I put my key in the door, hoping that no one would be home. I didn’t think that I had the mental energy to explain the night’s events again. When I opened the door, Sasha was sitting at the kitchen table, leafing through a magazine and eating a bowl of ice cream.

“Hey, how did it go?” she asked cheerfully.

I broke down. I thought I did a pretty good job keeping in the tears until now.

“Remember when you said it wouldn’t be that bad?” I cried. “It was so much worse than I could have even imagined.”

She shut her magazine. “What the hell happened?” she asked.

By this time, I had the story down and told her about everything from how awful my mom was being to how odd and humiliating it was to be proposed to in a restaurant full of people.

As my story progressed, her jaw dropped lower and lower. By the time I told her about running out of the restaurant, both of her hands were covering her mouth and her eyebrows were nearly to her hairline.

“Have you talked to your parents since you left the restaurant?” she asked.

I didn’t even think about the fact that they might call. I checked my phone. There were three missed calls from my mom. She must have called while I was with Martin.

“I’m afraid to call them back,” I said.

“Maybe they’ll apologize for putting you in such a bad position,” Sasha suggested.

“That’s not going to happen,” I said with a hollow laugh. “I’m more worried that they’re going to disown me.”

“Don’t be dramatic. They’ve got some messed up priorities, but they love you.”

“You don’t know my parents. My mom was the one who found my Princeton acceptance letter. She threatened to completely cut me off. No more money, no more coming home. I was lucky that my dad managed to talk her out of it. I’m afraid he won’t be able to this time.”

“Cut you off for not agreeing to get married to some jabroni you don’t even like?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m thinking about opening a separate bank account just so I can survive. My parents have never let me get a job. I don’t have any work experience, so how will I survive if I can’t even get a part-time job?”

“We’ll worry about that, if that time ever comes,” Sasha said reassuringly. “At least your tuition is paid, so you have somewhere to live for the rest of the year.”

“Yeah, I guess we’ll see what happens.”

I dried my eyes on my sleeves and helped myself to a bite of Sasha’s ice cream. Even if my parents abandoned me, I would still have good friends like Sasha around.

“So do you think that Sebastian is done with you now?” Sasha asked.

“I would hope so, but it’s hard to say. Law student or not, I think Sebastian is incredibly stupid,” I giggled.

“Seriously,” Sasha said. “Take a hint, Seb! Is he good looking at least? Like what’s he like compared to someone like, I don’t know, Martin?”

“Martin!” I exclaimed. “I almost forgot to tell you about the second part of my night.”

I explained how I ran into Martin and how I went back to his dorm to talk. Sasha loved this story. When I finished telling her, she let out a squeal.

“You kissed?” she practically shouted. “How was it?”

“It was…nice. It was really, really nice.” I couldn’t help but break out into a smile.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” she demanded.

“I don’t know about love,” I said hesitantly.

“But?”

“But I like him. A lot.”

Sasha let out a dramatic sigh. “Was that so hard to admit?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve liked him for ages. Why are you only now realizing it?”

“I don’t know,” I paused. I wasn’t even sure if I knew the answer to that. “Because he was always so rude to me. You know I’m not the type to chase after boys. I don’t want something I can’t have.”

“Are you kidding me?” Sasha said. “That’s the best part—the chase.”

“This was too much drama for me to handle though. If you dated a football player, I bet your parents would be pleased. Mine would disown me.”

“Yet again, I don’t understand your world,” she said.

“And I don’t think he can either. I don’t want to hurt him. I tried ignoring him for both of our sakes and that made things worse. I don’t want to lead him on when there’s a good chance that I’ll never see him again after graduation. I really don’t want to lead him on if I’m going to be marrying someone like Sebastian.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Sasha said.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s up to us,” I said.

I couldn’t think of a scenario where either of us could be happy. I could be with Sebastian and keep my family. Martin would probably hate me forever. I could also date Martin, but then my family would disown me. What if Martin and I didn’t last? We haven’t had a great history of getting along, so if we broke up, I would be without a boyfriend and a family.

How could I keep my distance from Martin without upsetting him? Though, I wasn’t sure I could stand being away from him, either. His kiss was just a small preview of what I could have if I spent more time with him. I needed more.

My mom had put me on a dozen diets during my childhood. I knew better than anyone that if you eliminate something delicious from your life, then you’ll only want it more.

“I’m going to go hang out with Reg at a football party. Do you want to come with me?” Sasha asked.

“I think I’m going to go to bed. It’s been a very weird night,” I said.

What an understatement! I just attended a dinner with my parents where they arranged my marriage to a guy I have repeatedly said I wasn’t interested in. Then, by mere coincidence, I ran into the guy I really want to be with, and we kiss. It was like the universe was presenting me with two different futures, and I had to choose which one I wanted. It was too much for one night. I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.