Our car rides became quieter around that day with Leo, actually, as if speaking about her so freely had completely ruined everything. At first I just assumed it was a result of us being closer or more comfortable and not thinking of the silences as awkward – after all, she’d invited me to go to Spring Fling in a group with her and Heath – but then she was late for the first time one morning. She started to become harder to find after last period. And when I did spend time with her, she wasn’t laughing at the same things – at anything, really. I worried I’d cursed it, or done something wrong, or maybe she’d finally grown bored of me.

On the last Monday of March, Greg made a point of finding me during lunch, huddled in the computer lab.

‘Hey. I’ve been looking for you forever. What are you doing here?’

The truth was I’d been coming here during lunch period every day for three weeks now. The librarian didn’t even make me sign in any more. ‘I, uh, don’t worry. What’s up?’

He pulled out a chair beside me, sat on it the wrong way round with his arms draped over the back. ‘Oh, this is kind of out of the blue but honestly, I think you spend more time with her than any of us – has June seemed sort of off to you lately? Man, I don’t know. They’ve both been kind of weird.’

I didn’t know how to take this. Mainly, I felt a vague sort of flattery that I was the one he wanted to consult. Was I really who she spent most of her time with? I felt a sense of possession. Like I had been asked to speak for her.

But the truth was: no. I hadn’t. Mostly, I think, because I rarely saw them together – and June barely ever brought up Heath. This was a character trait of hers that I had appreciated so far, but now I was wondering why I hadn’t seen there was something strange about that.

I told Greg all of this.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘it’s just that, like, I haven’t seen much of June lately and … eh. I’m sure it’s fine, but, you know.’

‘Well … what do you think’s wrong?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t really know.’

The most selfish part of my brain whispered that maybe the deterioration of their relationship had something to do with my influence. Maybe she did feel something for me.

But when I went to meet her to go home later that day, that didn’t seem to be the case.