If Naomi were here, she’d be asking Lulu about this too probably: Why do you keep doing it, Lu?

Lulu wouldn’t have a good answer for her.

She puts her phone down. “Do you like it?” she asks Cass. “Los Angeles?”

“Not really.”

Lulu doesn’t catch herself in time to not roll her eyes.

“Oh,” Cass says. She leans forward just slightly. “So it’s like that.”

“It’s not like anything,” Lulu says. She lolls her head against the wall behind her, to make sure they’re both clear on how much space there is between them. “Whatever. Why would I care?”

“Oh.” After a beat, Cass leans back too.

Lulu should leave it at that. She should go downstairs and be social and stop sitting alone like a weirdo. She should go back and pretend everything is normal, so that at some point, everything will be normal again.

Instead, she says, “I think you have to give it a chance.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, I don’t know. It’s just such a big city, and it’s so weird. I feel like it takes a while to figure it out. And people always come in with these ideas about what it is, or what it should be. It’s so exhausting. Like, just because you’ve seen it on TV doesn’t mean you know anything about it, I guess. Is all.”

“I guess. Is all,” Cass says, imitating the fall of Lulu’s voice at the end of her monologue. She nudges the toe of her shoe against Lulu’s ankle, to let her know she’s only teasing.

Despite herself, Lulu laughs a little bit. She tries to mask it with a shrug.

“But no, I get that,” Cass continues. “That seems fair. I guess I just haven’t found the parts of it that I love yet, really.”

“Nothing?” Lulu asks.

She risks looking up. Cass is leaning forward again, intent, unembarrassed.

“There’s this one spot,” Cass says. “It’s sort of amazing, actually. I could take you, if you want.”

Lulu’s phone flashes with a message from Bea.

Where the hell are you girl??
Don’t make me wander through this whole horrible fake castle on a search. Come back!!!!!

And then: O says he might be leaving soon.

Lulu knows exactly how the rest of her night will go if she leaves Cass here and walks back downstairs to the living room. Owen will be drunk; probably a little sloppy. Maybe he’ll try to talk to her, or kiss her or something, and she knows perfectly well that she should let him. She should. That would be a big step toward normal: bringing Owen back into her life.

Lulu knows how to follow the rules, and she knows what happens when she does.