Lulu says it mostly to have something to say, but Kiley shakes her head in earnest agreement.

“No,” she says. “No, right? I’m so glad to hear you say that, because I only really started going out in the last, like, little while, so I thought maybe it was just me who didn’t understand. Is there something I’m not getting that makes a party universally fun? No, right?”

Lulu gives her a placeholder shrug.

Kiley doesn’t back down.

“If you asked me about the most fun I’ve had at a party this year, I’d say it was this one I went to last weekend,” she says. “And it was, like, pretty much sophomores only, and not even that big, and mostly it was me and Frida—my friend—hanging out. It was sort of quiet, and we just chilled and did whatever. And it was nice, actually, to not be worrying about who else was there and who might be coming and just, like, to be there. With who we were with. Which is why it’s funny that—” Lulu sees her snag on the words, watches her trying to decide whether she’s going to say them or not.

One of us will, she wants to tell Kiley, because now that the first half of the sentence is out there, the second is coming, one way or another.

Kiley says, “It’s funny that when I stopped hoping someone cool would turn up, Owen did.”

Lulu wishes she hadn’t eaten the bagel. She wishes she hadn’t eaten anything, ever, so that she would never have lived to experience a lurch of vertigo picturing how it must have happened: Owen looking for her at Patrick’s party and not finding her. He was thinking about leaving anyway. Someone had invited—not him, probably. A friend of his from the baseball team. Whatever. He decided there wasn’t anything for him at Patrick’s, so he left, and found Kiley instead. Someone new. Someone nice.

“He’s great, right,” Lulu says, forcing the words out.

“Yeah,” Kiley says. “I really, um, I really like him.”

Lulu nods.

“It’s not really anything yet,” Kiley says. “It’s not even enough of anything to really talk about, obviously, except that you’re—I know you—” She squares her shoulders. “I respect you,” she says. “I know that sounds like a weird thing to say, but I do. I remember seeing you around last year and thinking you seemed like someone who had your shit together.