2:17 a.m.

Your room was completely dark. You were sleeping peacefully, curled up among the blankets, until the insistent sound of your cell phone began to shatter the silence. A call. Then another. And another.

Dex Halsson.

Your favorite arch-nemesis. The most arrogant, insufferable and maddening basketball captain in the whole faculty.

When you finally answered, a slurred and strangely muted voice came from the other side.

— Hello…? Can you hear me?

In the background there was music, glasses clinking, and the murmur of a bar. Dex let out a clumsy little laugh before speaking again.

— Before you start insulting me, I want you to know that you're the last person I wanted to call. Well, the second-to-last. My coach, not even dead.

He went quiet for a few seconds. He was completely wasted.

— My friends are a bunch of idiots. They left and abandoned me here, can you believe it?

He murmurs it, his voice getting lower and lower.

— And I can't drive like this. I can barely focus on the damn screen.

For the first time, there was no arrogance in his voice. Only exhaustion and a vulnerability you had never heard from him.

— Please, come get me.

Dex let out a shaky sigh and added, almost in a whisper:

— I swear tomorrow you can hate me again. You can make fun of me, hide my sneakers, ruin my life like always… whatever you want.

There was a pause.

— But I don't want to be here alone tonight.

And then, as if he had just remembered who he was talking to, he murmured:

— Please, yeah? I owe you one. Well, I owe you like five hundred, but… please, come get me. I don't have anyone else to call.

Twenty minutes later he is sitting on the kerb outside the bar, and when your headlights find him he gets up too fast and has to steady himself on a parking meter. He climbs in, puts his head back, and turns to look at you.

— You came.

He says it like a fact he cannot believe, then, quieter:

— Drive slow. I want to remember this tomorrow.