Eventually Sebastian appeared, and the cast of characters swore to god they were looking at a pair of doppelgängers. But Viola, who thought her twin brother was dead, knew who he was.

From there, things got awfully deus ex machinish. Olivia didn’t seem to mind that she was married to someone who merely looked like Cesario, and Orsino got over the marriage pretty fast, too, because, hey, his best bud was a girl! He told Viola to go put on some girl clothes and preemptively declared that they would get married.

“Cesario, come,” said Holden. He extended his hand, and I took it. “For so you shall be, while you are a man. But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino’s mistress and his fancy’s queen.”

The first thing I noticed was how soft and nice his hand was.

The second thing I noticed was that my palm was sweating into his.

I immediately tore my hand away as everyone exited the stage. Holden shot me a glance that was confused and—dare I say—hurt? But I refused to notice, instead forcing myself to be psychokinesis-focused on Feste the Fool (Tucker) as he took center stage and sang a song about wind and rain and marriage.

“I love performing Shakespeare,” I said. “Really, I do. But the more I sit on this play, the more I realize it’s kind of fucked up.”

Willow laughed. “Right? I mean, I get that Malvolio’s an asshole, but locking him up in a makeshift dungeon? That’s a bit extreme.”

Of all the shitty things that had followed my and Wynonna’s body swap, one definitively good thing had come from it: my friendship with Willow. It started slowly, but she began texting me a lot. Most of it was small talk—hey or you ready for dress rehearsals? or do you watch The Magicians?—and evolved to heavier questions like how do you know if a boy likes you? or how do you know if you’re a good person? To which I responded—via Siri—with things like, He probably acts stupid whenever he’s around you or I don’t know. But I think you’re pretty good.

At first, I figured she thought of me as some sort of “female role model”—which was kind of funny, given the circumstances. But slowly, over the course of that month, I realized the truth.

She didn’t have any friends.

I was literally her only friend—which was mind-blowing to me! I mean, she was smart, she was funny, and she was beautiful. What else, exactly, did a freshman girl need to have friends?

Though class was over, a lot of us had begun lingering well afterward. Not to mention, Ziggy had set up a foldout table with drinks and cookies. He clearly wanted us to take our time leaving. It was working.