That night, both Janet and Laurel fell asleep immediately, or at least turned their faces into their pillows and stayed that way. I rolled onto my back. I could feel every square inch of fabric that was touching my body; I thought I could feel every fiber. I wished for sleep. I wished even for Rasputin.

I’d have this feeling many more times in my life, but this was the first: I was overcome by the certainty that choosing any path would by necessity eliminate the others—eliminate them as choices, yes, but also somehow obliterate them, erase them from the world. I pictured the different paths dissolving as if in acid. I pictured them burning. I felt that any choice I made now would be a destructive act. As essential as Hamlet’s query, if not ultimately the same: to tell or not to tell?

Eventually, without ever actually making the decision to do so, I sat up and pulled on my shoes. Laurel was whimpering in her sleep (what a word, whimpering: the cutest, saddest little word, except it’s not little, it’s long and thin, like a dachshund being tortured) and I hesitated over her. I had to stop myself from smoothing back her hair. I took her flashlight and crept toward the front door.

As I walked, I told myself that I still hadn’t made any decisions, that every step I took forward wasn’t a betrayal of Janet, wasn’t one of those choices that bombs out the rest of the world, but was only a step forward, an innocent step on an innocent path in the dead of night. I was going to see my friend, my best friend, yes, still, no matter what she had done or not done. Why shouldn’t I?

The smile may be overrated as a device, overused. I have overused it in this accounting, no doubt. In Russia, they don’t trust people who smile too much. In America, it’s obligatory to smile at strangers, lest you be perceived as mean-spirited or, worse, unhappy. Showing one’s teeth—well, Janet was right, it’s a strange gesture, one that shouldn’t mean friendship. But Janet’s smile—that was not overused. That meant something. Didn’t it?

On the other hand, I was angry. And yes, I was jealous. I can admit this to you now, today, a day when I have touched no one, and can’t imagine when I will again. If no one had Luke, I could live without him. I could sacrifice him for the chance at transcendence. If Serena used him, flirted her way into levitation lessons, or did more, fine. Fine. She didn’t love him, didn’t even want him, so it didn’t count. He was a means to an end. But what did Janet think she was doing?