I didn’t want him to know just how excited I really was, how delighted that I had managed to hold on to my slender connection to them. I felt the way people may once have felt in the presence of royalty, except this was better because they were my friends. I knew that was lamer still, and I privately mocked myself for being so much the devoted hanger-on. It was tiredness, I told myself, the kind of exhaustion that makes you weak and emotional.
