A zillion hashtags and one masterfully shot blob of cheese and noodle later, Leo’s lasagna ball Instagram is posted, and a large percentage of them are in my stomach. Leo sits on the couch, watching the likes trickle in, and I sit on the arm, hesitating before letting myself slide down with a plunk into the worn cushions beside him.

“So are we going to keep putting cheese in our faces, or talk about this DNA test thing?”

I’m not so good with the whole art of segueing. None of us are, really. I’m too blunt, Leo’s too honest, and Connie—well, Connie just plain doesn’t have the time. So Leo’s fully expecting the question, the anticipation easing out of him with a sigh.

There’s a silence, and this wobbly, uncertain moment when I think he might try to blow the whole thing off, and I won’t know how to not take it personally. But then he turns to me with more frankness than he has in months.

“It’s— I don’t know. Like, how you know that statistically speaking, the odds that there isn’t some other form of life in the universe are like, zilch.” He picks at a seam in his jeans that hasn’t quite come loose yet but is on its way. “But why the quiet? Do they not want to know us? Or can they just not reach us yet?”

I nudge Leo’s shoulder with mine, tentative at first, but then he sags some of his weight into me. The relief is almost embarrassing. I hate that it takes one of us being upset for things to feel okay between us.

“My family tree is the Fermi paradox.”

I wait in case he wants to elaborate. That’s the thing with Leo, though. I always understand more about him in the beats after he says something than when he says it.

“Well, whatever that means—I’m sure it’s that they can’t reach you,” I tell him. “I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to know you.”

Leo bristles. I take some of the edge off, because we both need it: “Even if you are kind of a dork.”

This earns me a sharp laugh. “Hey.”

“Facts are facts.”

He bops me on the knee with the palm of his hand, his skin touching mine where my jeans are ripped. His eyes linger on an old scar, just above my kneecap. I have no memory of what it’s from, but Leo does. He always keeps score of that kind of thing, like it’s some personal failing of his—ever since we were little, I’ve been the daredevil, and he’s been the safety net. Me climbing and jumping and shimmying into places I shouldn’t, and Leo a few feet behind, warning and worrying and probably developing Abby-shaped ulcers in every one of his organs along the way.

Before he can comment on it I rest my head on his shoulder, like when we were kids and napped on each other on the bus—one of the few times I was ever still for more than a few moments. Only it doesn’t feel quite like it did. There’s a new firmness to him, and he’s so tall now that my head doesn’t fall in the same place. It presses us closer, me trying to find some purchase on him, him scooting to let me fit.

I really shouldn’t do this. I know better. But it feels like I am playing a game of chicken with the universe—like I can make this whole thing feel normal, even when it actively is not.

Because normal isn’t my heart beating in my fingertips and in the skin of my cheek on his T-shirt sleeve. Normal isn’t noticing the way that cinnamon smell of his has gone from grounding to dizzying, taking on something sweeter and too innate in me to name. Normal isn’t having a big, stupid, ridiculous crush on one of my best friends, especially when he most certainly doesn’t have one on me.

And there it is: the BEI bubbling its way back to the surface and popping all over again. My brain is so into reliving it that sometimes I’m almost glad my parents keep me busy—the more time I sink into trying to keep up at school, the less time I have to think about how I colossally messed things up with Leo and almost took down our whole little trio with it.

I take my head off his shoulder, turning to face him. “And you know, the database on this thing updates all the time,” I press on. “You could check in a few months and maybe someone related to you will have taken the test. This isn’t game over.”

Leo lets this sink in. “I don’t know if I want to be like, waiting on that, you know?”

“So give me your password and I’ll check on it for you.”

He huffs out a laugh that’s equal parts appreciative and dismissive. “I’d still be waiting on it.”

I hop off his couch, reaching for his laptop. “Then I’ll change your password. Write it down on a teensy piece of paper and eat it.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he says.

“I’m serious,” I tell him, poised to type. “Minus the eating part.”

“What would the eating part even have accomplished?”

We’re veering off course, but I can tell he hasn’t fully gotten this off his chest yet. And even though he’s not going to tonight, and it will likely manifest into another one of his cooking and/or baking frenzies that will keep me and Connie fed at lunch for the next week, we can at least try.

I glance back at him, waiting.

“I don’t even really think about it that much. I mean, I didn’t, until recently. But I always kind of figured if I wanted to know, I could.”

“You can’t ask your parents?”

Leo glances at the driveway, as if one of them is going to jump out from under the porch window. “Well—the adoption was closed, so…”