With my sleep mask still in place, I heard another voice from two rows over: “Is he that cheating guy? The one with the prince? I know the drill. Two divorces and fifty-eight stitches in the back of my head from my ex’s golf club.”

As more passengers and crew members joined this open forum on my love life, the first flight attendant clapped his hands and said, “People? Come on, let’s leave the poor guy alone. He’s been through a lot.”

I was grateful for this but refused to cry until someone asked, “But why did he have to kiss that other guy?”

I’d planned on taking a cab from JFK, but when I got to the luggage carousel, there was Abby. She’d made an educated guess about which flight I’d be on, and she opened her arms and I let go, let it all out, and she held me for a long time.

“Come on,” she said, hefting one of my bags and leading me to her car. She drove us to New Jersey, pulling into the Piscataway IHOP parking lot. At first I resisted; weren’t IHOPs now cursed forever? Abby scoffed, and soon we were sitting in a booth, because this was, if not a solution, at least a temporary salve; maple syrup-flavored topping was my drug of choice.

“So,” she began as the waitress brought our pancakes, “I’ve watched the whole thing on YouTube maybe one hundred times, and here’s my thinking: you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But—”

“No. Sure, Callum was a total prick and you fell for it, but that’s not a crime. But then he lied, and Edgar should’ve believed you. He knows you. Why didn’t he trust you?”

I sighed. I was assembling my thoughts, telling Abby, “Because Edgar can’t trust anyone. And the awful part is, I understand why. He lives in this bubble where everyone’s after something, and his family and the whole world keep telling him who he should be. It’s hard to feel sorry for him, because of all his money and fame and whatever, but I saw it up close. I’m amazed he can even get out of bed in the morning.”

“Which is why you’re so good for him! I picked up on it, at my wedding. He called you out on your self-esteem stuff, and you made him laugh and loosen up and act like a person instead of a cardboard cutout welcoming tourists to Royalty World. And when you danced together, I was so thrilled, because, of course, my wedding gown had made you fall in love.”

For the first time in what felt like centuries, I smiled.

“Okay,” Abby continued, taking her cue from my smile, “so how do we fix this?”

I put down my fork, because there was only one answer: “We don’t.”