I’m glad he can’t see that my face is turning red from the shame of offering him nothing but generic platitudes. I’m not sure if I’m being rebellious, if it’s just a reflex or a desperate attempt to make the awkwardness of the moment go away, but before I can stop myself from doing it, I’m hugging him. And he’s still crying and hugging me back. It feels more comfortable than romantic—but after a while, the ease with which we hold on to each other flips the ratio. I don’t care if anyone sees us or if either of us is sick and doesn’t know it, and I don’t even break free right away. It feels way too good to hold on. And then it feels just as hard to let go.

PARISA

“Wait a second. Have you been crying?” Gabriela asks me without missing a beat. I can only imagine how scary my swollen and puffy face looks on her end of our video chat. I probably should have declined her call.

“What’s wrong, Par?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I lie, even though I know she won’t let it go until I tell her the truth. “I’m just sad, I guess.”

Over her shoulder, I spot a half-finished sketch of a new painting. A still life of a park with a crowd of people gazing toward a lake, their faces covered with masks. I’m instantly hit with a pang of jealousy at the sight of it. If I had her artistic ability and she had my ambition, I swear, we’d be showing our work at MoMA by now. But we are two separate people. Gabriela was gifted with natural talent, and I was gifted with the audacity to think hard work could make up for my lack of it.

“What are you sad about?” she asks gently.

I’m so grateful that technology still allows us to feel connected. If this pandemic had struck twenty years ago, we wouldn’t even be able to video-chat at all. But tonight, seeing her face on a screen instead of having her here, right next to me, makes me feel even more deprived of her friendship. I don’t want a phone to stare at, I want a shoulder to cry on.

“I got this email from Gideon,” I finally confess. “Just feedback on my college essay. I don’t know why I’m so upset about it. I already knew it was bad when my parents told me to start over.”

“Well, what did he say exactly?” Gabriela asks.

I shrug. “It’s not important. I’m probably just hormonal anyway.”