I glance over to see his shocked expression. He shakes his head. “You’re full of surprises, Zoe,” he says. “I just never know with you.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m not easy.”

He smiles at me, barely. “I always thought you were.”

“Easy?” I joke.

“Ha, you know what I mean. You seemed so easy to be with. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. You know, to make sure you were happy, or . . .”

I shake my head. “No, you’re fine, Hunter. I’m not easy. It wasn’t you.”

“It can’t have been all you. I mean, I’m not perfect.” He watches me, and I realize he has no clue what went wrong. And I’m not sure I have answers.

“It really was mostly me,” I say. “I’m not perfect, either.” It feels surprisingly good to say it out loud, although a part of me feels like I’m losing something — as if maybe I’d had Hunter fooled and now I was going to be lower in his estimation. “You were a good boyfriend,” I say, and my use of the past tense catches in my chest, and I can see that it’s hit him the same way.

He looks toward the deepening pink of the horizon, nodding slowly. “I did try,” he says. I see him swallow hard, and I realize how much this is going to hurt, this whole ending.

“I know,” I say, laying a hand on his shoulder.

He turns and tries to smile, but his eyes well with tears. “You were my first love.”

I lean on his shoulder, letting my tears spill onto his coat. “You were mine, too,” I say. “And I’m glad.”

We sit like that for a few minutes, sniffling from our tears and the chill that grows as the sun begins to set. Finally he puts an arm around me. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

We stand, and I hold out my arms to him. We hug for a long moment, then walk arm in arm to the parking lot.

Sam

I can no longer deny that I’m utterly lost to Starworld and to Zoe. We exchange messages all night on Monday after she tells me she broke up with Hunter. I don’t know how to take the news. While I feel bad that she’s hurting, the truth is that part of me is glad. And then I feel like a shitcan for feeling glad, because being happy when your friend has gone through something awful is a jerk thing to do. But her breaking up with him did the worst possible thing: it gave me hope.