Tristan goes to get the elevator and I stay behind and wait for Juliet and Dylan to get their wallets.

“How are you feeling? Are you okay?” she asks when she comes out. I shrug.

“What’s wrong?” Dylan asks. Juliet gives him the broad strokes.

“Tristan is your ex-boyfriend? Holy shit. That’s awkward.”

“Yep.” I nod. “As of two weeks ago. I tried to go change rooms, but there are no other rooms available apparently. So I’m stuck here with him.”

“Hey, hey, hey. I take personal offense at that, girlie. Yes, it’s fuckin’ awkward as hell to live with your ex, but he’s not your only roommate. There’s also Juliet and I. And we’re pretty awesome. I’m sure that you’ll be convinced of that by the end of dinner.”

My mouth salivates at the thought. Though I’ve already officially had dinner with my parents, I don’t count it as dinner. The portions were minuscule and the conversation was treacherous.

When we get to the pizza place, I quickly realize that Dylan was not in fact exaggerating about the size of those slices. They’re huge. Very thin with not too much cheese, but enormous nevertheless. I order one and it looks like a whole 20” pizza at home, only in slice form. Luckily, the plates and tables are equally large and we have room to spread out with our slices.

I avoid Tristan’s gaze practically the whole dinner. And he does well in avoiding mine as well. Instead, we both concentrate on Dylan and Juliet, who have enough to talk about for all of us. Dylan talks about running track in high school and summering in the Hamptons. Juliet moans about her dad’s decision to buy a house on the Jersey Shore instead of the Hamptons.

“The Hamptons aren’t that great.” Dylan tries to comfort her.

“Oh please, don’t give me that.” She waves her hand as if she’s insulted.

“What?” Dylan laughs taking another big bite of pizza.

“I hate people who pretend the Hamptons aren’t that great even more than people who actually summer there! It’s like those girls who pretend that they don’t like diamonds. Am I right?” she turns to me.

I shrug. “Sorry, I’m the wrong person to ask. I’ve never been to the Hamptons. And I don’t really like diamonds.”

Juliet looks at me as if I’m insane. “Oh, you’re impossible!”

“All in all, I think that has been a great first day, wouldn’t you say?” Juliet asks me as she gets undressed. I’m already lying in bed, reading on my phone.

“It could’ve been better.” I shrug. “But I do like you and Dylan.”

She laughs. “I don’t know about Tristan. He’s difficult to read. What’s he like?”

She catches me off-guard. I don’t know what to say.

“You know him really well, right? I was just wondering. He seems quiet.” She puts on a pair of blue pajamas and a tank top and climbs into bed.

“I don’t really know. I don’t really know who he is anymore,” I say. I know she’s waiting for me to elaborate. So I take a moment to consider the question.

“No, he’s not really quiet. Not at all. He’s loud and opinionated. He’s headstrong. I don’t know why he seems quiet. Well, no. I know; it’s because of me. He definitely didn’t expect to find me living here, either.”

“So, what did happen between you two? Tell me everything.”

It would take a whole night to tell her everything.

“We were childhood friends. Best friends, really. For many years. And then in 11^th grade, we finally started dating. There was this thing building up within for a few years before that. We told each other everything. Hung out all the time. I had a crush on him forever. But then in 11^th grade, he suddenly kissed me. And everything fell into place.

“We dated for two years. It was hard. His family moved to San Francisco the year before our senior year because his dad got a really lucrative job at an education technology start up.”

“His parents made him move his senior year? That’s rough!”

“Yeah, it was. At first, he was going to stay with a friend, but that didn’t work out. But he’s got two little brothers; they’re in elementary school. So it’s not just him that his parents had to consider.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, we decided to continue our relationship. Long distance. He came down for Christmas and then for the whole summer. He stayed at a friend’s house.”

I stopped talking and looked at the ceiling. It was an old popcorn ceiling, and it reminded me of the kind of ceilings they have in shady motels. I couldn’t go any further. I wasn’t ready. But Juliet wanted to know more.

“So?” she asks. I look over at her. She’s lying on her stomach with her arms wrapped around one of the ten throw pillows she piled on her bed. She’s on the edge of her seat. I try to make this quick.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t really know, Juliet. I thought everything was fine. It seemed fine. And then he just came to me one day and said we had to talk. We talked and talked. For like six hours. And the whole time we were talking, I had no idea we were breaking up. Not really. It just felt like I was helping him with something. Like he was feeling insecure, or lost, and I was there to support him. For a couple of hours, I seriously thought we were talking about his problems with his mother. But then at the end, he said that he thinks he needs space. Needs time to figure things out. Wants to be alone.”

“So how did you end up at the same school?”

“We’d wanted to go to New York forever. It was always our dream. We applied to both Columbia and NYU. And when we both got into Columbia, we were both over the moon. There was no question about it really. And so when the breakup happened, I didn’t think it was right for me to change my mind about it. I said to myself, it’s a huge city. Big campus. 30,000 students. There’s no way I’m going to run into him. Little did I know that I was actually going to be assigned to live with him!”

Suddenly, I start to laugh. Juliet joins me. The whole situation is so tragic it’s actually comical.