“Remember that one Final Fantasy game where you think you’re fighting the final boss, but then it turns out you can’t stop the apocalypse and it happens anyway? That’s my life. The post-apocalypse. World of ruin.” I tug at a loose thread dangling from the arm of the couch. It digs into my finger enough to hurt but doesn’t come free.

“What happened?” His eyes are wide. He understands the gravity of the situation.

“Everything,” I say.

He sets the controller down and mutes the TV.

“So there are some things we haven’t talked about this year,” I begin.

He nods.

“Zoe, for one.” Even speaking her name hurts, and I’m alarmed when a lump rises in my throat. I wage an internal battle with my feelings and my bodily fluids, barely able to keep either under control.

“Did she hurt you?” he asks softly.

“No,” I say. “I mean kind of, but it wasn’t her fault. I fucked everything up.” My stupid eyes well up, but this time I don’t try to stop it.

“How did you fuck it up?” he asks. “Nobody is a better friend than you.”

His expression is so open, so honest. He couldn’t tell a lie even if he wanted to. There’s no one else in the world I trust with what I’m about to tell him, not even my mother, in spite of the fragile new honesty between us. Everyone should be so lucky to have someone as kind and genuine as Will for a friend.

“I fell in love with her,” I say. My heart aches with the admission.

“I kind of thought maybe that was what happened,” he says. “But I didn’t want to assume.” There is no judgment in his expression — only sympathy and understanding. He’s had his fair share of doomed crushes, even if none of them came to quite such an apocalyptic end.

“As we got closer, she helped me understand that some things about my life with my mom are . . . not normal. Or reasonable. And maybe they didn’t have to be that way. But all the quirks I developed thanks to growing up with my mom — they didn’t seem to bother Zoe at all. We laughed together. We talked a lot, and she never judged me or my mom. It’s just . . . I didn’t know what to do with someone who actually saw me, all the ugly and awkward parts, and still liked me, you know? I thought she had to feel the same way I did. I thought she loved me, too.”

I give him a stuttering, abridged version of what happened when I tried to kiss her. I even tell him about the glow stars. My cheeks burn with shame, and my chest feels like it’s caving in all over again.