Priyanka rolls her eyes. “How can you be so entirely unemotional about all this?”
“I’m sad to be saying goodbye to you,” Mae tells her. “But I’m pretty sure I’ll survive without seeing my garage door for a few months.”
At the pizza place, they sit at their usual table. Just after they order, Priyanka’s phone buzzes, and even before she checks to see who it is, her whole face lights up.
“Alex?” Mae asks, taking a sip from her straw.
Priyanka nods, still smiling. Her boyfriend left last week for a pre-orientation camping trip and hasn’t had much cell service. “Only a couple more days till he’s out of the woods.”
“I can’t believe you guys are actually attempting to do this.”
“What?”
“Stay together.”
Priyanka looks up from her phone with a puzzled expression. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Because you’re going to be in two different states for the next four years.”
“Yeah, but I love him,” she says, as if it’s just that simple. “And he loves me.”
Mae sips her soda loudly while Priyanka finishes her conversation with Alex. It’s not until the waiter brings their pizza—half veggie, half pepperoni—that she sets the phone down and they watch the steam rise off the cheese.
“Love is like this pizza,” Mae says, sweeping her hand over the table. “It’s warm and gooey and delicious, but it doesn’t last.”
Priyanka laughs. “Are we talking about Garrett now?”
“I wasn’t in love with Garrett,” she says. “That was just fun.”
“Did he know that?”
Mae takes a defiant bite of her slice, which is still too hot. She winces and downs half a glass of water in one go. Priyanka shakes her head.
“If you weren’t so careful—”
“I’m notcareful,” Mae says, practically spitting the word.
Priyanka looks like she wants to laugh, but she manages to bite it back. “I don’t mean in life,” she says more gently. “I mean with your heart.”
Mae—who was all set to argue—is stopped short by this.
“You’re the least guarded person I know,” Priyanka continues, pressing forward. “To a fault, sometimes. But when it really counts, you play it safe. The minute any guy starts to fall for you, there’s a Mae-shaped hole in the wall.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” Priyanka insists, gesturing at the pizza. “You’re afraid of the warm, gooey parts. You think I’m nuts for trying to stay together with Alex, but I’d rather take a chance and end up with someone I love than protect myself and end up—”
Mae scowls. “Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because,” Priyanka says, more softly now, “sometimes I think you’re more interested in making movies than living your life. Not everything is supposed to be material. It’s like you go out into the world with a camera and leave your heart behind on a shelf. But if you don’t ever truly risk anything—”
“I do,” Mae says quickly, trying not to show how stung she is. “In fact, I was going to tell you—”
“No,” Priyanka says, “I donotmean that kind of risk.”
“What? You don’t even know what I was going to say—”
“Mae,” she says, already exasperated. “Only you would hear that and take away that you should sign up to be murdered by some guy on a train.”
