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The mirror crackled with a thin sheet of ice. The droplets of water on my face froze solid.

Not really. But that’s what it felt like.

“Sorry, sorry,” Freya was saying. “I wanted to wait until you got back, but I really, really had to pee, and you were taking forever…”

“Don’t worry about it!” I rushed to say. “No worries. Go pee.”

But she didn’t move toward the stalls. And I couldn’t move toward the door, since she was in the way. I was left staring at her ugly sweater, which wasn’t even that ugly—powder blue to match her eyes, covered in snowflakes laced in glimmering silver thread—until I realized that it probably looked more like I was staring at her boobs, which was so awkward I had to look her in the eye.

“Well, nice seeing you here,” I said awkwardly, willing her to move. She didn’t, maybe because it was on the list of the weirdest things to say to someone in the bathroom.

Instead, she said, “I wanted to hate you so badly.” I blinked. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Through those long, thin fingers, she said, voice muffled, “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“Been there,” I said, because I literally had been there just minutes ago. Please move, I willed at her with all the telepathic force I could muster. I cannot handle a drunk girl heart-to-heart right now. Or ever.

Alas, my telepathic force remained just as weak as when I’d spent a week in middle school attempting to bend spoons at the dinner table.

A single tear rolled slowly, glamorously, down Freya’s cheek. “I wanted to hate you, but I can’t. You’re really cool, and Seth really seems to like you. I want to be happy for you.”

I could see where this was going. I could wait for her to slowly and dramatically hiccup her drunk way there, or I could cut it off quickly and hope it surprised her enough that she’d let me goooo, damn it. “Do you still have feelings for him?” I said, trying to sound as gentle as possible.

I did not do gentle well. I was pretty sure I sounded like I’d asked her if her tires needed more air. Sure enough, she responded by bursting into tears. Not bursting into tears the way I did on the rare occasions I cried—red, snotty, messy, loud—but soundlessly welling over so that her eyes sparkled and her lashes glittered. Only the tip of her nose got a tiny bit red.

Okay, I felt like such an asshole right now. I couldn’t just leave. I stepped closer and, trying to channel Bev, gingerly put my arms around her. She was tall enough where her tears flowed into my hair. On the bright side, maybe the saltiness of her tears would have the same excellent effects as a beach day, which always turned my typically straightened hair into glamorous beach waves.

Freya sniffled above me. “No. I don’t. I swear I don’t.” I blinked, a little bit surprised, but also relieved. It made things a lot less awkward here. “Not romantic anyway. Like, I don’t want to get back together with him. I just…It’s just, our breakup came out of nowhere. Everything seemed to be going great and then suddenly he tells me he’s moving to Vermont. Alone. After two years. I still don’t know what happened. He didn’t even tell any of the friend group; he just disappeared. Dan thought he hated him for ages.”

I patted her awkwardly on the back. I was the worst possible person to be in this situation with her. If only I could switch places with someone warm and nurturing and comforting, someone who would know exactly the right thing to say.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She sniffled again. “It made me feel like absolute garbage. Like I wasn’t even worth breaking up with properly. Has he ever said anything about me? To you?”

If Seth and I actually were in a relationship that had lasted long enough for the two of us to come stay with his parents, he might have. But all he’d told me was that things ended badly. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “That’s a shitty way to break up with someone. Just moving away? Come on. Use your words like a grown-up.”

Freya’s sniffle turned into an elegant snort. “Right? I don’t think it’s too much to ask for after two years.”

“Definitely not,” I said. It was probably safe to pull back now, right? I did, patting the damp spot on my head. No beach waves yet. “Did he ever apologize to you, at least?”

“Nope.”

Wow. “I’m impressed that you could come out and hang with him like this. Whenever I run into my ex, it’s the most awkward, uncomfortable thing ever.” Aside from this encounter, probably, but I didn’t say that.

Freya’s snort this time was decidedly less elegant, which made me like her more. “It feels awkward and uncomfortable. But I wasn’t going to get pushed out of the friend group just because he’d be around. And I wanted to show him how well I’m doing.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “So much for that.”

“I won’t tell him about any of this,” I said. Even if we actually had been dating, I wouldn’t share someone’s vulnerability with someone else. I wouldn’t want anyone else sharing mine. “So don’t worry about that.”

“You’re so sweet.” Freya pinched her nose and stared up at the ceiling, maybe trying to stop the tears. “Again, I really wish I could hate you. The ex’s new girlfriend, who his mom seems to loooove even though she never seemed to like me. I bet he wouldn’t just move away from you after years of a relationship.”

I had two excuses for what I said next, neither one of them particularly good. The first: alcohol. The second: I’d skated too close to the line earlier by putting my head on Seth’s shoulder and almost—almost—forgetting that this whole thing was fake, and part of me wanted to make sure that line stayed strong. “You don’t have to hate me,” I said, breath quickening. “Because Seth and I aren’t actually in a relationship.”

That made her choke on air or maybe spit. “What?”

I leaned in, as if there might be a listening device posted somewhere above the mirror. “I mean that we don’t even like each other that much; we’re just the two closest Jews in our area of Vermont. I needed his help creating a Hanukkah festival for the town, and he needed a Nice Jewish Girl to bring home to get his mom off his back. And our town is so small that we use a barter system.” I smiled to show that I was joking, but her face was deadly serious. “Anyway. So I have no idea why he broke up with you, but he didn’t do it for me, and you don’t have to stress about saying things about him to me.”

She shook her head, seemingly disbelieving. “Of course it’s for Bev,” she muttered. “I could never do anything right for that woman. Not Jewish enough. Didn’t have a prestigious enough career. What’s wrong with being a kindergarten teacher?”

“Nothing,” I assured her. Owning a café required way less schooling than becoming a kindergarten teacher, and, to be honest, at this point Freya probably made more money than me. “The youth need education.”