“People talk about falling in love like it’s this amazing thing,” Phoebe said. “I don’t know. Maybe it is amazing. But for me, it’s only ever sucked.” She took a deep breath and continued. “Last year, I was, like, totally in love with this guy the year above me. Like, for three years, I was completely in love with him. And he dated other people, but, like, we’d text, and he’d always find ways to touch me, and, like, I just always thought there was something special there. And then finally, finally, he came home this winter break, and we kissed. And it felt—like it felt so perfect. Like it was everything that I’d been waiting for, and we could finally be together. I would have done anything for him. Literally anything.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. We hooked up for that week, and then he went back to college and stopped talking to me.”

“No,” I said.

“Yeah,” Phoebe said. “I told him I liked him, and he told me he was dating someone else and that he always wanted me to be in his life, and that was the last I ever heard from him. I feel so stupid. Like… why did I give my heart away that easily? I’m tough, you know?”

“Fuck that guy,” I said.

“Yeah. Fuck that guy. But also… I don’t know. You know the really sad part? I still hope he thinks about me. Isn’t that pathetic?”

“No,” I said. “It’s normal.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“You seemed so fearless, with Ros. The first night at the party.”

“I mean. What am I going to do? Sit around and wait for him to come back? But I just… I know that it sucks. When the other person doesn’t feel how you want them to feel. I mean the whole story about the spring exists, I guess, because people wanted to get rid of this feeling.”

“What does Audrey say? About the guy, I mean.”

“Audrey? Oh, I didn’t tell Audrey.”

“What? Really?”

“Audrey and I aren’t really that close. I mean, she’s nice, and we’ve done theater together for a while, so we have that in common, but… I don’t know. I don’t know if she’d really understand. Don’t—look, I love Audrey. I’ve known her for a long time. But sometimes it feels like our relationship is very surface level, if that makes any sense. Sometimes I just feel like the pool of people you know in high school is so arbitrary, you know? Like, how much did we choose one another, versus how much were we just around each other all the time, so we became friends? I’m not saying it’s not real. I’m just saying that it doesn’t always feel like a choice. You know?”