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“My parents don’t let us have locks on the doors, but hopefully we’ll hear them coming.” She sits down on the rug in front of her bed and I follow.

“I like your family. Just be grateful your brother isn’t annoying like mine.”

“Have you met Sanjiv?” Kashvi asks.

I laugh. “He has his moments.”

She nods emphatically.

“But clearly you get along or you wouldn’t play D&D together.”

She shrugs. “He’s one of my best friends in the world…but he can also drive me insane. What’s your brother like?”

“He’s…popular? It’s weird how different we are.” I takea bite of pizza and then realize how that might be misinterpreted. “Not that I’m saying you aren’t popular. Only that I’m not!”

She laughs. “It’s fine. I’m not popular and I don’t want to be.”

“Agreed. We just got here three weeks ago and somehow he managed to find an enormous group of friends. He’s always being invited out to stuff, and he’s even gone out with a few different girls…. It’s wild.”

“Meh, I think it’s easier for guys to get dates. Sanjiv never seems to have trouble.” She lifts an eyebrow. “Have you seen anyone at school you’re interested in?”

To my horror, Logan immediately flashes into my mind. Dusty from the attic, grinning at me over boxes of junk, saying he needs to keep his distance from me. I shove the thoughts into a tiny closet in the back of my mind and lock the door.

“Um, I barely know anyone at school yet. And my last experience with dating was less than fun, so I’m not eager to jump back into that.”

She leans forward with her elbows on her knees, pizza forgotten at her side. “Oh, what happened?”

In another context, I might worry she was just looking for some juicy gossip, but she seems genuinely interested. And it’s only fair that I share since she told me about Wyatt.

“More dating and D&D drama.” I shake my head and mess with the shag rug rather than look at her. “Our group had played together for over a year, and it was so fun. The campaign wasn’t like ours at all—it was way less serious. For the others it was sometimes more about talking and eatingand…flirting, rather than playing.” I glance up quickly and Kashvi nods but doesn’t say anything. “Caden was the DM, and he was funny and kind of cute, and after a while he started flirting with me during the games. It seemed harmless—I didn’t think it meant anything.”

I’m mildly nauseous recounting this after having tried to push away thoughts of them for so long, but I’m too far into the story to bail now. It’s almost harder remembering the fun times than it is to remember the fallout at the end. If I think about how horribly they turned on me, it’s easy to feel grateful we aren’t talking any longer. But remembering the better times reminds me of how much I lost.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t harmless?” Kashvi asks. The interest in her expression has turned to worry.

“Caden asked me out and I said yes because he was a friend and I thought maybe there could be something more between us. I’d never had a real boyfriend before. It was all exciting at first.” I squirm. “But as soon as he and I were alone, I knew it wasn’t going to work. We were the kind of people who worked better in a big group. When it was just the two of us, there wasn’t much to say and everything felt forced and awkward. And the kiss…” I shiver. “He wasnota good kisser. Let’s just say we were meant to stay platonic.”

Kashvi’s hands fly to her face to cover her pained laughter. “I can imagine that revelation didn’t lead to anything good.”

“Oh my god, it was horrible. When I told him I thought we were better as friends, he was shocked. I guess we walked away from that first date with really different impressions of how it went. Then he accused me of being a tease. I didn’tmean to do any of that, but he was so pissed and he turned the whole group against me. Especially my best friend, Paige.”

Kashvi runs a hand through her hair, letting the curls fall everyplace, and looks at me with sympathy. “That’s so messed up, Quinn. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I guess we’ve both been through it, huh? It wasn’t a big loss in terms of Caden. He showed his true colors and I was glad to be done with him. Even losing the D&D group wasn’t the worst part of it. It was losing Paige.” I have to take a second to swallow and make sure I’m not in danger of crying. The way she turned her back on me without a second thought…I’m not sure it’ll ever hurt less. “I thought we were so close, but we weren’t.”

“She liked Caden, didn’t she?”

I laugh in surprise. “Wow, it took me way longer than you to figure that out. It turns out she was already secretly jealous that he was interested in me instead of her, but then for me torejecthim? It was like I was rejecting her too.” I blow out a breath. “She might have taken it harder than he did. She decided he was the innocent boy with a broken heart of gold and I was the devil incarnate. It all worked out for her since she got him in the end. I guess nothing brings two people together like mutual hatred.”

We sit in silence. I play with my nails rather than study her expression, wondering if I’ve shared too much. I wanted to be honest with her, but that’s a lot of friend trauma to unpack when we haven’t even finished a slice of pizza.

Kashvi jumps to her feet and puts out a hand to pull me up. “Caden sucks and Paigereallysucks, so thank god they aren’t around anymore. Now you have us, and we’re a billiontimes better.” She grins. “I think between your story and mine, we need dessert and a movie. Yeah?”

“Absolutely. Flawless plan.”

We climb onto her bed with our pizza and a bag of chocolate, and she pulls up Netflix on her laptop. I sink into her copious pillows, feeling more relaxed than I expected. No more looking back or worrying about what happened with my old friends. It’s time for something much better.

Chapter Twelve