Kelsey is only five minutes late, so she doesn’t apologize when she comes in. “Can you believe it? Only two days left in quarantine! We get to go on our first date soon! Our followers can’t wait,” she says.

“Followers, right.”

“Isn’t it amazing how many we have?”

I don’t say anything, but she doesn’t notice, and says, “I’ve been thinking about our first kiss. We should definitely make sure we get a video of it.”

Kelsey is talking about kissing me, and I’m still replaying my conversation with Flora in my brain.

“Oliver? Aren’t you excited? Isn’t this what you’ve been looking forward to? I know you’ve had a crush on me since forever,” she whispers, eyes on her phone.

I don’t know if it’s the mention of the crush I used to have, or the sudden mental image of Kelsey laughing when I fell ice-skating, but I blurt out, “Sometimes it feels like you like me because I’m in the hospital. In quarantine.”

“What?” Kelsey glances up from her phone. She looks as shocked as I feel.

“No, it’s nothing,” I say, trying to smooth things over.

“Okay,” she says skeptically, looking back down at her phone.

“Actually, no!” I shout with a force that surprises even me. “We need to talk about this.”

Kelsey cocks an eyebrow at me, but her thumb is still scrolling on her phone even as she looks at me.

“God, can you please just put your phone down for a second?”

“Jeez Louise,” she mutters, putting her phone down.

But then she looks at me, with her full attention, and I feel my nerve slowly dissipating.

The silence stretches out awkwardly between us, like it always does, and she reaches out her arm to pick up her phone again, like she always does.

“No!” I yelp.

“Oliver, what is your deal?” None of the kindness that I’ve seen for the past three weeks is on her face, though, and I remember again how she laughed when I fell ice-skating. It suddenly occurs to me that she wasn’t laughing with me, because I wasn’t laughing. She was laughing at me.

“You didn’t even bring the right candy!” I say.

“Huh?”

“I asked you to bring gumdrops and you brought Mike and Ikes.”

“Yeah, because my grandma eats gumdrops.”

“And so do I! And I don’t care if that makes me old or boring or weird or whatever.”

“O … kaaaay,” she says.

“And you bought them for social media!”

“Bought who?” Kelsey says, rubbing her head. I hate how crazy she’s making me feel.

I want to look at my phone, to send a desperate text to Flora asking what I should say, but I hear her watching TV with her dad and Goldy and I know that’d make me a hypocrite. And I know this is a conversation I want to have on my own. I need to have on my own. I can’t follow any more advice from the girl handbook. I need to write my own girl handbook.

“Look, Oliver, if this is about candy, I can buy you the stupid gumdrops, it’s not a big deal.”

“They’re not stupid! And neither am I.”

“I never said you were?”

“But you make me feel that way.”

“Why? Because I didn’t get you the right candy?”

“Because you didn’t get the right candy on purpose. Because you wanted to do what was cute and fun. For attention. For you.”

Kelsey gasps. “So this is the thanks I get? I risk my life by coming down here and exposing myself to something that could kill me just to take care of you, and this is how you show your gratitude?”

“What have you done to take care of me?” I say before I can stop myself.

Kelsey’s eyes bug out of her head. “Are you kidding me right now? You have to be kidding me right now. Someone is going to jump out from a corner of this room any second and tell me this is all a big joke, right? I’m in a freaking hazmat suit and I’m accused of being selfish. A hazmat suit! Do you know how scary this has been for me?”

I’ve heard that last sentence, that same sentiment, so many times from my mom. And Flora’s parents. So many times, and I’m so tired of having to worry about how scary this is when I’m the one in the hospital bed, when I’m the one who really cares about someone who really was sick. Flora is the one I care about, not Kelsey. And social media is what Kelsey cares about, not me.

“I think maybe you should leave.”

Kelsey picks up her phone. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I think you need to cool off a bit. I’ll post something on your hashtag so you can see how much other people care about you. How much I care about you. How selfish I’m not.”

“No! No more social media. And no more visits. I think you should leave this room, leave this hospital. Leave this state.” I take a deep breath. “Go back to Brooklyn.”

“Okay, now I know you’re messing with me. Joke’s over, Oliver. It was funny, you had me going. I’m ready for things to go back to normal with us.”

“Normal? We’ve never had a normal, Kelsey.”

“How can you say that? We’ve been in the same English class for two years.”

“Three years! And it was math class.”

“Right, that’s what I meant.” She’s rubbing her head again. “Listen, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“No!” I say.

“No?”

“No. I don’t want you to come back tomorrow.”

“Um, what are you talking about? What about our date to Coney Island?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Oliver, we have our own hashtags. We’re like a celebrity couple! People have expectations for us!”

“Well,” I say, “I have expectations for myself.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Oliver!” she says angrily.

“That’s the thing, Kelsey, I know exactly what I’m doing, even if it took me a while to realize it. And I know I’m doing the right thing.”

“Just wait until social media hears about this. Everyone will be on my side. They’ll see how awful you really are.”

“What’s awful about me?”

“Um, you’re breaking up with me!”

“How can I break up with you if I never even asked you out in the first place?”

Kelsey opens and closes her mouth a few times, then says very quietly, “I’ll make you sorry for this, just you wait.”

“I’m sorry,” I say hollowly. I think I’ve told strangers “bless you” after a sneeze with more emotion.

“Sorry? Now you apologize? You’re unbelievable.”

“I … never meant to hurt you. I think things got out of hand. Maybe we can still be friends?”

Kelsey throws her head back and laughs. “I never want to see your face again.”

I realize she has her phone in her hand. “Are you recording this?” I ask.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would, actually.”

“Good-bye, Oliver.”

“Um, bye? Can I give you a hug? A high five?”

She scowls at me.

“Okay. You don’t have to. Sorry, that was dumb.”

And as usual, we stand there looking at each other awkwardly. Something crosses over Kelsey’s face, and she puts her phone in her bag and says, “See you around Brooklyn.”

And she leaves the hospital room.