“It’s a huge relief that it’s over but there’s been a lot of stress, and hoping that I did the right thing”

Susie was parked, and Aly was taking care of the honors of handing out their orders. “One shawarma bowl, hold the onions,” she said, passing a brown paper bag to Chayala. “One spicy beef-topped potato knish,” she announced, nodding in Shira’s direction and making sure she added extra napkins to her bag. “One kishka situation roll.” She wrinkled her nose slightly as she handed it to Dassi. “And one toameha cholent plate,” she said with a happy sigh, opening her own fragrant container.

“I feel like the worst part about this whole thing has been that we haven’t had a cholent night in months,” said Dassi, separating her chopsticks with a snap. “Like things haven’t been traumatic enough, I also needed separation anxiety from Ess N Fress?” She savored her friends’ laughs, happy to finally get a semblance of her old self back. When had she joked around with her friends last? It felt like a hug.

“Have you had a chance to process everything? How are you?” Shira asked. Of course it was Shira, but Dassi wasn’t annoyed. “I’m good,” said Dassi firmly. “I mean, it’s a huge relief that it’s over but there’s been a lot of stress, and hoping that I did the right thing. So, yeah, processing this whole parshah has been a little insane. Ask me in six months,” she said with a laugh. She took a bite of her kishka roll.

“Ohmigosh, I forgot to tell you guys the craziest thing! Remember when I was dating Ari some super weird things kept happening? Like I thought they were Ari-ish red flags, so some of them didn’t even register. Like when Ari’s mother rescheduled our meeting so I was dressed for a hike, remember? Well, there were other things. A million years ago, when we had the concert, there were a bunch of people who were there who claimed they had gotten an invitation. We thought they made it up, but they even showed it to us. And toward the end of dating, the shadchan texted me that Ari wanted to slow things down, which sent me into a whole tailspin — we hadn’t been talking through the shadchan by then for ages, and it was so weird to hear that from her out of the blue. And Ari never mentioned it on the next date.”