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The first bite is so overwhelming with the combination of nutmeg and cinnamon that it numbs my taste buds. I don’t get a good feel for what exactly is going on until the second bite, when I’m hit with something chewy—and the taste of oregano? And then I promptly spit out the entire mouthful into the garbage.

I want to text Mackenzie, but I worry that this Post-it thing we had going will seem stupid over text and that he’s busy or, worse, hasn’t even thought about me since he left.

What’s the worst that can happen if you text him? This time it’s not my uncle’s voice in my head but Koko’s.

“He doesn’t text back,” I say out loud, and as the words leave my lips, I realize my “worst” isn’t actually all that bad.

And what’s the best that can happen?

I hear Koko again and immediately know the answer. We start talking and then we don’t stop.

I pick up my phone, but it isn’t Mackenzie that I’m messaging. It’s someone else who has been a far better friend than I have given her credit for.

Annalise:

Hey Koko. I stopped by the store and heard you’re back visiting your dad. I hope he’s doing okay. Just wanted you to know that I’m thinking of you, and if you need me to check in on the store or grab your mail, I’m happy to help. Take care.

I send it. Then, using the rush of serotonin that comes along with the whoosh, snap a photo of the pie, find Mackenzie’s name in my phone, and send it to him.

Annalise:

Note says mincemeat. 80% sure it contains actual meat. 90% sure it’s not supposed to. 3/10

I abandon my phone on the counter and get ready, although as I dress, I secretly hope to hear the soft ping of an incoming text. Twice, I swear I hear it, but my screen stays dark. A streetcar passes, its ding sounding a little too similar to my phone’s.

When I head out to meet Phillip, I turn my phone off completely because I am an independent woman. Who goes to bars. On a weeknight.

However, as I climb the steps and push open the doors to the dark, crowded bar, I can’t help but think how I am more the type of woman who seriously debates if she really needs to go to the grocery store when it’s after seven—even after years of Larry’s nagging that she’s wasting her young, wild, hangover-free years—and how he would have loved to see me here tonight.

I find Phillip at a large high-top table, a club soda with lime half drunk in front of him. He introduces me to his girlfriend, Dara Kim, who is loud and funny and speaks at a speed of two hundred words a minute. She isn’t even in the realm of what I expected except for the fact that I can immediately tell she is very smart and clearly adores Phillip from the way her hand rests on his biceps and how she smiles at him when he describes, with painstaking detail, the parameters of our current research project. Dara introduces me to her two friends, who smile at me politely and cheers their vodka sodas with my Diet Coke when I return from the bar. We make polite, surface-level conversation until the band comes on at ten after nine. The lead singer introduces them as Sid and the Crosbys. They are loud and only okay. Their drummer overpowers the lead guitar, and the harmonies of the lead singer and bassist sound like they’re fighting each other.

I snort with a mouth half full of Diet Coke when I think how quickly I’ve gone from the girl who couldn’t name a relevant band if she tried to one making judgmental commentary as if she were a music critic. And suddenly I’m thinking of Mackenzie again, and my hand is in my purse, reaching for my phone to turn it back on—just in case—only stopping as the fragments of Dara’s friend’s conversation cut through the music.

“…Midnight Station…Thursday…No, not this week.”

I whip my head toward them, my movement so sudden they stop mid-conversation.

“Um, are you guys talking about Midnight Station, the band?” My heart begins to thump hard for no apparent reason.

“Yeah,” says the curly-haired blonde, whose name I’m pretty sure is Veronica. “We normally come here on Thursdays because they sometimes play here, but I don’t see them on the schedule for this week.” She holds up her phone. The web page for the Rivoli is up on her screen.

My mouth opens, and the words pour out as if I’ve been waiting for this exact topic of conversation to come up.

“Oh, they went on tour. They’re opening for the Rydells. It was a last-minute thing.” I manage to sound quite nonchalant. Like the Rydells weren’t a band I only learned about three days ago.

“That’s wild,” says the dark-haired one, who I also think is named Veronica. “How did you know? Did they post on Instagram?”

I feel legitimately cool as I shrug. “The drummer is my roommate.”

The Veronicas look at each other. The blond one leans forward. “Shut the fuck up. He’s your roommate? Tell me he’s single. He’s gorgeous.”

A pain slices through me as Veronica Number Two stabs the maraschino cherry in her cocktail glass with a tiny plastic sword and pops it into her mouth.

“He’s on tour, Vee,” says the brunette one. “Single or not, he’s probably banging everything that walks.”

Their conversation continues, but I lose the plot. My Diet Coke is sloshing around in my stomach, and I no longer feel so good.

“I think I might head out,” I yell across the table to Phillip, who does not seem the least bit upset at my sudden, unplanned departure. It’s Dara who slides from her seat to come around and hug me. “It was so nice to meet you finally, Annalise. We should do this again soon.”