbnail, unable to look at her, then realized I must look like a child sucking her thumb and took it out again.

“How is he?” I said.

“He’s totally fine,” she said. “We honestly didn’t even talk about it.”