“Now I don’t know,” he finished. “Would she believe him if he didn’t show his limits? He would have no self-respect.”

I knew the movie’s name. I remembered the scene where the dark-haired boy gave up and walked alone and heartbroken down the alley, the town’s fireworks exploding above him, and later when the girl in the pink coat came to him, solemn with her desire. But the name of the movie didn’t matter. What mattered was that my friend was falling for Hiro, and it frightened her. She was afraid she’d mess up again.

“I always liked that he left. He finally let her decide,” I said. “On her own.”

Hiro looked down at the open catalog, the bright colors of the screen prints, studying them for another lengthy interval.

“You liked that he left?” he said, shutting the book with a thump.

“I liked that she went and found him,” I said. “Maybe let yourself be found.”

Hiro nodded thoughtfully and turned from the window. “Have fun tonight. She really wants to be with you. She says you’re her wisest friend, even though you don’t think you are.”

“Doubtful,” I said, smiling. “But it’s nice to be missed.”

“Right,” Hiro said, slapping my doorjamb. “I’m going to try that.”

LET YOURSELF BE FOUND.

In the movie, the young woman goes in search of her admirer. She enters the projection room where he works, where he stands in blue-white light, feeding reels into the machine.

He stares. She has found him, and this answers the question of his love. Yes. But for a few seconds, they stare, disbelieving. Then her hands flicker to his shoulders; his arms go around her; he lifts her, spins her, all the way to another room, for a kiss. On the projector behind them, the reel flutters to its end. Its soft whisper stops.

Time stops for love.

And yet. What if she had not come? What would that have done to him, and to her?

Brenae was last seen entering her studio on Tuesday. As far as we knew, she had spent the entirety of Wednesday alone and killed herself before the next day dawned. What had she been waiting for, all that time? For someone to find her? If not Erik, then Layla or Zania, or Janis or Nelson or Hal, someone, anyone who had pretended to be her lover, her friend, her supporter? How long would she sit in that room, her body hollowing, becoming a lack of self, becoming no one?