“I want to. It’s just . . .” I’m not motorically able to.

Which Cece might know, because she crosses her arms, tilts her head in that compassionate way of hers, and tells me, “Maybe if you say it in a funny accent, it’ll be easier? May I suggest Australian? Not to be culturally insensitive, but those closed e’s are just—”

“I hated In the Mood for Love,” I blurt out. “And I find very little enjoyment in Wong Kar-wai’s filmography.”

Cece startles. Physically. Spiritually. “But . . . but they are amazing.”

“I know. Well—I don’t know. They look like I should find them amazing, but to me they’re just sad and kinda slow. Still better than the Russian ones from the seventies, which feel like rubbing brambles against my eyeballs, and I really think producers should stop giving money to Lars von Trier and instead pick a good charity. Even just flush it down the garbage disposal, honestly. And don’t get me started about 2001: A Space Odyssey—”

She gasps like this is a theater play. “You said you loved it!”

“I . . . Maybe. I mostly repeated things I found online.”

She frowns at the backsplash tiles. “Your review did sound very similar to Roger Ebert’s,” she mumbles to herself.

“I hate all auteur-style movies.” My mouth feels like a desert.

Then it gets even drier when Cece asks me with a scowl, “What do you like, then?”

I try to swallow. Fail. “Twilight’s my favorite.”

Cece’s eyes bug out. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it. Closes it. Opens it one last time. “Which one?” she asks, sounding constipated.

“I don’t know.” I wince. “All of them. The fourth?”

Is that a whimper? Maybe. Yeah. And I don’t know what I expected her reaction would be, but it was not this one. Not her glaring at me and then something hitting me hard on the forehead. And then again. And then—

“Is this—” I lift my hands and take a protective step back. “Are you throwing cheddar cubes at—”

“Damn right I am!” She takes a two-second break to turn off the stove and starts again. With improved aim and vigor. I back down till the counter stops me. “I knew you weren’t watching hentai porn that time! I knew I saw that shovel-face guy on the screen, I knew it, I knew it, I—”

“Not the cheese, Cece!”

The stoning stops. And when I peek between my fingers, Cece is there, a bag of Great Value cubed cheddar clutched in her fist, staring at me.

Her eyes are brimming wet. “Why?” she asks, and my heart breaks, and I want to take it all back. It was a joke. I love Wong Kar-wai, and Kubrick is the best. I’m still the Elsie she wants, and tonight we can have a Jodorowsky marathon. It’s such a small lie, in the grand scheme of our friendship.

Except that I’ve built my entire life on small lies. And over time, they’ve all grown to be huge. And the Elsie that Cece wants is, first and foremost, not a liar.

“Because I . . .” I shake my head. I cannot even say it. Oh God.

Oh. God.

“Because,” I try in a poor man’s Australian accent, “I thought that if you knew we weren’t into the same movies, then you . . .” I can’t make myself finish.

A single tear slides down her cheek. “Please tell me you weren’t afraid I wouldn’t love you anymore.”

I can only look at her, apologetic.

“Oh, honey.”

My eyes are burning, too. “I’m so sorry.”

“Elsie. Elsie.” She takes one slow step toward me. Then another. Then two more and we’re clutching each other in a way we haven’t for a long time, ever maybe, and I’m thinking that she smells like cheese and flowers and something ineffably homey and comforting. “I will love you forever,” she says into my hair. “Even if you’re an animal with no taste.”

“I know. I’m just . . .”

She pulls back to look at me. “Incredibly messed up?”

“Yeah.” My laugh is wet. “That.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I’m any better,” she says darkly. Her slight shoulders rise and fall. “Anything else you’ve been faking?”

“Not really.” I scratch my nose. “Flushable wipes are not really flushable.”

“Oh.” She cocks her head. “Is that . . . something you were faking?”

“Not really, but you should stop using them.”

“Okay.” She nods. “My poor butt.”

“Oh, and Hedgie and I hate each other.”

Her eyes narrow. “Now you’re making shit up.”

“I call her the p-word when you’re gone.”

“The p-word?”

“Pincushi—”

“Don’t you dare say it. We’re her moms!”

“I consider myself more of an evil stepmother.”

She slaps my arm. “Who even are you?”

I try to swallow, but my throat is stuffed full. So I settle for holding out my hand and meet Cece’s eyes squarely for what feels like the first time.

“I’m Elsie. And I really like cheese, particle physics, and movies with sparkly vampires.”

She takes it with a watery smile. “I’m Celeste.” Her fingers are sticky, a little gross. I love her so much. “I’m sure that we’ll be the best of friends.”

OceanofPDF.com

I rinse the dirty cheddar rescued from the floor, thinking, We should probably sweep more often; I hope we don’t get tetanus—just as Cece stands triumphantly with the last three blocks in hand and says, “This floor is surprisingly clean!”

I smile into the swirling drain.

“So.” She leans against the sink, arms crossed. “How much of you coming out as a lying liar has to do with Jack?”

I sober up and kill the faucet. “It’s not . . .” I shake my head. “It’s a mess.”

“What is?”

My heart wrings. “Everything.”

“But you had your sex-cation the other weekend.”

I heat up. “We didn’t really . . .” I notice her raised eyebrow and abort my Deny the Obvious mission. “Have you seen Kirk recently?”

“This is such an unskilled deflection attempt, I’m just gonna pretend it never happened. So, what exactly isn’t going on between you and the Jackster?”

“Whatever it seemed like . . . Wherever we were going, we . . .” I grab the dishcloth. We should probably clean that, too. “I think that might be nowhere.”

“How come?”

I don’t really feel like meeting her eyes. “He lied to me about something. And before you say anything—I know it’s rich of me to call out people for lying. But.”

“Hmm.” She drums her fingers against the steel of the sink. “Does this have to do with the article?”

“Yeah.” I sigh, folding the ratty cloth. “I’m done with sweeping stuff under the rug. If something makes me mad, I’m going to let myself be mad. And that article has been the ammo people use to make fun of my work for fifteen years, so—”

“No, I meant—the article he wrote today?”

I lift my eyes. “The what?”

“You haven’t seen it?”

“Seen what?”

“The entirety of academic Twitter is talking about it. Even the humanities—and you know how busy we are begging our boards of directors not to shutter our departments. Did you really not see it? Jack published an article. Today. In Annals of Theoretical Physics.”

I’m positive that a mallard must have flown in and eaten Cece’s brain.

“Wait—I was wrong,” she admits, and I relax. “It’s not an article. More like one of those op-eds?”

Maybe she’s high? Has she been inhaling Tauron fumes? “There are no op-eds about science.”

“There are op-eds about everything. Trout fishing, plasma coolant, velvet suits, the unbearable lightness of being—”

“Okay. Yes. But Jack didn’t write an op-ed, and if he had, he wouldn’t have published it in the Annals.”

Her brow furrows stubbornly. She picks up her phone. Taps the screen a few times, muttering something about the incredulity of Thomas, then thrusts it in my face.