on the edge, who come in wearing immaculate foundation—masks of sulky self-possession—and end up with snot leaking through their fingers as they try to articulate the hell of being sixteen. Their phones are significantly involved; I encourage them to leave them downstairs at night, but of course they don’t. They devise sophisticated forms of torture for each other, switching SIM cards, goading, hoaxing, shunning and, rarely, forgiving. I don’t envy them trying to figure out through this maze of posts and likes and insults, who, exactly, their true friends are.

Ariadne was the one who got me through my teens. I loved and envied her to a degree that unnerved me because I could never be like her. Her virtues seemed to underline my faults: she was womanly, strong, inhe...

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