And then it just … becomes a routine. Every day, we both find our way to this isolated bench and eat lunch together. And then we start texting every day. And then the texting leads to playing Xbox Live together (I never thought I would have a reason to dust off my Xbox, but here we are), and sending each other music and actually really talking at lunch. First about school and then eventually about football and debate and slowly, tentatively, about our actual, real stuff.

“What’s wrong?” he asks exactly three weeks after our first lunch (not that I’m keeping track), popping a pepperoni into his mouth.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re—” He catches himself. Caleb does that a lot. He’ll start a sentence and then abruptly stop talking, like he’s afraid a monster is going to leap out of his mouth and terrorize the locals.

“I’m…?” I prompt, acting like this behavior is totally normal to me now, even though it makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle.

“You just seem a little bummed out, that’s all.” He shrugs, averting his eyes.

“What’re you, a human mood ring?” I quip, but my heart is picking up speed at his observation.

“You’re just really obvious, dude,” he counters.

I sigh, playing up the drama of it, trying to act like I’m not a ball of self-doubt and exhaustion. I’m mostly comfortable around Caleb now; I don’t feel like he’s going to bolt or say one day, “Gotcha! Joke’s on you, I never actually wanted to be your friend.” But I still feel like I’m splashing around in the shallow end. Even when we talk about serious things like our futures or parents, there’s a lightness to it, forced mostly by me and my stomach-clenching fear of Caleb finding out that some days I can’t get out of bed because my brain doesn’t work right.

Caleb rolls his eyes (fondly, I think. I hope) at my overdone sighing and gives me The Look. The Look that I saw that first lunch: the “you’re full of crap and you better start talking now because I don’t have the patience” look.

“My parents are on me about college apps,” I say, finally giving in.

“What? Already? Jeez, I knew they were intense, but…”

“Your parents haven’t started giving you grief about it?” I ask, disbelieving.

“I mean, we’ve been touring campuses and stuff,” he says with a shrug, “and they get on me about studying for the SATs, but they haven’t been crazy hyped about it or anything.”

“Wow,” I deadpan, “I can’t imagine that.”