“I knew this was a mistake,” Josh whimpers. I don’t want to sound mean or anything, but he’s getting pretty pitiful. “I knew it.”

“If you knew it, then why’d you say it?” I ask him.

“I don’t know.” He hangs his head in shame. “I think part of me was just … I guess hoping you’d say it back.”

“Not really, sorry …” I tell him. I glance at the Rolex on my wrist—Oyster Perpetual, the one with the nice black dial. If we don’t wrap this up soon, we’re both going to be late for class.

I should have known that something was up; I should have felt it. I mean, did I have a gut feeling that something bad like this was going to happen? No, not really, but still, I should have seen it coming.

The only reason I came here is because he asked, because there was an unanswered text from him on my phone telling me to drop by before Classic Lit. I figured, why not? Josh’s dorm room was close to the English building, even if it meant that I’d be risking hickeys on my neck for the rest of the day. I imagined some fooling around would make the rest of the day a little more enjoyable.

“I thought …” Josh begins to say. Then he backs up and starts again. “You’re telling me that you don’t feel this? You don’t think we have something real?” I think there might actually be tears welling up behind his eyes; they seem wetter than usual.

He reaches up for my hand, but I back away and let it fall.

“We had an agreement, Josh. No feelings, no dating, no emotions. Just fun. Look, I enjoy spending time with you, but that’s because we were friends before this entire situation was even an idea. That’s how I see us—two friends who happen to have sex every now and then.”

It’s been, up until this moment, an absolutely perfect setup. He has a single dorm room, so there aren’t any roommates to worry about when we want to be together, and he isn’t a half-bad kisser either; a little too much tongue, but that’s his only real flaw.

When this whole situation started up at the beginning of this school year, we’d made things clear. This was just a friendly thing, just us hooking up, relieving some tension, and helping each other out. We even had a Pull-Out Clause—Josh came up with the name: If either of us ever started to get serious about another person, we’d call the whole thing off and move on.

This was never supposed to be about love, or feelings, or any junk like that. We’re in high school, for fuck’s sake. Who falls in love in high school?

And now, with three little words, it’s all undone.