I shift again. “Because—because I assumed we were always destined to fall apart. Jack and I were never supposed to meet. We were two lonely girls searching for the same book who found each other on Christmas Eve.”

And it’s hard not to believe some part of that was fated, that it wasn’t random chaos that brought us together and trapped us in the city for the entire day. It’s hard not to feel like Jack was created especially for me, and me for her. Some divine being who built her out of hard angles and tough sinew built me out of softer materials, curves and dimpled flesh. Jack is the steadiness to my sway, and I’m the control to her chaos, yet I’m the one who screwed us up.

“I convinced myself that someone like her could never love someone like me, so I self-sabotaged in the most epic way possible by assuming we weren’t meant to last. And I did that twice.”

Andrew looks serious for a moment. “Third time’s the charm?” he tries.

I shake my head. “People don’t give third chances. And it’s okay—Jack clearly doesn’t want to talk to me and that’s okay. I’m trying to change my patterns. I’m trying to be better at accepting failure is a part of life, and that means accepting that I messed things up with your sister and moving on.”

“Are you actually trying, though? I mean, sure, with your art and your life, A-plus for effort, but”—he places both hands flat on his knees, the way he placed those hands flat on a table before he asked me to marry him—“did you really try with Jack? Look, as we’ve established, I’m not your fiancé, and I’m not your brother, and if you want to tell me to fuck off, you can—”

“Fuck off,” I say. I halfway mean it.

“But,” Andrew continues, “it seems to me like you’re still assuming you’re going to fail before you’ve even tried. You said Jack doesn’t want to talk to you, but have you even reached out to her? Did you even try?”

I stare down at the purple flyer crumpled on top of my duvet.

“People do sometimes get third chances,” Andrew says. “Dylan and I did.”

On the bottom of the flyer, beneath the details about when and where, is a little postscript. Come exactly as you are. All are welcome.

“You should go,” he says.

“Go where?”

“To the soft opening. It’s on Valentine’s Day.”

“I can’t show up to her soft opening. She doesn’t want me there.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Do you know she does want me there?”

“No. That’s kind of the point. You have to take a risk and find out.”