I was sad when I woke up.

I stayed in my little nest for a long time, holding the pillow and pretending I never had to get up.

It was Tuesday, and it was also a day I had history first, if I hadn't missed it already. There was no way to tell. I decided to just show up and if I saw Rhoda, I'd go in.

I walked to the bathroom, greeting my reflection with a cold smile. The dark circles under my eyes were worse than usual, and my complexion was so sickly white it was like looking at a dead man.

I did the only reasonable thing to do. I flipped myself off and started the shower.

It was sort of nice having the place to myself. My dad, who was perpetually either intoxicated or hungover, had a nasty habit of crawling up to the bathroom door in the morning and banging on it until he was let in.

Alternatively, if I opted to stay over at Sarah's, I was sharing a bathroom with two women and their exceptional collection of hair and makeup products, which were always spread out over the entirety of the small counter.

The only things in this bathroom were two toothbrushes, a comb and a disposable Bic razor with hairs sticking out of it.

Maybe when I got around to buying a hamper I would look for a toothbrush holder. I'd seen one with little cartoon goldfish for slots. I smiled at the thought of it.

But then my smile disappeared as I stood there and realized how sad that was, me daydreaming about cute toothbrush holders and cleaning my bathroom.

What a joke.

In the shower, I wondered what Michael was doing. Probably waking up his girlfriend with a kiss and tracing his fingers along her soft, creamy skin. I clenched my nails into my palm and slammed the water off.

One of the shirts from the laundry pile was sacrificed to mop the floor, specifically one I didn't recognize as my own. I pushed it to the corner to marinate for a few days and left the bathroom to select today's t-shirt.

Which was a bad idea, because it turned out to be freezing outside.

I scowled at every tree I passed, as if all the new red and orange leaves would sense my anger and revert back to green. Soon they would be falling, and then they would be dead, and then every morning I'd be slipping on ice and wading through snow.

I hated snow.

Class was still in session when I arrived, evidently very late, because I earned a glare from the fat man.

Rhoda was there, straightening her textbooks into a neat pile in the very last row. "Hey," I greeted as I slid into the empty seat beside her.

Relief immediately washed over me. It was nice to have a best friend again.

She twisted her lips around into a smirk and scratched her furry pink pen over her paper to feign writing something. "I'm impressed you managed to roll out of bed this morning."

"Wouldn't count on it happening again."

She had left her hair frizzy today, held back from her face with multi-colored clips. That, along with the faded mom jeans she wore instead of one of her usual skirts, made her look almost like a different person.

"What's GDP?" Rhoda murmured. She had taken to doodling flowers along her margin.

I hadn't even gotten out a piece of paper. "Um, something... about money?"

"This is history," she said indignantly. "We should be learning history, not money."

"What are you doing after class?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I was gonna go to Dunkin'. I didn't get my coffee today. I was decorating my room with these mini plastic pumpkins and then I lost track of time. I have a whole box of just plastic pumpkins, ooh, and I have this cool spiderweb stuff I drape-"

"Excuse me? Miss Huxley?" We both looked up as the room was suddenly silent. The professor licked his puffy lips and stared directly at us. "Everyone can hear you, Miss Huxley. You speak quite loudly."

"Speak louder then," Rhoda said. I supposed she was Miss Huxley. I'd never learned her last name.

The professor gave a sputtering cough, his whole face reddening up to his ears. "This is my classroom," he said. "I will be the only one speaking."

"Honestly. Like, some of us are actually trying to learn here," a girl said. I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to remember who she was, then leaned closer to Rhoda.

"Is that Nerd?" I whispered.

She uttered an almost animalistic growl. "Yes."

"Those two were causing a problem a few classes ago as well," Nerd told the professor matter-of-factly. "I believe they're quite the delinquents."

"Hey, don't drag me int-" I started, before the professor crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat harshly, the sound drowning out my words.

"We have no place for delinquents here," he said, like he was about to execute us. "This is a room for intellectual and thought-provoking discourse. I fear that plastic pumpkins and Dunkin' Donuts do not qualify as such."

"I'm not a delinquent!" I protested. "What does that even mean?"

"Let's just leave," Rhoda murmured. I looked, busy physically restraining myself from jumping up to fight the man, as she began packing up her books. "Then all the nerds can get back to sucking each other off."

