And I really didn’t like that I felt like I was losing. No—I felt like I had already lost. That Jess Orlando and Ros would be together, and there was nothing to do now but slink into my room, find A Tale of Two Cities, and prepare for twelfth-grade history.

“Celia? What do you think?” Ros said expectantly.

“Yeah, Celia,” said Touchstone, with an expression that looked almost like a smirk. He was loving this, my heartbreak. “You’re the brains of the operation. What do you think?”

He passed me the poem/chore wheel, and my wet hands made the paper thin, quick to tear. I could cry on this, I thought. I could cry on this poem and drench it, and then rip it apart.

And then I had a thought.

Sometimes, in a tennis match, if I was already losing by a few games, I would think to myself, If I lose now, I can go home faster. My coach had told me once I needed more fight—not frustration, not anger, not rage, because I had plenty of that. What I needed, she said, was to dig deep and find the place that wanted to win, very, very badly, and tap into that place, and give myself over to it.

So what if I was losing? I didn’t need to cry now. I needed to fight.

“Okay, not to repeat questions, but what even is a copepod?” I said, passing the poem back to Ros. “Have you seen what they look like?”

I looked it up on my phone, and my heart soared a little. They were disgusting: horrible, translucent sea lice, with little legs like hairs and gnarly antennae. Some of them looked like literal tiny penises.

“Oh dear,” said Touchstone.

“Not the most flattering comparison,” I agreed.

“So what?” Ros said. “It’s not about how they look. The poem is about how they’re, like… this unexpected tiny life-form living where they shouldn’t.”

“I dunno, Ros,” I said. “It’s not a very flattering comparison.”

“So you think I shouldn’t give it to her.”

“I think you need to think about whether it needs revision,” I said. “I’m not sure handing her a poem that compares her to a shrimp is the most romantic thing. Even if you have already kissed.”

They looked so downtrodden that I couldn’t help but feel guilty. I should have stopped there. But I just kept on.

“And furthermore, criticisms about copepods aside, what’s the rush?”