Cornelia finds her in her dorm room at midday. Her laptop is resting on her chest as she watches the final episode of Fleabag for the umpteenth time, dried drool and Dorito dust on her chin.
"Heyyy."
"Corny?" Irma squints in her direction. "What are you doing here?"
"Taranee said she couldn't get through to you. She sent the next best thing."
"The next best thing would've been Will. You brought me doughnuts?" she adds with haste. "Since when did you become cool?"
"I've always been cool." Cornelia nudges the garishly pink doughnut box towards her. "So," she inquires, "how's the hideously inappropriate crush on Hay Lin going?"
"Oh, great. I should be ready to kill myself any day now."
"Come on." Cornelia forcibly removes the laptop from her chest, closing it shut just as Fleabag professes her love for the Hot Priest. "Spill."
"It's like…" She gesticulates widely. Cornelia blinks. "You know?"
"Do you?"
"I don't know." Through a mouthful of powdered doughnut she says, "Look, C, I don't expect you to understand or anything…"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it's, it's…" Irma heaves a sigh. "It's me liking a girl who's my best friend. It's complicated."
Cornelia scoffs. "You think I don't understand what it's like for love to be complicated?" she says. "Me, who was head over heels for someone I knew in my dreams for three years only to meet him and discover he's an alien from another planet?"
"Point taken." Irma pouts. "What do I do now?"
Elegant as ever, she wipes the doughnut powder from her mouth with a handkerchief. "You have to tell her."
"Why?" she groans. She sounds petulant, even to herself.
Her blue eyes are resolute. "Because you do."
"Is it really that simple?"
"Of course. It's that simple," she tells her, "and that complicated."
"Like you and Caleb?"
"Yeah. Like me and Caleb. But also nothing like me and Caleb."
For the first time in… she doesn't know how long, Irma cracks a smile. "You know you're pretty wisdom-ous."
Her friend returns her smile with uncharacteristic sympathy. "I've been told."