How, how, how was I possibly getting kicked out of class? I had never gotten kicked out of a class in my life. And for what? Because some perfumy nicotine-addicted chick talked about coffee?

"Fuck you," Rhoda was saying as she stood, her thigh crashing into my side. "Fuck this college. Fuck this town. Fuck the government. You're never gonna fucking see either of us again."

I wobbled to my feet, simply to avoid being pushed to the ground as she stomped her way out into the aisle. She grabbed my hand before I could object and tugged me with her, down through the rows of horrified students towards the door.

"I will drop you from the class, then," the professor said stiffly. "Clearly signing up for it was a major lapse of your own judgment."

"Wait," I said desperately as Rhoda opened the door. "You're dropping me too? What did I-"

"C'mon, Ben, we don't need to take this abuse," Rhoda said, and then she gave me a thorough shove into the hallway and slammed the door shut.

I gulped and jogged after her, trying to get as far away from the classroom as possible. "I can't believe you just did that," I snarled.

"Pretty cool, huh?"

"No!" I practically shouted. "Not cool at all. And what was that about the government? What does the government have to do with anything?"

"The government has to do with everything, Ben," she sighed. "Don't you take Civics?"

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When Michael came home, I was sitting next to Rhoda on my floor, my back pressed to my bedframe while she leaned over her phone, scrolling through outfit arrangements on Pinterest and sipping her iced caramel latte.

There came a loud crashing noise from the hall and we both looked over, watching as the door flung open dramatically. A moment later he entered. In his arms was a big toaster oven, the cord dragging by his feet. Two plastic grocery bags swung around his elbow.

"Morning, ladies," he said.

"What the hell is that?" I muttered.

"It's from Meg's," he told me. "Her grandparents are having a big end-of-summer garage sale and a lot of it is old appliances. I was talking about how in college you don't get much and Cathy gave me this."

"Cathy?"

"Cathy's her grandma," he said, hoisting it a little. "You should meet her. She'd think you're the most adorable thing ever."

"Yeah, well I don't really get along with her granddaughter," I reminded him as he carried the toaster oven into the kitchen.

"So?" he said. "She doesn't get along with her granddaughter."

Rhoda looked up the second he was gone. "Um, who is Meg and why don't we like her?" she asked, deepening her voice like it was highly classified.

I giggled. "She's Michael's ex. I was at her house two nights ago for this, like, party thing or whatever. She's still totally obsessed with him."

"Ouch," she said. "Did he break her heart?"

"I don't know," I murmured, looking in the direction of the kitchen. "I don't think their relationship was ever good though."

"Yo, Benjamin," Michael called from the other room. "Get in here, I have something for you."

I groaned to Rhoda and got off the ground slowly, then stumbled over to the door and peered in. "Plates?" There was now a small stack of fancy-looking china plates sitting on the counter.

"No. Those are more gifts from Cathy. I have a very special present for you." He picked up one of the grocery bags from the floor and dropped it onto the countertop, then turned it and shook out a pair of familiar jeans. I tilted my head, confused, and then I spotted it. My long lost phone.

"Wait," I said, shoving past him to look. My sneakers were in there too. "Where did you get this?"

"I went to the Uber guy's house on my way home. He has a whole room dedicated to collecting his passengers' missing stuff. Apparently he already had someone to sell that shit to," he said, gesturing to the bag.

"Who's gonna buy my pants, a ten-year-old?" I joked dryly as I folded them over my forearm.

He shrugged and yawned heavily.

I sighed. "So, uh, thanks, I guess. For getting them back."

"No problem."

I took another breath as I turned to leave. Somehow, in less than two weeks, I'd gone from being awkward and uncomfortable around him to feeling nothing but pure bliss in his presence, then right back to uncomfortable.

He carried a box of Cheerios to his bed while I sank down beside Rhoda, looking at my phone. I had twenty-four texts, two missed calls, and a handful of other random notifications I didn't care to open.

"Do you, like, not have any social media?" Rhoda asked, leaning her cheek on my shoulder to look at my screen.

"I think I had Facebook when I was ten," I told her.

"We should go out to the park and have a photo shoot. The leaves are all pretty now, it would be so cute."

