These memories fit my falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend story so perfectly that I ignored many moments of discomfort: our clammy hands and his rambling texts about “exciting” finance internships. For the story, I pretended that I liked kissing him, though I later described our make-out sessions to friends as being “like two co-workers shaking hands, but less intense.”

One evening during finals, it rained. “I’ve always wanted to be kissed in the rain,” I thought and went to get him. When I grabbed his hand and told him what I wanted to do, he replied, abruptly, “I don’t think there’s a spark between us.”

I didn’t know how to respond. “Cool,” I finally said, shrugging. “We’re better as friends, anyway.”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. Then, putting on his headphones, he said he needed to study for his exam, so could I close the door behind me?

I stood in the hallway in my pajamas, unsure of how to feel. My friends were hanging out in the common room, unaware of the tragedy that had just occurred. Simply going back to my room to work on my Foucault essay didn’t seem the right response to this romantic Armageddon.

When Allie and Noah broke up in “The Notebook,” there was door slamming, hurled insults and crying. It seemed to me I needed to do something similar, so I ran out into the rain, shoeless, and screamed into the night. That’s what people do when they lose love, isn’t it? Scream? Or at least cry? But for me, the tears didn’t come. I just felt cold and wet and stupid. And I realized I had forgotten my keys.

Three months later, when we came back to school in the fall, I couldn’t put a finger on what it was that gnawed at me. He didn’t completely ignore me. He didn’t have sex with my roommate. He didn’t delete my number. We just didn’t see each other as much because we didn’t live in the same building anymore. I couldn’t even be mad at him. I felt empty, needy and, above all, bored.