“So when you start to notice that you’re picking up these little habits, or maybe that even when you think about the bigger questions in life, you can’t help but have things they said pop into your mind...that’s not a bad thing, right? Because you’re becoming more like that quality that drew you to them. Which is not to say loss doesn’t hurt, or that having that person leave that place in your life won’t suck for a while. But I think that if you walk away having become more like the one you admired, who was able to light up any room—and make a boring trip running errands something you’d look forward to all day, then how could it have been a bad choice?”

Sara sweeps up the napkin bits, piling them high on the dark wood table that is slightly sticky in a way that bar tables always seem to be. “But what if you don’t like the way you’re changing? What if you find yourself becoming more selfish, more negative, more angry?”

I consider this. There is a polite answer, and a true one. I go for true. “If you don’t like them, maybe you shouldn’t be with them.”

We both laugh about that.

“Ugh.” She places her head in her hands. “I am so stupid.” She looks back up at me. “How is it that I could be so romanced by someone, have a crush on him, think maybe even I might one day love him and not even like him as a human?”

“I don’t think that makes you stupid,” I say. “I think a lot of us are drawn to people who are—” I try to ease the feeling in the pit of my stomach while I think of Braden and Sara together “—charming. Even if that charm is manipulation. Even if they’re bad people, they’re tempting when they say the right things.”

She presses her lips together and nods. She looks down at the napkin bits. “I’m sorry, you know, about...” She looks me in the eyes. “Questioning doing the camp. And how I reacted when you called me out on it. And just...for being a shitty friend recently.”

Sometimes this weird thing happens, where someone hurts you, and you end up comforting them. Reassuring someone that you’re not that mad about the bad thing that they did. It’s almost like you end up apologizing to them, when you did nothing wrong.

Sara looks at me, her long eyelashes blinking over her doe-like eyes.