And I thought they were also more full of longing than anyone else I’d ever met.

It made an ache form in my chest.

Maybe because it felt familiar.

Or maybe I was just upset because I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to return to Moonie’s again. Which broke my fucking heart.

“It was just an impulsive hookup,” I insisted, stirring my noodles.

“But a good hookup, right?” Preeti asked. “Or was it not good?”

I shoved a forkful of noodles into my face.

“Very good,” I said, mouth full, irritated.

“Lily!” Preeti shouted. “A good hookup with a fun, sweet person is a hookup you want to see again! Do you know how rough it is out there? I feel like I’m losing my mind right now. Back me up here, Jonny.”

“Oh, you are fully backed up here. Lily, they were super into you, and super cute. Did something happen?”

I stared down into my bowl. Did something happen?

I couldn’t keep on with this conversation. I knew how cold I sounded right now, how cruel and illogical it seemed like I was being.

But something did happen. And I didn’t know when it happened, if it was when we sang “Jolene,” or when I watched them dance with Preeti to “Like a Prayer,” or if it was when they were taking off my bra and kissing down my spine. Or if it was when they answered all my prying questions half-asleep, and I wanted to stay curled up with my head on their shoulder, watching the boringest YouTube videos I had ever seen in my life, forever.

What happened was that I liked Sam Bell too much.

Extricating myself from them when they drifted off to sleep that morning, their phone falling onto their chest while that slow train still chugged through Serbia, was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I had felt like a monster, leaving without a trace.

It was strange. I’d spent the first however many years of my life worrying that people would be so disgusted by my body that they would never love who I really was, inside. But I knew Sam wasn’t disgusted by me: they had made me feel worshipped, desired, sexy, all night, both at Moonie’s and in their apartment.

But what if it was the inside part that was actually disappointing?

How would Sam feel when they learned that the Lily who loved to sing and dance at Moonie’s actually spent most of her time silently working at her sewing machine or reading a book? And even the sewing and reading days were good days; they were the days I wasn’t so exhausted from the clinic that I could do something other than sit on the couch like a lump.