The face of indifference is placed so carefully on his features, though, so I know he’s trying to withdraw any personal feelings he would have and hear the answer to the question.

“Not in the way you’re implying,” I say honestly. “Or the way everyone assumes.”

I’m prepared for a follow-up question. He can use my lowered defenses and inebriation to get answers to whatever he’s curious about, but he just nods, like I simply confirm a suspicion he held.

“You don’t like Lyla then?” Dylan presses.

“She’s fine,” I say. “I’m just annoyed, I guess.”

“At what?”

“This entire night.”

“Why?”

I sigh. “Because all I wanted to do was go home and unwind from the week. Take a bath. Eat dinner. Spend an hour staring at my planner and then make amazing progress on my essay that’s going to land me a freakin’ awesome internship and set me on the path of actually being a successful writer instead of a poor Pittsburgh girl who has to live in her parents’ basement while she fails to get anything published.”

I crack open another bottle of water, needing to do something with this shaky ranting energy.

He watches me now the same way he watches me take charge in our English class. Like it’s not entirely unpleasant for him to be spending his time this way.

“But no, James wants to go to the movies,” I continue. “And then James wants to go to a track party. And James needs me to go with him so that he can promptly ditch me for someone he is talking to.”

Dylan finally moves from the coffee table to share the couch with me. “It sounds like you’re mad at James, not the day of the week.”

Normally, I brush Dylan’s James-centric comments aside because they’re built on years-long hatred, but this actually makes me pause. “Maybe I am.”

“Being angry at your best friend is part of life, Reed,” he says.

I would actually give what money I have in my checking account, all two hundred dollars of it, to watch Dylan and Brandon argue.

“I mean, not everyone can run around complimenting you all the time.”

I laugh at that idea. “When have you ever complimented me?”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re focusing on the wrong part of my point.”

“I don’t know why it’s so difficult for me to admit that I am angry at James,” I say, sitting up.

I’m too annoyed to be relaxed now, but the anger makes me feel more in control of my own body again. I guess rage makes me sober.

I tear my hair from the stupid way Audrey made me style it and run my fingers through it.

“You seem to have planned an awful lot of things around him,” he says delicately. “For someone who treats you like garbage half the time then practically is attached to you the rest…it’s odd that you’re so loyal to him.”

If I wanted to have an all-encompassing crisis of friendship and identity, I would have preferred to do it in my own room.

My head hits the back of the couch, and I groan.

“You know I was actually feeling really good about the essay?” I say quietly. “For the first time in months? I was actually excited to work on it tonight, but obviously that didn’t happen.”

Dylan stands abruptly. “About that…”

He leaves the room again, and I can’t even come up with an idea of what he is doing. I just press myself into the couch while I count the seconds until he returns.

I jump when he spreads the blanket out over my legs, making me a few degrees warmer.

“Thank you.” I burrow into it until I see what he has in his hands. I recognize the sleek white packaging before I even read the name on the front of the box.

“What’s this?” I ask.

Of course, I’m well aware that it’s a brand new MacBook Pro, the latest model that I could only dream of owning someday if I siphoned some cash from my future student loans.

I just don't know why he’s holding it or why he’s looking at me like that.

“I believe that you once bragged to me about the amount of words you could read in a minute, so this should be pretty obvious,” Dylan says evenly, tapping the front of it.

I push back the sleeves of his hoodie to accept the box in my hands.

It’s so light and beautiful, and I could weep over that alone.

“Am I dreaming?” It seems like a very real possibility.

“No, but you are coming off of a decent buzz from what I can tell.”

I try to hand it back to him. “I can’t accept this, Dylan. Really, it’s way too much.”

He rolls his eyes. “Do I really need to explain to you the proper etiquette in giving and receiving gifts? If anything, I’m doing myself a favor so I don’t have to watch your hair grow three sizes in frustration every time you use your computer.”

There’s that self-preservation again.

Gift giving, while it seems altruistic, is actually very selfish.

You want to give to someone something to make them feel a certain way because you care about them. I see it every single birthday on my parents’ faces as they watch James and me tear open the presents that they spend the other three hundred and sixty-four days tracking down for us.

Dylan won’t allow me to reject this gift.

And I shouldn’t deny it. I should revel in the fact that he made an effort to do something for me.

Plus, I really want it. Really, really want it.

“What kind of writer doesn’t have a working computer, Reed?” Dylan questions, pushing me to accept the gift.

“One that still can use pen and paper just fine,” I pose just for the sake of arguing.

“It’s the least I can do to thank you for saving my ass this semester. I mean, it’s just a computer. It won’t even make a dent in my weekly allowance.”

“You get an allowance?” For some reason, that’s just as odd to me as Dylan actually getting me a gift.

I don’t think he told me that information to brag or make me feel less adequate, but it only further confirms how different our lives are. This computer is going to be a game-changer for me and one less financial burden I have in the future, but to him, it’s just another swipe of a credit card.

Dylan helps me open it. “Peeling off the film from the screen is the best part of getting any new Apple product.”

I don’t disagree, so I let him have the glory of it for this.

“You should have the honors,” I insist. “After all, it was your money that made it possible.”

“I’ll accept a dedication in your first bestseller as repayment for this,” Dylan says once we have unpacked it and made it through all the startup menus. “I’ll probably fall asleep after that page, though, because I don’t need a regurgitation of your study habits or whatever else you want to teach people about.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to write those kinds of books.”

“What kind do you want to write?”

At first, I think he’s mocking me. I’ve been conditioned by James and my own preconceptions to believe that Dylan gets off on making me feel like garbage, but I’m starting to learn that it’s not the case. One look at him confirms it.