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“You’re spinning first,” Vee says. “We know how you get if you don’t.”

I sit in my usual spot, a plate of dip balanced on my knee. I spin and get Artist as a career. It’s not one I would ever choose, and I say so. Christine snorts. Sarah tells me that’s the point. Then I land on a house that I would never be able to afford on a starving artist’s salary and say that too. Christine steals a chip and tells me to stop fact-checking a game from the seventies.

I can’t. It’s not realistic. The life events are stacked along the board like everyone is supposed to follow the same path. College, job, house, marriage, kids, retirement. What if I don’t want to get married or have kids? What if I want to rent an apartment in a big city? I mutter those questions out loud while I’m moving my car, and Vee laughs into her drink.

I stop on the wedding space. I turn the little car in my hands. Two seats up front. The first peg is blue, and Sarah hands me a pink one.

“Why isn’t there an option to be gay?” I ask, before I think about whether that’s a normal thing to say. “You just have to marry the opposite one…that’s not how real life works. It’s statistically wrong.”

The room goes quiet in a way game night usually doesn’t.

Sarah’s eyebrows go up. Christine’s chip stops halfway to her mouth. And Vee leans forward with her elbows on her knees, delighted.

“Q,” Vee says, and picks up her own car so I can see it. Two pink pegs in the front seat. “Who do you think has been driving this thing since sophomore year?”

Sarah knocks her shoulder into Vee’s and smiles. “If you want a blue one, you can have one.”

“I know,” I say, because I do know, logically. “I mean the official rules. The box doesn’t give you a choice. You had to house-rule it. That’s poor design.”

Christine is looking at me as if I just grew another head. “Are you mad at the game for a reason?”

“It’s just inaccurate.” I take the pink peg and put it in my passenger seat because that’s what the instructions say, and it feels dumber than it did the last time we played. “You shouldn’t have to invent the correct outcome.”

“What’s this really about?” Christine asks.

I spin the car between my fingers so I don’t have to look at her. Two hours ago, I was fine. I left her dorm room talking about eating real food tomorrow. Then I went back to mine and sat in someone’s lap and got it all wrong and then watched him run from the room like I set it on fire with a science experiment. Now I’m arguing with plastic pegs.

“I think I like someone,” I say.

Vee makes a small noise she tries to swallow. Sarah goes still in a kind way. Christine doesn’t smile yet. She just waits, which is why she’s my best friend.

“I don’t want to say who.” My ears are hot. “It just started being a problem tonight. And I just want to forget about it. Can we forget about it?”

“It’s forgotten already,” Christine says. “But if you want to talk…”

I nod. Not now.

Vee slides the dip closer like that is the official closing of the subject. “House rules still stand. Swap the peg whenever. No speech needed.”

“We can play Trivia Pursuit next,” Sarah says. “The updated version.”

“The old one is historically wrong on some of the questions,” I mutter.

“That’s why I said updated.” Sarah flicks the Life spinner and moves her car. “Eat your dip, Q. You’re on my team when we play.”

“You always claim him. He’s my best friend,” Christine complains, but she’s smiling.

I finally start to relax, getting out of my head and just spending time with my friends. I eat the dip and let them fight over who gets me for trivia, and for the rest of the night, I’m only here.

It’s after midnight when I call it a night. Christine is staying the night, and they tried to get me to sleep on the couch, but I like my bed. That, and Daniel is in my room.

The hallway of Vee and Sarah’s building is quiet in that really late way. I can hear someone’s TV through a door I pass. The sound of the laundry running when I pass the laundry room on this floor. I’m halfway to the stairwell with the leftovers they insisted I take when I hear a laugh I already know.

I stop. My eyes following the sound further down the hall. Daniel is in the doorway to a different apartment.

A girl has her fingers in his shirt, holding him half inside her apartment. He laughs and peels her fingers from the fabric, and leans down and kisses her goodbye. It looks like the kind of kiss he described, a dance…not a battle.

I step back into the alcove by the laundry room before he turns. I can still see them if I angle just enough. He smiles against her mouth and says something I can’t hear. She laughs. He kisses her again, quicker, then he’s striding down the hallway toward me, running a hand through his hair the way he does when he’s pleased with himself. I’m frozen in place. If he goes to the elevator, he’s going to pass right by me.