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in?”
    “Yep.” I grinned and l eaped through the dark, landing on his bed. “It’s cold in here ri ght
    now—but I’m sure it won’t be when someone’s living in here.”
    “Maybe you can keep the bed warm ‘til I get there.”
    “Yeah, sure, I’m gonna stay in bed for the next few days,” I said sarcastically.
    He paused again, then, after a long br eath through what sounded l ike his nose, asked, “So,
    how are things with the boyfriend?”
    “Not so good.” I winced. “We’ve kind of decided to break up after the autumn ball.”
    “What? Oh, baby gir l. I’m sorry. Why? I mean, why would you do that? I thought you guys
    were a sure thing?” Mike’s sympathetic tone brought my tears out from hiding.
    “He. He has a. kind. Of. Problem.” I sniffled before the sobs came breaking through.
    “What is it, baby? You can tell me.”
    I could feel Mike in the room with me, the way he’d normally hang up the phone, right about
    now, and no more than two minutes later be knocking on my window. But that isn’t possible now,
    and after he leaves here and heads back home in two weeks, it’ll never be possible again.
    “I can’t tell you. I—he has a secret, and I have t o keep it,” I bl ubbered, “I want to tell you. I
    wish I could tell you. But I can’t.” I took a moment to compose myself. “Anyway, none of it matters,
    he has to leave, and after the last leaf of autumn turns red and falls from the last tree—he’ll be gone.”
    “What?” Mike scoffed. “What the hell is t hat? Some fairy-tale time-line, bull crap? Leaves
    turning red? Ara! Did he hurt you?”
    Of course Mike woul d ask that. It’s always his first question. Always his biggest fear. “No,
    Mike. He didn’t hurt me. I mean, not physically. I’m hur ting inside, like I always do, but it isn’t his
    fault. It’s my decision that caused it.”
    “Wait. What? Your decision? Ara. If he hurt you, I swear to God, I’ll—”
    “No, Mike, he never hurt me, okay? He asked me to come with him. To go away with him.”
    A moment of silence passed. “Where?”
    “Far away. I’d never be able to come back. I told him no,” I added quickly bef ore he could
    freak out.
    A loud whoosh of air came through the phone—Mike breathing out, I assume.
    “I told him I couldn’t give up my life—my future.”
    “Not that I approve of you running off with some guy, but, how would it be giving up your
    life, exactly?”
    “It doesn’t matter. Look. The point is, by winter, he’ll be gone, and I’ll never see him again.”
    The sadness of the idea felt so final, so eternal now that I’d said it aloud.
    “Well, you still have me.”
    I laughed out in one short burst of air. “I know. I’ve always had you.” It’s just not really a
    consolation.
    After another long pause, Mike asked, “So, I’ve been thinki ng, Ara. Are we—we’re still
    good, right? I mean. You don’t hate me after what happened?”
    For the first time since that night, when we saw each other for the last time, alone, I allowed
    myself to think about it all—to re ally think about it. It’s so like Mike and I to have been t hinking
    about the same thing on the same night.
    Do I hate him? He turned me down—rejected me, and I ran away like a spoilt child.
    He can’t be to blame for not loving me.
    Hate him?
    No, I don’t hate him—hate what happened, know I’ll regret it every day f or the rest of my
    natural life, but hate him? No. “It would be easier—if I hated you.”

    “Don’t say things like that,” Mike said softly.
    “Why?”
    “It hurts me to think of you wanting to hate me.”
    “Why?”
    “You know how I feel about you, Ar.”
    “Yeah. I know you love me.” As a fr iend. Nothing more. Never have—never will. I f I’d
    listened that night, not ran away when he tried to tell me, my mum would still be here.
    “No matter what happens, Ara, you’ll always be my bestie. You know that, right?”
    “I know, Mike. I’m just sorry