“Maybe I can talk to the person,” I say. “If I tell them that the story isn’t about them, maybe they’ll agree to admit I didn’t steal it.”

“Noah, they know you didn’t steal it, okay? The whole point of the Diary is for people to post their stories anonymously, so they’re intentionally vague. How are you going to prove the story isn’t about them when half the details are different and they’re still coming for you?”

I rest my head against the wall, struggling to process everything. I mean, the Diary’s my life’s work. It’s probably the single most important thing I’ve ever done. I can’t just let that all go down the drain.

“Don’t do anything rash, okay?” she says. “Just give it a few days before you try to engage. Oh, and you should probably catch me up on everything you’ve been blowing up my phone about.”

So I try to pull my attention away from the Diary as I catch her up on all the stuff she’s missed. Then I tell her to catch me up on her summer thus far. She doesn’t address the whole not-answering-my-calls thing, and really, she seems like she’s more comfortable avoiding anything that has to do with her, but she mentions that she’s started talking to another girl—one who isn’t a TERF—on Instagram, which I admit is a little sketchy to me, but I tell her I’m happy for her anyway. And really, I am. I mean, sure, it’ll suck to have to explain to her family that she met her girlfriend on a Facebook-owned social media platform, but it beats being lonely.

Then she expertly steers the conversation back to my problems. I catch her up about the camping trip and then start talking about Drew and all the time we’ve been spending together.

“I think he’s finally running out of creative date ideas, so that’s good,” I say.

“That’s good?”

The truth is, I’d rather just curl up on the couch with him and watch shitty movies than hike up to dragon lairs and swing from vines in the Amazon. I just don’t have the stamina for all these outdoor activities anyway, and sometimes it feels like our whole relationship is built around the things we do more than the people we are.

“You and Devin seem pretty close,” Becca says.

I laugh. “No, not really. We’re less close and more constantly forced to be around each other because we work together.”

“Well, you still talk about him like you think he’s pretty cool.”