Brougham watched me patiently, and I realized he was waiting for me to initiate. Part of me wanted to insist I had no idea what I was doing, because I kind of didn’t, but that might be poking the beast here. Maybe the best thing I could do right now was tackle the familiar, hoping the unfamiliar would come as a natural next step.

Wordlessly, I fished today’s three letters from my backpack. I scanned them all, and, thankfully, one of them was vague enough I was certain it wouldn’t give the writer’s identity away to Brougham. “Okay, so,” I said. “‘Dear locker eighty-nine, I’m really into this girl, but we’re acquaintances at best. She’s a year below me so we don’t have any classes together or share any friends. Sometimes I feel like she might be sending me signals when I do see her around, but I’m worried I might be seeing what I want to see. How do I ask her out without putting my foot in it or coming across like a massive creep? ‘Hey, you’re hot, wanna go out with me?’ is a weird hallway icebreaker.”

Please help, [email protected], I finished in my head. Just in case Brougham happened to know who the email address belonged to.

Brougham popped a grape in his mouth and rolled it into his cheek. “That doesn’t give us much to go off,” he said.

I held my hand out palm up, and he dutifully picked off another grape and threw it to me. “It gives us enough,” I said. “You just have to break it down. We know they’re at least a sophomore, because they’re a year above this girl. We know they don’t share friends, so we don’t have to worry too much about someone being off-limits. We know they’re at least on speaking terms, because they called the girl an acquaintance, not a stranger. We know the writer is at least a little self-aware, because they’ve thought about this girl’s hypothetical reaction to being asked out without any warning. That also tells us the writer probably hasn’t done anything rash to scare the girl off previously, which helps a lot.”

Brougham looked thoughtful. For a brief moment I wondered if I’d impressed him. But then he narrowed his eyes. “You think the writer’s a girl,” he said. Statement, not question.

“Not necessarily.”

“You were avoiding pronouns. How come you don’t think it’s a guy? Or did the email address give it away?”

“I don’t think it’s a guy or a girl. I literally have no way of knowing. Why would you think they were anything right now?”

He didn’t seem to realize the question was rhetorical. “Well, because statistically, straight guys outnumber girls who like girls. And,” he added, before I could interject, “people with other genders.”