The idea made me think of Sarah. Since the day Andrea bought her a phone she'd been obsessed with taking selfies. Eventually she'd recruited me as her photographer. I think she was convinced she would wind up a model.

I looked down at her contact now, the last text conversation we'd had. She'd been worried about me that day, and I completely ignored it. I knew I was a horrible friend. I was a horrible person.

"Can I ask you something?" I murmured to Rhoda, keeping my voice low. "If you had a best friend, like for forever, but you just fight all the time, would you even bother... trying to text them?"

Rhoda shrugged. "Friends fight. They get over it."

"I don't even know if we're friends anymore."

Group settings had never gone well with Sarah. She was the sort of person that wanted all your attention, and to give you all of hers. And I'd been fine with that. For years. We spent just about every Saturday night I could recollect together, just the two of us.

"Who are you talking about?" Michael yawned from his pillow-less, blanket-less bed. He tossed a Cheerio up in the air and caught it in his mouth.

"Sarah," I said, then wondered if I would regret it. "Why, what do you think?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely text her," he said. "Send her one of those thirty-day-diet plans."

"Michael, shut the fu-"

"Speaking of food," he interrupted, jumping to his feet with a sudden burst of energy. "I wanna test out the oven. What should I make? I love cooking. There's so many things you can make with toaster ovens. Like French toast. You guys want French toast?"

"Yes," said Rhoda before I could say no.

"French toast, French toast," Michael was singing from the kitchen. "Eggs, milk, bread. That should do it."

"Uh, you need cinnamon," Rhoda said.

"We can make pizza!" Michael suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs. "We have English muffins, we can make English muffin pizza! I need to get cheese. And sauce! And pepperoni. I'm making pizza."

"That's great, Michael," I said sarcastically, then looked back down at my phone. "I think I have an Instagram already made. I just never use it."

Rhoda watched as I went to the App Store to search it. It showed that, at some point, I had downloaded it, but I must have deleted it. "You should follow me," she said, then lost interest and returned to scrolling through collages of pastel tank tops.

I used my number to sign in and was immediately bombarded with pictures of Sarah. Sarah in her dorm, Sarah getting her monthly root touchup, Sarah making a peace sign with an edited-in crown of hearts. She was the only person I followed.

Through her, I found and followed her roommate Maria, who apparently had a boyfriend now, Amy, who I sincerely hoped would follow me back, and Alicia, the girl I'd walked in on making out with Maria.

Then I realized I didn't have so much as a profile picture and these girls would probably think I was some random old pervert.

"I need followers," I told Rhoda.

She looked over. "Take a pic with me, I'll tag you on my story."

I yawned deeply and scooted over, my side pressing to hers as she held up her camera. She made a duck face and I stuck my tongue out.

"What are you doing for Halloween?" she asked as she tried different filters over the picture. Michael wandered back out of the kitchen and flopped into his bed. So much for the french toast.

"Uh, I don't know." I hadn't thought about it. The last couple years in a row I'd spent it at Sarah's, watching scary movies until the morning.

"I was thinking of throwing a party," she said. "I've always wanted to. But it'll be sad if only, like, five people show up."

I sniffed a little and watched as she tapped to post the picture. "You know there's probably gonna be a dozen different Halloween parties this year, right?"

"Yeah," she muttered.

"So unless yours is special, you're not gonna draw in the crowd," I said.

"How do I-"

"I met Meg last year on Halloween," Michael said then, cutting her off. He threw another Cheerio, this one landing on his nose and rolling to the floor.

"Literally no one cares," I snapped.

"Literally no one cares," he mimicked back in an annoying girly voice.

"Just shut up, we're not even talking to you," I yelled.

He made a smacking noise with his lips and tossed up two Cheerios at once. One he caught and the other ended up somewhere in his hair. "I just thought Rhoda would be interested. Since, you know, she's a fellow freshman who randomly decided to host Halloween."

Rhoda had flipped her camera so that she was now zooming in on Michael throwing Cheerios in the air. "It's not totally random. I mean, I used to throw little parties in middle school all the time."

"The cornfields at my uncle's place are perfect for Halloween," he said. "He hides little ghosts with candy baskets in them."

