By March, Rob had replaced Hannah with Alexis, a girl in his anthropology class. She was from Long Island and had a nose ring. Alexis didn’t talk much and was only interested in all-the-way sex.

Hannah realized soon enough that she’d been passed over. She met Alexis at one of Rob’s band’s gigs and pretended not to be offended. Hannah became cold to Rob but she never confronted him. That didn’t surprise him. There had been an implicit agreement about their routine, that it was something they’d never speak of outside her apartment.

It wasn’t until the day they’d all packed up to go to home for the summer that Rob showed up at Hannah and Vicki’s apartment for the last time and told Hannah, in front of her bedroom walls, which were already chipping thanks to this semester’s cheap paint job, that he wouldn’t be returning to school in the fall. She responded by yelling about his grades and his future, but her shaking hands and quivering lip suggested there was more to it than that.

They’d spent one more weekend together as friends. Tom, Rob’s only real male friend at the time, was new to the group and had invited them all to his parents’ summer house on Cape Cod. It was supposed to be a send-off for Rob, but Hannah had barely acknowledged him. Bee had also kept Rob at a distance during the trip and seemed to be consoling Hannah, like she might have known about the affair the whole time.

Later that summer, after he was settled into a studio apartment in Austin, he received a letter from Hannah. It had been written on a computer, probably so she could spell-check it, he thought. He hoped it was an apology for her coldness but wasn’t surprised to find that it was a list of accusations. Most of her sentences started with the phrase “I feel like” and ended with a word like “intimacy” or “accountability.” The note didn’t ask for anything specific; it was just an airing of grievances. Rob never responded.

Hannah called him the following Christmas, to catch up. She made no mention of the note. Instead she asked about life in Austin and offered him updates about the group. She admitted that she and Tom had started dating and was relieved when Rob congratulated her instead of getting angry. Since then she’d called him about once a year and had sent occasional e-mails. She’d told him all about her career in New York, and he’d watched clips of her casting projects on YouTube.

The only time he’d called Hannah had been a few years ago, after he heard from Bee that Tom had left Hannah to move closer to his family in Boston. Bee had explained that Hannah was devastated. And it had devastated Rob that Hannah was so miserable to lose Tom.

Tom Keating was a buddy whom Hannah had dubbed the “prep-school boner” after meeting him for the first time. But soon enough Hannah welcomed Tom to the group, inviting him to their movie nights and on day trips with Vicki, Rich, and Bee.