I have Ari and her occasional condescension and her unwavering loyalty and her admirable confidence that she is, somehow, my best friend and always has been. I have the Brideshead housemates. I have Andrew, who walked back into my life and then kindly refused to walk back out again. And he brought others with him.

Like Dylan, who showed up at Brideshead to drag me to brunch two days after Andrew’s surprise visit. (“A hedge fund?” I asked. To which Dylan scoffed, “I know, I truly can’t take him anywhere in this city anymore.”)

Like Meemaw and Lovey, who called me out of the blue one evening and invited me to a sip-and-paint. Apparently, it happens twice a month at their favorite wine bar in Lake Oswego, and after we did amazing drunk-replications of Starry Night, we made plans to come back.

Like Katherine, who dropped off a bag of food one Sunday afternoon and then invited herself inside for a bottle of wine that soon turned into three. It turns out she’s a little lonely post-separation from Alan. I’ve agreed to come over next weekend to help her paint the walls of her new condo.

I used to think letting more people in would mean having more people who could ultimately disappoint me. Hurt me. Walk out of my life. But having more people means there are more arms at the ready to catch me when I fall. And I fall a lot.

And it feels good to be the arms for someone else, too. It feels good to both need and be needed—to have seasons of needing and seasons of giving—but when I think about Jack. About being Jack’s friend. The thought calcifies inside my lungs.

I haven’t seen her, even since I’ve started seeing her family. Dylan and Katherine and Meemaw all assure me that she’s doing well, that she’s moving on, that friendship between us is possible. And if I want to keep the rest of the Kim-Prescotts in my life, friendship seems like the right path forward.

“You ready?” Ari asks as we cross the street toward the building. There’s a small banner out front announcing the soft opening with those same words printed in purple: “All Are Welcome.”

I hope that includes me.

The building is almost unrecognizable from the place she showed me a year ago. New windows, new paint, and a new sign out front. There’s an awning and a pride flag, and I feel slightly untethered when I think about all that has happened between last Christmas and this moment so that Jack could achieve her dream.

But I remind myself I am tethered. To Ari’s arm.

“Ready.”