Across the room, Joey is distracted; he does not meet her eyes. If he saw her, he would smile. He hasn’t felt real uncertainty in long enough that he is jolly, clapping backs and toasting. He is focused: it draws him in; it electrifies him. The danger of complacency is that it makes you tired. It makes you dull. It distracts you from the heat as the water around you begins to boil.

—

Late that evening, when the clocks have started again from zero and the conversations have broken apart into little cells of worry and speculation strewn through the living room and hallways, Antonia and Sofia find themselves alone in Sofia’s room.

When the awkward dregs of their friendship are not watered down by the presence of others, the air suddenly seems still, and thick. Antonia has an uncontrollable urge to shuffle her limbs around restlessly, and Sofia cannot look Antonia in the eye.

“Well,” says Sofia. “I guess everything will be different now.”

“Everything is different all the time,” says Antonia, and then wants to swallow the words back in. Why do you always have to say something like that? she asks herself.

Sofia rolls her eyes toward the ceiling and says, “That wasn’t what I meant,” and suddenly they are stuck in a sludgy moment with no words and unbidden hostility and they do not know how to get out.

How did we get here? wonders Sofia. She misses Antonia, who is staring glumly into her lap, and who seems not to care for Sofia at all anymore. And to whom Sofia is a total ice queen in response.

“Sorry,” Sofia says. “I didn’t mean—I just—sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Antonia says. She gets up and walks to look out the window and misses Sofia. “I hear you went out with Lucas Fellini,” she says, finally.

Sofia laughs. “I did, unfortunately.”

Antonia is suddenly more curious than irritated. “What happened?”

Sofia wants to tell Antonia everything, but she doesn’t want to seem too eager. “Can you handle it?”

“Gross,” says Antonia. “Probably not.” She feels herself quickening toward Sofia, an old instinct. A relief.

“Well,” says Sofia, “I didn’t . . . handle it . . . either. Much to his disappointment.”

Antonia grimaces, but there is a little thread of fear running through her. Would Sofia consider that?