"Your uncle sounds really cool," Rhoda murmured.

Michael smiled dimly. "Yeah."

"No one likes corn," I said, purely to be a bitch.

"This is the corn belt, darling," he said. "There's a lot of corn."

"I hate corn."

"You hate popcorn, corn on the cob, corn cakes, cornflakes, corn chips, cornbread, corn tortillas, corndogs, corn chowder, corn syrup, candy corn-"

"Candy corn isn't corn," I interrupted.

Rhoda cackled and lowered her phone, letting the video of Michael listing corn foods repeat on a loop. "Hey, old MacDonald," she said. "Can I tag you on my story?"

"Sure," he mumbled, opening his mouth to pour in a rush of Cheerios at once.

There was a part of me that wished it was just him and I there, so maybe I could talk to him, but then I wondered what we would even talk about. "Hey," Rhoda said, bumping her shoulder into mine. "Is this him?"

I looked at her screen, where she was scrolling through an Instagram page. There were pictures of a brown cow chewing grass, a different cow with a little bell lying in some hay, and a sinking sunset behing a terrifyingly endless field of corn.

She snickered suddenly as she paused on one picture in particular: Michael and two other guys holding fish by a lake. Someone had commented a string of fire emojis. "Of course he's a fish pic man," Rhoda said.

"Fish pic?"

"Yeah," she scoffed. "I see them all the time on Tinder. Always the toxic ones, lemme tell you."

"Oh," I said. "I don't fish."

"See, that's why you're- damn," she breathed suddenly, her eyebrows arching up as she turned her phone towards me. "Feast your eyes."

The picture presented to me was of Michael, one leg propped up on the thick wooden fence he leaned against. He was gripping the top board of it with his right hand, closest to the camera, so that all the muscles along his arm stood out. The other hand was bent behind his head, holding a wide-brimmed cowboy hat that hid his forehead as he looked off into the distance.

Rhoda blinked and stared across the room, where Michael lay in a pile of Cheerios and was scratching the back of his neck. "I refuse to believe that's the same person."

While she was distracted looking at him, I leaned over and double-tapped the picture.

"Hey!" Rhoda yelped. "Now I look like a stalker."

"Well, you are a stalker," I said, still staring at Michael's farmer picture. 587 other people had liked it as well.

"So, Michael," she said, purposely ignoring me, "how'd it go last night?"

He turned over and the Cheerio in his hair fell out. "Huh?"

"Did you and Mother Teresa end up..." She made a sliding motion with her fingers.

I looked down. The last thing I needed right now was to hear him bragging about slaying her or something.

"Uh, no," he said with a laugh. "Did you and Ben Dover end up..." He copied the same gesture mockingly.

"Him?" Rhoda gasped dramatically like I was the most disgusting thing on earth. "Oh my god, I could never."

"Rhoda, he knows we fucked," I said.

"Talking about me already?" she joked slyly, but her face held a bit of color that suggested she enjoyed it. "Well that was like forever ago. I've moved on."

I smirked. "Yeah, three whole days. I can barely remember it."

She dropped her jaw in mock-offense and shoved me. "Mean."

"You guys are cute," Michael said. I looked over and he was smiling like a mother watching her children play. "You should date for real."

"That's what I've been saying," Rhoda sang as she snapped a pic of her coffee.

I rubbed my lips together, trying not to be frustrated. I liked Rhoda, I liked her a lot, but I'd finally just confirmed to myself that I didn't want her like that. And why was Michael so eager to get us together? Did his interest in me just flatline now that he was all happy with Heather?

"Shit," he muttered then, looking at his phone. "My class started five minutes ago. I was supposed to just drop off the oven and leave."

"You're leaving me alone all day?" I said forlornly.

"Hang out with me tonight," he invited. "Meg told me Bobby's girlfriend is flying to Hawaii and he's depressed so we're gonna go somewhere."

I considered. Originally, when going to college, I had planned on spending at least six nights a week studying. So far, I had spent zero. "Okay."

"Ben, you can come to my room and decorate pumpkins," said Rhoda. "I'm so done with school."

"Miss Huxley here got us kicked out of history," I told Michael like a tattling kindergartener.

He was busy packing his laptop into his bag. "Oh, why's that?"