I clutch the red rose I bought at the vendor on the street and search the faces of the crowd.

He’s not coming.

No matter Gavin’s confidence in him or how much I wish it were different, Will isn’t coming.

I left a message on his phone, telling him I had one last idiotic, ill-advised, romantic foolery left to win my true love. I promised him that he was going to hate it and he’d have to try to stop me—because that’s what friends did.

I told him I’d be waiting at the top of the Empire State Building, holding a red rose…and my heart. Both of them were for him.

Please come, I’d said. I’ll be there at ten o’clock. Please come.

I walk closer to the window and peer down at the street below. I half expect to see him jump out of a taxi. But I don’t.

He’s not here. He’s not coming.

“Ma’am. The elevators are leaving.” The guard motions at the elevator and I take one last look at the panoramic view of the city and the emptying observatory.

At the street level exit I throw the rose into the garbage. I think about how Will threw away The Horse and His Boy all those years ago.

But he went back for it. He went back.

I’ll wait. Maybe he’s racing toward me, scared he’ll be too late. I lean my back against the side of the building and scan the street.

An hour passes. Then another. Midnight comes and goes. I start to get nervous as the street grows more deserted. He’s not coming.

I open my purse and pull out the tattered old copy of our book. I flip through the pages. Near the end, I catch a paragraph underlined in dark ink.

My eyes fill with tears. It’s the paragraph where Cor and Aravis decide to marry, because they were so used to fighting and making up that they got married so they could do it more easily. Next to it in a boyish scrawl is the word us, and a date from nearly fifteen years ago. I flip through the pages again and find one last underline. It’s one of my favorites too. It always made me feel better whenever I read it.

It says that when your life goes wrong, it usually keeps getting worse and worse until things turn around, and when they do, it all keeps getting better and better and beautifully better.

I wipe my eyes, close the book, and put it back in my purse.

I never knew how beautifully better life could be until I opened up to Will.

I search the streets again.

He’s not coming.