“Duh.” May is one of that rare breed of Californians who not only were born and raised in LA but are third generation. Her great-grandparents immigrated from Mexico decades ago and her entire family has stayed local, meaning holidays at her grandparents’ house are the best, and you can count on her to throw “duh” or “dude” into most any conversation.

She and I were roommates our freshman year at USC, and luckily she took my Connecticut-born ass under her wing, schooling me on the unwritten rules of the freeways and ridiculous traffic, and helping me pop all my LA cherries, everything from my first In-N-Out burger to my first Dodger game. I honestly don’t know how I would have survived freshman year, let alone college, without her—both her Los Angeles tutelage and her quick wit at the times when I needed laughter the most.

If only my supreme luck in friends could extend even the slightest bit into some kind of romantic good fortune.

Ha.

R2-D2’s telltale chirp beeps at me from across the room, alerting me to a text message and pulling me out of my haze of self-pity. And of course I left my phone an insurmountable six feet away from where I am currently plastered to my bed.

Beep boop beep bop.

“Oh my god, shut that thing up,” May calls from the kitchen, where hopefully she’s pouring me water or making me coffee. She has very little patience for my intense love of all things nerdy.

“I can’t. He’s too far away.” I try scooting down to the foot of the bed in some sort of backward army crawl, but I don’t make it more than a few inches.

When the blasted droid keeps chirping, I attempt a busted barrel roll to get myself out of bed without having to engage my core muscles. I manage to make it over to my dresser, where drunk me casually tossed my phone on top of my jewelry tray. I squint to force the alerts on the screen to come into something resembling focus.

“Shit. Shit shit shit.”

“Please tell me you did not just actually take a shit.” May returns to my bedroom and hands me a glass of water and some aspirin, along with a grimace.

I groan, stumbling over to my nightstand to plug my almost-dead phone into its charger. “No, I did not. Gross.”

“Then what’s the problem?” She seems to have fully returned to functioning human, which is really just not fair.