“So, Winona and Benjamin are a thing now?” Felicity pressed.

  It was the first time Felicity had ever actually called Winona, well, Winona. Not Native. Not Navajo. Not Native girl. Not Navajo girl. Just… Winona.

  It still hadn’t quite sunk in. I shook my head, then clawed at my pudding with a fork. It was the most prestigious thing I could’ve ordered off the menu here at Boston University. I still had to keep up appearances for the girl across from me.

  “I don’t think they’re a thing,” I mumbled, “yet.”

  Felicity carved out another cut of her Filet-O-Fish with her knife and fork. I wanted to mumble something a bit more intellectual and highbrow, pointing out that it was unwise for Boston University to sell a fish fillet on their student menu marketed as a Filet-O-Fish, considering it was trademarked… but I just couldn’t bring myself to.

  I was still deeply upset. I knew that. Seeing Benjamin trailing his hands all over Winona’s waist and legs in the place we always practised music together was nauseating. What’s more, I was deeply upset that I was upset.

  I shouldn’t be upset. I should be thankful that my best friend had the man of her dreams wrapped around her finger. I’d won our little bet too, which meant Winona was going to pay for a year’s worth of takeaways on my behalf, but the reward now felt shrill and hollow.

  I didn’t even want her to be with Benjamin now. It made me feel horribly misogynistic and controlling to admit it, but it was true. I just didn’t want that. I wanted Winona to be single. Free from the horrible, horrible influence of any man she might choose. A Winona who was more comfortable snuggling up with her best friend while playing video games and writing out song lyrics together.

  A best friend that was a lot like me, really.

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  Those snugglefests of ours would soon be over. Benjamin would whisper about how unhappy he was at the thought of his girl cuddling up to that dweeb Connolly in bed with her. Winona would give up the snuggles without much complaint, and then suddenly she would listen half-heartedly to my rants about how horrible the syntax of C++ was.

  Then one day we’d see each other in the hallways of Boston University as strangers. At best we might give a faint acknowledgement that we’d shared a friendship once, but it would be brief, without giving too much away to the new friend groups we were travelling in: Winona with Benjamin and the rest of his filmmaker buddies, and me with the rest of the campus strays nobody else wanted to be saddled with.

  This was just my normal spell of catastrophising. Winona had taught me all about it from the psychology electives she took when it came time to write essays about the intergenerational trauma Native Americans faced even in the present day. She had wanted to be prepared when it came time to stand before a group of white professors and explain the long-term effects of trauma among Native families, and how white academia still hadn’t done enough research on the subject.

  Felicity pressed her cup of tea down with a banging thud.

  “Earth to Nathan?” she mused.

  “Here,” I mumbled, like a lost elementary school student who didn’t want to be in class. There were plenty of days when I was like that, lost in a haze of dispassion learning about mathmatics when I could’ve been banging WWE wrestling figures together in my own mentally crafted PPV.

  “You were gone for a few minutes there,” Felicity said.

  “I was?”

  “Yeah. For about five minutes,” Felicity replied. Most of the time when I was by myself it went on longer. “I went up and got some more chips while you were off dreaming about Winona.”

  “I wasn’t dreaming about her,” I said.

  I was.

  I didn’t want to lose face, but Felicity shook her head anyway.

  “You need to forget about her and move on,” Felicity murmured, dabbing away any ketchup splatters on her face after all that fish and chips, “and for that you need something to do.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah, otherwise you’ll be sitting there all day ruminating,” Felicity quipped.

  “I’m not ruminating,” I lied.

  She ignored me, pressing her fingers underneath her chin like a detective of old.

  “Something that gets you in your body and out of your mind.”

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  Did I even have to ask?

  Judging from the sudden grin plastered on Felicity’s face, I already knew what she was planning.