“Take it back!” she shouts.

“I take it back! Uncle.”

Monae smacks my butt. “Go talk to her.”

“Not now.” I rearrange my blanket. “I think we broke up.”

“You ‘think’?” Monae settles on the coffee table.

“I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

“Zeke, honestly.” She sips a glass of water that came from I don’t know where. Tormenting me is thirsty work, apparently. “That’s the kind of thing you want to be sure about before you get this committed to wallowing.”

“What are you talking about?” I shift so I can see the TV past her.

Monae reaches for the remote control and powers the whole set off.

“Hey. I was watching that.”

“You should be at SCORE,” she says. “It’s kind of a big day over there. And instead, you’re here.”

“Shut up.” As if I don’t feel guilty enough about all the ways I’m failing. I bit off more than I could chew. Everything got out of hand. My protest was a disaster. Almost a hundred people arrested. Twenty hospitalized, not even including all the folks who got gassed and showed up at the clinic. What kind of organizer am I ever going to be, with this track record? I bury my face in the throw pillows. “I screwed it all up. Kimberly hates me.”

“That girl is gaga for you.” Monae leans forward and squeezes my shoulder. “Did she actually say the words ‘I want to break up’?”

“No,” I moan. It was so much worse.

“Or, ‘I don’t think we should see each other anymore’?”

“No.” The tiniest stirring of hope flutters inside me.

“Seriously, bro,” Monae insists. “You’re not being yourself. What’s it going to take to get you off my couch and back to work?”

The pillow absorbs the brunt of my guttural protest. Monae yanks it out from under me. My teeth click as my face bounces off the couch cushion. “Hey.”

“You need to tell me what happened. Tell me everything. You are in desperate need of a girlfriend whisperer.”

KIMBERLY

Zeke texts me.

I have to be in the office all day. Can I come over later? We should talk.

My heart is exploding. Yes! Of course. I want to talk. I attempt several versions of a response. Exclamation point, or no exclamation point? Multiple exclamation points? I end up with:

Okay. Can I help at the office?

There is a pause.

Don’t you have to work? I can’t get into our thing yet.

I want to see him. I want to see him so bad that I’m tempted to just show up anyway. Work can just be work, right? Instead I say:

I can help from here. What do you need?

I spend the morning working on press materials and placing calls to legal aid. Zeke arrives before dinnertime. Jennica’s still at work, so we have the apartment to ourselves.