Dear Locker 89,

I’m a lesbian, and last week I kissed a girl I know and I thought she was into it. I happen to know she’s a lesbian as well so this isn’t a “was she just confused” letter. Since we kissed, though, she’s been avoiding me, and acting like it didn’t happen. She’s being friendly but only when we’re in groups, she hasn’t been close with me, hasn’t texted me, hasn’t mentioned the kiss. I’m like did I fucking imagine this? Should I assume it wasn’t as good for her as it was for me, or should I try and reach out to her? I would’ve already but I lost confidence when she started acting all distant.

And, god help me, I replied.

Dear hellsbells05,

I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but it does sound like she probably wasn’t into it. It’s unusual behavior to act as though a kiss didn’t happen—especially if you’ve seen her around since—and if your gut tells you she’s avoiding being alone with you, you’re probably reading the situation right. In this case, my advice would be to move on unless she changes her behavior miraculously. You’ll have many first kisses in your life, and I promise most of them will turn out better than this one. You deserve someone who’s psyched to kiss you, and who can’t get enough of you, and who will call you immediately after to set up a time to hang out. Don’t lose your dignity by chasing after someone who’s made it clear they’re not psyched. You’re too good for that.

I’m sorry I don’t have better news.

And that had been that. Brooke made it clear she didn’t want me to bring up her kiss with Jaz when I tried to check in on her, so I kept quiet on the topic. And over the summer, Jaz met a girl at church, and they started dating seriously.

And it was only following this that Brooke and Jaz began to feel comfortable enough around each other again to debrief on the whole kissing situation. And that’s when they found out.

“It was almost like the locker sabotaged us,” Brooke had raged the next time we caught up. “I understand whoever answers the letters gets a lot of questions every week, but would you really not catch on that Jaz and I were talking about each other?”

“I don’t know,” I’d said, swallowing. “Maybe they were distracted.”

“Maybe,” Brooke had said, but she’d glowered.

The rest of the week I had guilt nightmares every night, from Brooke finding out I was behind the locker and never speaking to me again, to Jaz sobbing to me in the girl’s bathroom that she’d lost the love of her life.