Tonight, after I read some article for class and write a quick reaction paper, I pull my pie dough out of the fridge. That’s the first secret of good pie: just as in yacht rock, everything needs to be very chill.

After covering the counter in plenty of flour, it’s time for my favorite part: rolling out the dough. At first, this was the part of pie making that scared me. What if I tore a hole in the dough? What if it got stuck? What if it . . . sucked?

But a few pies in, the practice of rolling out the dough became truly therapeutic. In my tiny kitchen, it’s me and the dough, working out our annoyances. Sure, maybe I’m bringing an unhealthy amount of sexual frustration to this pie-making session, but the dough can keep a secret. It isn’t going to tell anyone that I want to jump my boss’s bones and totally have sex in his office.

I pause and blow my bangs off my forehead. Not that I’ve imagined that scene, or anything.

Once my dough is securely in the pan, back in the fridge it goes (remember: the dough must be more chill) as I get my filling all mixed up. Tonight it’s an apple-cinnamon-ginger mixture—perfect for a rainy and cold night, not that I’ll be eating it tonight. Perhaps one of the biggest pie mistakes is cutting into it immediately after it comes out of the oven. I mean, is it warm and delicious and kinda irresistible? Yes. But resist it you must, because if you cut into it now, all will be lost. Your filling will gush out and leave your pie one big, deflated mess.

Patience is a virtue when it comes to pie. By tomorrow morning, when the pie is cooled and I’ve slept at least a few hours, I’ll have a (hopefully) delicious pie ready for breakfast, and the fact that I threw myself at Nick tonight will be nothing but a distant memory.

But first, I need to talk about it with someone.

Hey. I tap out a quick text to Annie. Are you home, or are you in LA at Drew’s love nest?

In approximately five seconds, I hear Annie’s feet clomp up the stairs before the door swings open. “It’s his house, not a love nest,” she says. “And I’m here. I don’t leave until tomorrow morning.”

My entire body relaxes as soon as I see her. Of course, I know she’d still talk through my Dark Night of Sexual Frustration even if she were out of town, but FaceTime has its limitations. Annie might be a truly hopeless romantic who thinks every part of my life story is merely a beat in a rom-com script, but she’s still my best friend. The one who knows everything about me, better than anyone else.

But keeping up with her schedule these days would be difficult even if I didn’t have a million things on my mind. Sometimes she’s home, staying in her old bedroom and planning stuff for her wedding and her movie premiere. Sometimes she’s in LA, doing whatever it is she has to do to get a movie made (I space out during those parts of the conversation, honestly) or hanging out with Drew when he’s on breaks from the sitcom he’s starring in. And sometimes she’s in New York, doing even more things I don’t understand.