I scanned the room for anything in grabbing distance, but he ducked out too fast, and the pen pot hit the door instead of his head.

“You two are funny,” Ruby said.

“He’s like the annoying brother I never wanted and will have to poison with cyanide someday.”

I wanted to go back to the kiss, but I wasn’t sure how to get the moment back.

“So what now?” Ruby said.

What was I supposed to say? I was the one who’d come back. I was the one who’d said I wanted to kiss her again, but when it came to saying Let’s do this again or I’ll call you, it was like a stone dropped into my stomach, heavy and cold. It had been so easy to stick to my rule until now, and sure, I could throw it away, but I’d made it for a reason. I’d spent most of my life with Hannah, best friends and then girlfriends. When she told me she didn’t want that anymore I didn’t know how to be without her. I had gone through the motions of my life with the constant refrain She doesn’t love you anymore and it made me feel like I didn’t count as a whole person on my own. I’d barely got past that stage and I couldn’t go back. And I couldn’t say that to Ruby. It was pathetic.

But I could explain it a different way.

“So you know in the rom-com where there’s always a person who doesn’t want to be in a serious relationship?”

Ruby raised an eyebrow and it made me wish I could raise one eyebrow. Not that that’s the thing to concentrate on here, but it would be so cool.

“That’s you, I take it,” she said with the same expression my French teacher would make when I told her I really did leave my homework on the kitchen table. I was a good student and yet somehow I always inspired nothing but skepticism. Can’t imagine why.

“I want to be honest,” I said (dishonestly keeping the real reason I didn’t want to get into a relationship a secret).

“What’s wrong with relationships? You want the stuff that goes with them.”

“Some of it,” I conceded. The kissing and groping stuff. With her. I wanted more of that with her than I had with anyone. Since Hannah. “The thing is, though, relationships are doomed to fail. No one stays together. Breakups are never mutual. One person gets blindsided and hurt and it’s ugly and messy and . . . and besides, I’m leaving in a few months for uni and you’re only here for the summer. So there’s really no point.”