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and certainly not when only one of us is smashed. There may have been past incidents of tipsy-sex but I plead the fifth.  
    “No, no.” He shakes his head. “I just mean.” He lifts his hands and drops them. “Want you. That’s all.”  
    “David, all you want right now is sleep and a merciful hangover god.”  
    He says something else. I think it contains the word “goddess.” He lies back and crawls up the bed. I yank the covers from under him and spread them on top of him. He slurs a thanks, rolls on his side, and then he’s out like a light.  
    “The patient will live,” I announce at the bottom of the stairs. Katy gives me a look that hurts almost as much as David’s drunken “I love you.” “What?”  
    “You can’t keep doing that.”  
    “Doing what?”  
    Katy rolls her eyes. “Playing girlfriend. Not when you’re dating other people.”  
    “Katy, I—”
    “I know you mean well, Hannah, I do. But just,” she huffs out a breath, “be careful.”  
    She marches up the stairs and I’m left in the Huan’s living room alone. In this moment, I’d rather be sucked into a black hole than ever come here again. As I walk to the bus stop, I wonder when Katy decided I was the bad guy, because that is most definitely not fair.  

CHAPTER SIX

    Date tonight?  
    The text from Zach sits on my phone, unanswered. I got it in the middle of my shift so I had an excuse not reply right away. As I sit on the sofa in my apartment, surrounded by swaths of fabric and rolling clothes racks three hours later, the excuse has expired.  
    I love you, David’s slurred, drunken words dance through my thoughts. Like maybe if I repeat them enough they’ll become true.  
    “Shut up,” I say.
    “Are you talking to me?” Trish comes into the room holding a yogurt container and a spoon.  
    “No. I’m talking to my stupid brain.”  
    “Oh, good.” She moves a stack of cut pattern paper from the easy chair to the floor and sits. “Is this about the hot band guy?”  
    Trish and I have lived together for two years, since I started and subsequently dropped out of art school. We’ve always been casual acquaintances and gotten along, but we’ve never really confided in each other. We have separate sets of friends, separate lives. But I need to talk to someone so badly that the words just fly out. I tell her everything, from how David and I first hooked up to how I met Zach, and how I’m now avoiding replying to a text.  
    When I finish, Trish sits still for a moment like a computer processing data. “You like David.”  
    “Yes.”  
    “Do you want to be with Zach?”  
    “I don’t know.”  
    “If David showed up outside our window right now with a cheesy pop song on a stereo and begged for your love, would you go to him?”  
    “David wouldn’t do that.”  
    Trish stands, her brown hair bouncing like it’s in a shampoo commercial. (We use the same shampoo and I can’t get mine to do that.) “Have you talked to him?”
    “He made it clear how he feels about girlfriends.”  
    “Over five months ago.” She emphasizes her words with her spoon. “People change their minds.”  
    I text Zach back, saying only that I can’t tonight and don’t answer when he sends a follow up text that reads only No Worries. The subtext is no pressure, it’s cool, I’ll wait. I hate him for it. Who even says that? No worries, except that I’m in love with an unavailable guy and therefore pushing away the sweet, patient guy. The guy who brings me flowers.  
    Trish leaves to go to her evening class and I camp on the sofa with my laptop to design David’s poster. He’s yet to send me any information or Brian’s promised band photos. I email him to ask for the details. I’m annoyed that he didn’t bother to send me the stuff I need to do him a favor. It’s nice to have valid reason to be irritated at him.  
    I text Zach and ask if he wants to hang out tomorrow. We make plans for him to meet