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I didn’t know what it was. Something truly horrible was happening to my brain chemistry, and I wanted it to stop.

“Jeez, you look like you’re in distress ,“ Iris said as she threw herself down in the seat across from me. She lifted my open textbook to look at the cover. “ Applied Methodology for the Social Sciences is really getting to you, huh?”

Iris shoved her backpack off and leaned onto the table with her elbows.

We’d developed our routines around each other, a habit we started our freshman year in our dorm and never stopped.

Iris had an evening class one night a week this semester, while I only had one class the entire day, so I used that as my uninterrupted study time.

We always met up and walked back home together after.

“Very funny,” I said. I closed my textbook and my laptop, suddenly very grateful for the break. Anything to get myself off the Theo McCall train.

“You about ready to start walking home? This place is making me hungry, and I promised myself I wouldn’t eat here again after I got food poisoning that one time.”

“The burger had only been a little undercooked. It happens. You can’t write this place off forever because of it.”

“Oh, I can, and I will,” Iris said. “But come on. I want to make pasta tonight, and if I don’t get it started in the next, like, twenty minutes, I won’t be able to go to bed on time.”

“You are such an old lady.”

She shrugged, smirking. “I love my six a.m. workout class.”

An unwelcome—but very, very hot—image of Theo at the gym flashed into my mind. A familiar feeling zipped through me. I was definitely attracted to her, whether I really wanted to be or not. The body wanted it what it wanted, and mine was apparently really into athletes now.

I didn’t even have to imagine what Theo looked like working out; there were videos all over the women’s basketball page.

Her lifting weights, dribbling balls, running drills.

The clips weren’t just of her, but it felt that way when I was scrolling through.

Every time I watched one, I’d have to put my phone down and think extremely modest thoughts to keep myself from forgetting how to breathe.

“Trust me, I know you do,” I said, shaking my thoughts of Theo away. “I, unfortunately, do not like that I can hear your alarm all the way in my room when you have to get up for them.”

“At least we’re not sharing a room anymore.”

“Grateful every single day,” I teased, even though Iris had been a textbook perfect roommate the entire time we’d been in the dorms.

I slid my laptop and textbook in my bag and forced myself up from my booth, groaning the entire way mostly for the drama of it. It felt good to be standing up and no longer confined to my seat.

“What’s been going on with you?” Iris asked as we headed for the door.

We both bundled ourselves up as we walked—gloves and hats on, scarves pulled up to our noses.

We’d done decently well at adjusting to the dropping temperatures, but it was still surprising every year when the cold started to really kick in.

Despite still being sensitive to the weather, I’d definitely become one of those people who say things like, It was only twenty-three today, it wasn’t that bad while on the phone with friends from back home.

I took bundling up as an opportunity to think on Iris’s question—and also hopefully brush it off long enough that she would forget she asked me.

“Hellooo,” Iris drew out, her voice partially muffled by her red scarf. She looked over at me. “I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re acting weird.”

We stepped outside into the biting air and folded in on ourselves, shielding our faces from the abnormally windy evening we were having.

The sun had already set, so our walk to our off-campus housing was illuminated by sidewalk lamps.

There were patches of snow still in the grass, lingering from earlier in the week.

“I’m not acting weird,” I said, still avoiding her question.

“You totally are,” she said. She nudged her shoulder into me. “C’mon. You can tell me.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. School. Senior year stuff.” I felt bad for lying, but it also wasn’t a particularly convincing lie. Knowing Iris, she’d most likely accept what I was saying at face value, but know something more would come out later.

“Fair,” she said, confirming my suspicions. “Well, we’re almost to the weekend. And if you need an excuse to drink before then, the women’s basketball game is tomorrow…”

I brushed off the sing-songy tone to her voice. She’d been trying since the party to get me to agree to go, but I kept giving her all kinds of excuses as to why I didn’t want to.

As far as I knew, Iris had no idea that Theo McCall had managed to completely consume my every waking moment. She’d never been good at subtlety or keeping secrets, so it was hard for me to imagine she knew and wasn’t saying anything.

The only reason she was asking me to go was because she genuinely wanted to go.

I felt like a shitty friend for blowing her off when I had no alternative plans, but the thought of going made my stomach turn with a never-before-experienced type of anxiety.

It was like my brain equated showing up to the game as the same thing as proposing to Theo.

“I don’t know, Iris.”

“Please,” she said, grabbing onto my arm as we walked. “Please, please, please, please.”

“Iris!” I said, laughing.

“Come on . Just one game. I know sports are so not your thing, but I really think we should go. The team is expected to be really good this year, and Theo is supposed to be on fire,“ Iris said, and then her eyes lit up. My body instinctively stiffened. For a brief moment, I was worried she’d actually been able to read my mind this entire time. “Wait, we have to go. I forgot the most important detail of all in convincing you— the Theo McCall literally invited you to go. You can’t leave her hanging.”

I waved it off, my heart pounding as I came down from my rush of anxiety. “She didn’t actually mean it. I’m sure she says that to everyone she crosses paths with. And it wasn’t really Theo. It was mostly GJ.”

“I don’t know if you were too drunk to remember properly, but Theo was very much part of that conversation too,” Iris said. “Do you not think she was flirting with you? I kind of think she was. No, actually, I like, definitely think she was.”

“She’ s an athlete, Iris. It’s par for the course for her,” I said, not exactly denying that I was pretty sure she’d been flirting too.

There wasn’t really doubt in my mind she’d been interested; the bigger question was everything else, like how much she meant all of it.

My gut feeling was telling me I was being naive if I thought it meant anything more to her than a casual social interaction she’d immediately forget about.

I was sure she hadn’t thought about me again after we met.

“Since when have you cared?” Iris asked. “You told me in very explicit detail what happened with you and that DJ that one time, and we’ve all heard the stories about her—“

“Okay, okay,” I said.

“I’m just saying. Not slut shaming anywhere in this scenario, it’s just an objective truth that you’ve never cared about if your partners were flirting with you for sport or not—mostly because you chronically flirt for sport.”

My mouth went dry, and it wasn’t from the cold wind.

I felt suddenly very caught and exposed, like Iris had pulled an accidental truth out of me.

She kind of had; I hadn’t even thought of that, how part of combing through Theo’s online presence was to see if there were any women in the picture.

It didn’t seem like there was one, but that was part of the issue.

If there wasn’t one, that probably meant that there were many.

But Iris was right to point out the obvious—I’d never cared about things like that before.

I’d never wanted to be someone’s only, so it never mattered if there was anyone else.

I never saw a girl flirting with my friend with benefits or another one of my fling’s casual flings as competition, only ever as a guarantee that things would always stay casual.

My favorite people to go after were the ones who would never want commitment from me.

It was official: something really was wrong with me.

”I don’t , I just…“ I shrugged and forced myself to think up some kind of lie. “I don’t know. I’ve never gone for the athletic type. I don’t know if that world is really my thing.”

“They’re everyone’s thing. There’s a sport for any ideal body type, and I seem to remember that your preference has always been tall women.”

“Yeah, me and everyone else in the world.”

“Exactly my point,” she said. “ Come on . Even if Theo didn’t catch your eye, I’m sure there’s another basketball player you’ll like at the game. Mags is infamously the hot one on the team, and everyone is pretty sure she’s gay. She’s never actually denied it.”

I chuckled softly. “You really want me to go?”

”I really want you to go.”

I sighed a little bit as Iris clung to my arm again. “Okay. I’ll go,” I said, and Iris cheered, making me laugh again.