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As we were walking down the hallway toward the social hall, he gently touched the small of my back, as if helping to hold me up. I didn’t need the help. I already had my smile fixed on my face like a shield.

But I let it stay there anyway, warm and sure against my spine. Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to be given some help from a friend.

—

Bev and Benjamin did not win the contest, which she didn’t stop muttering about on the way home. “The whole thing was fixed. Of course Eva Hallac got third place. She probably paid off the judges.”

“It’s the ice caps all over again,” I said. Benjamin and Seth both snickered. Warmth swept through me. I’d forgotten how nice it could be to be part of an inside joke. You typically needed to be close to somebody for that. The last time I’d been part of one was…when? With Connor?

At home we got to feast on Bev’s cookies, which were very pretty but also hard and dry, which prompted more muttering from Bev about what was the point of food looking good if it didn’t also taste good. I could agree with that, but what I agreed with more was the large bottle of very fine wine she broke out to soothe her hurt feelings, and the not quite as large but even better bottle of wine Benjamin brought out after from his apparently very secret liquor cabinet. Some fine scotch followed that, and I didn’t know the difference between fine and not-fine scotch, but I did appreciate how it made the sharp edges of my day blur even faster than the wine did.

Getting drunk with my fake boyfriend’s parents hadn’t been on my list of things to do here, but hey, it could’ve been worse. And wasn’t it the Hanukkah spirit and everything?

No. That was Passover, where we were supposed to get drunk to celebrate that we were no longer slaves in the land of Egypt. And also Purim, where we were supposed to get drunk to celebrate that the evil Haman hadn’t managed to kill us all.

If getting drunk to celebrate not dying at the hands of an evil tyrant was cool on Purim, why not on Hanukkah? We were pretty much celebrating the same thing. Or so I expounded upon—at great length—to Bev and Benjamin and Seth, who all emphatically agreed and toasted me with another shot.

At some point we lit the candles and sang the blessings loudly and boisterously, Seth’s arm wrapped over my shoulder, and screw it: maybe it was the alcohol, but I let myself feel warm and cozy and maybe even snuggled into him a little, had a little spark of joy from the way he looked down at me all pleased and a little surprised. Again: lighting fires while drunk was probably not on the list of Smartest Things to Do in a Small New York City Apartment, but whatever, that was Bev and Benjamin’s business. All that was left to me was to watch the candles burning, their flames blurring before me, fuzzy and otherworldly.

Fast-forward another hour or two and both Bev and Benjamin were snoring on the couch, Benjamin’s tie askew and Bev’s bra strap on full display. Seth and I had abandoned drinking in favor of ransacking the fridge for leftovers, sticking utensils and sometimes fingers into plastic-wrapped remainders of lox, pink and firm; a bag of baby carrots; crusty cardboard containers of lo mein of which I fervently did not want to know the age. I stuffed a mouthful of noodles into my mouth before passing the fork to Seth. Our fingers brushed as he took it from me. I tried to ignore the tingles they left as he said, “It’s a scientific fact that nothing soaks up alcohol like leftover carbs.”

“Fact.” They’d done their job: I could barely feel the buzz of alcohol in my system anymore, and the clarity in Seth’s eyes said much the same. I glanced over at his parents. “Should we wake them up and make them eat?”

“Nah, they’ll be fine,” Seth said. “They never drink this much, though. They’re going to be so embarrassed tomorrow morning.”

“Assuming they remember anything.”

He snorted. “True.”

There was nothing else to do at this point besides get ready for bed, so that’s what we did. Well, I went and got ready for bed while Seth cleaned up his parents a little—removing shoes, fixing positions so that they wouldn’t wake up with pins and needles in their arms. I emerged from the bedroom in the T-shirt and sweats I’d been wearing as pajamas to find him tucking them in with the couch blanket, as tender as a parent toward their child.

That ugly thing in my chest that had made me want to throw the rabbi’s picture reared up again. Jealousy. What had I done wrong where I’d never have a relationship like that with my own parents? Why did he get this and I didn’t?

It made me think about kids. Not wanting kids for the sake of not wanting kids was totally cool and okay and normal. But sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t sure about them because of cool, normal reasons or because I was so afraid of being like my parents.

I shook the feeling away as Seth glanced up at me, a wry smile on his lips. It wasn’t like Seth himself had gone to my parents and made them the way that they were. And I knew that their behavior wasn’t my fault. I knew it.

Except maybe if they’d had a different child, a better child, one who knew all the rules and all the right ways to behave, would they still have treated her like that?

Seth was saying something, but I’d totally missed it. He walked off down the hall toward the bedroom and bathroom, leaving me here staring at Bev and Benjamin snoring away. Bev’s mouth was wide open, a thin string of drool stretching down her chin. Funnily enough, I would’ve expected Benjamin to sleep with his mouth closed, but he matched her. Maybe they were more alike than they seemed on the surface.

Whatever. I headed down the hall after Seth, opening the bedroom door to find him in the middle of changing. Again.

I blinked, stunned into stillness for just a moment. He’d frozen, too, boxers on but shirt over his head. Black hair running down his chest, down the stomach, below the belly button…“Sorry, sorry,” I said hastily, backing up—you’d think I’d have learned after this happened the first time—but he just finished pulling his shirt on and laughed.

“Don’t worry. You didn’t see much more than you would have in a bathing suit anyway.”

I relaxed. He got down on the floor and started punching his makeshift bed into shape. As usual, I grimaced in sympathy at how much his back had to hurt each morning when he woke up.

But that wasn’t what I’d blame for what I said next. Maybe it was the relaxed, friendly way he’d laughed this time when I caught him without his shirt. Like we were friends now, and physical proximity wouldn’t be weird, because friends were close to each other all the time.

“You can sleep in the bed tonight if you want,” I blurted. Usually, I don’t blurt things, and when I do I instantly regret whatever came out, but I didn’t this time. It felt right. Fair.

Seth looked up at me from his knees. “Are you sure? I really don’t mind being down here.”

There are way better things he could be doing from his knees. I flushed warm. “Yeah. Your back must be killing you, and there’s plenty of room for the two of us.” When he didn’t move, I hastily added, “Of course, you don’t have to if you’re not comfortable with it.”

He rose slowly, wincing as his knees cracked. “No, I’m fine with it. We’re friends. I’ve shared beds with my friends before.”