The guy looked at his food again and picked up a fork. “You’re not making me feel bad about that. I’m not some creep. All I’ve done is bear with your obsessive-compulsive bullshit for the last two years and tried not to complain about it.”

“You’ve lived under me for two years?” That seemed egregious.

“Why are you acting like that’s a problem? I didn’t choose it.”

“So you just made me a breakup CD with songs you thought I’d like . . .”

“Because I’ve heard every song that you like a thousand times. Yeah.” He took a bite of chicken and raw spinach and cottage cheese and . . . were those almonds? “And it worked,” he said. “Now, at least you’re listening to music that I like, too.”

“You don’t like music like that . . .”

He frowned at her. “What are you talking about? I made that CD.”

“I’ve heard your music. It’s all people screaming over heavy bass.”

He looked confused for a second and chewed quietly. “Ohhhh,” he finally said with his mouth full. “I listen to the Judgment Night soundtrack when I want to get pumped up for a test. That’s not all I listen to.”

“That’s all I hear.”

“Well, I normally wear headphones. Because I’m a good neighbor.”

Summer looked at her food. She picked up her cheeseburger. “The thing I don’t understand, about your CD . . .” She looked up. “. . . is why the happy songs make me feel worse than the sad ones.”

“Happy songs are the saddest thing to listen to when you’re unhappy,” the guy said matter-of-factly. “That’s just physics.”

“That’s not physics.”

“They break your heart because they make you think about the last time you were happy.” He took another bite. “Also, don’t argue with me about physics. I’m a physics major. What’s your major?”

“Secondary education.”

“Okay, I won’t argue with you about that.”

Summer watched him eat his chicken and spinach and cottage cheese and almond slivers and . . . some little brown things that he sprinkled on his food from a Tupperware container; they looked like Grape-Nuts.

When Summer woke up the next morning, someone had slid a CD under her door. She was half asleep, and for a minute she thought it was from Charlie, and her chest seized up a little bit. Charlie had never made her a mix CD.

Then she realized that it was from the guy downstairs, and she felt like he really should have just left it outside. Sliding something under someone’s door was a little intimate.

He’d written More Songs for Getting Over Dipshits on the case. Summer stared at it for a few seconds, tempted to sit down and listen right now, never mind her morning classes.