You don’t have to be. It’s whatever. [She stares at her fingernails, simultaneously grateful and frustrated she had done her own nails.]

It was... a really big thing on the internet. They were trying to save some apple orchard, because I guess Evan was like, oh, Connor was super into—- [Apples. The apples in the vending machine. The pies he’d made. She’d always thought it was bullshit— but she hadn’t really ever thought about Connor when she dismissed it. She was always thinking about herself. But now— she knew Connor. He was real. He was funny in the same ways that she was. He was a good listener, and he tried to look out for her. About a hundred apples tumble out of a vending machine, and then he made them into pies for them.

Her elbows drop to her podium, and she lowers her head down, clenching her braids in her fists.]