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A comfortable silence passed before Avery spoke up again. “Your parents really are happier?”

“Way happier. And both of them were already happier before they got remarried too. It’s not like everything was instantly perfect, but even as a seventh-grader I knew things were better. I had to bounce between two houses, which really, really sucked, but at least we could breathe, you know?”

Avery longed for that feeling. She had gotten a break from it once she started college, but going home had reminded her of the way her shoulders were permanently tense around her parents. “I think I’m just sick of nobody being willing to tell the truth. Dad is lying to Mom, she’s lying right back to him, and I’m lying to them both because I know, but neither of them knows that I know, all three of us are lying to everyone else, and I’m just so goddamn tired of the secrets.”

Savannah looked at her with eyes that said she understood. “I’m sorry. I know I felt like that when things were ending with my parents. I just wanted everything out in the open rather than bottled up like spoiled milk.”

“God, that’s it exactly,” Avery said, letting out a breath.

Savannah nodded and then straightened. “Hey, can I ask you something? If you promise not to say anything to anyone else?”

“Of course.”

Savannah thrust her phone over to Avery. “What do you think she means?”

Avery peered down at a series of messages between Savannah and someone named Naomi. “Which part?”

“Her last two messages.”

Avery read them carefully. The first said I wish you’d consider Alpha Gamma Delta. We’d have soooooo much fun as sisters followed by several hearts in pink and blue. Savannah had replied that her heart was set on being a Pi Phi, and then Naomi’s next message said Maybe if we can’t be sisters we could be something else.

“Okay,” Avery said, trying to figure out the best way to put this. She was used to Harper’s weird inability to parse very flirty texts sent by other women, and Grace often referred to herself as a “disaster pansexual,” but Avery didn’t know how to approach it with Savannah. “What do you think she means?”

“What I want it to mean is that she wants to make out, but I’m worried she just means, like, running buddies or something.”

Savannah went for a run every single day at 4:00 p.m. on the dot, which was, in Avery’s opinion, the weirdest thing about her otherwise fairly normal roommate. “Does she run?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why would she want to be running buddies?”

“Maybe she knows I run and wants to start.”

Avery did her best to not roll her eyes. “Any, um, other guesses?”

“That’s why I wanted you to read it,” Savannah said with a pout.

“Mind if I read a few more? For context?”

“Go for it.”

Avery skimmed the next few above their most recent exchange, struggling not to laugh. “Sav, she asked you out for coffee.”

“Yeah, last week. We went to Common Grounds.”

“No, I mean, she asked you out. The coffee part was secondary.”

“Wait, what?” Savannah said, grabbing her phone back. “That was a date?”

“Are you saying you didn’t know?”

“Obviously not. Oh my God,” she muttered. “That’s why.”

“That’s why what?”

“You can’t laugh at me.”

Avery wrinkled her nose. “It’s probably too late for that, but I’ll do my best.”