“No,” Frankie said. She wanted to reassure Laila because that’s how you tucked away your trauma for the time being. “No, nothing happened. I mean, nothing like that.”

Laila uncoiled, the tension in her face abating.

“Shit, still though. I shouldn’t have left you.”

Frankie really didn’t want to turn this into a thing when it was so much easier not to. Also, she was ruminating about Ezra’s chivalry. She lowered her voice, though the DJ had started up now—the opening riff of “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” cut through the air, and all the guests let out a cheer, so she had to recalibrate.

“I think it’s possible . . . we may have gotten married?”

Laila leaned in. “What?”

“I THINK IT’S POSSIBLE THAT EZRA AND I GOT MARRIED LAST NIGHT!”

She screamed this loudly, right when Steve Perry was taking a breath after Just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world.

Gregory, who happened to be clustered nearby, spun toward them and said, “Wait, that’s true?! You tracked down Alec?”

But Frankie said, “Shit! Shit! No, forget you heard that.” Then she noticed Ezra disappearing behind the stage, and she didn’t want to make him wait, even though she really did want to make him wait, but she was trying to be mature. Besides, now Mimi was heading toward them, and she absolutely did not want to have a girl fight in the middle of April and Connor’s wedding because that would be straight out of a terrible ’80s movie, and Frankie was repelled by clichés.

Gregory forced a grin and waved to Mimi, then through gritted teeth said, “Make sure your purses are zipped,” and Frankie would have laughed but her stomach had dropped, and it was all she could do to say, “I’ll be back,” and push herself forward to find Ezra backstage.

This wasn’t the first time they’d tripped their way back there, and Frankie very much did not like the memories this whole shebang stirred up. This evening, the backstage area had been transformed into the catering hot zone: waiters came and went with trays of hors d’oeuvres, and the chef barked things like, We’re firing the skewers! as Frankie dodged a young man who looked exasperated with the job and it was only an hour in.

Ten years ago, when she’d last set foot backstage—the only time she’d set foot backstage at Steinway—she’d found only cluttered darkness. Lights resting, ready to be hoisted, scattered parts of sets that had been broken down from whatever musical the theater nerds had put up that spring. She’d scampered back here when she heard the clatter of the doors to the auditorium open; she was hiding, of course. Hiding from Ezra, because ten years ago, that’s all she knew how to do.

By then, they were just two weeks away from graduation. It was early May. Ezra had long since made his choice to attend NYU Law, and Frankie made small but empty comments about possibly joining him even though her heart wasn’t in it and she knew she never would. In hindsight, she should have told him. She should have just said: We had something really beautiful for two years, and you’re my best friend, but I can’t. I can’t go back there, I can’t relive the life I’ve already had, even for you. And maybe they would have figured out a way to do things long-distance or maybe they could have had a clean break, said all sorts of platitudes that they actually meant when you’ve had your first significant revelatory love, and they could have split from each other with grace. Theoretically, Frankie knew that people could do this. But she didn’t know how to; she wasn’t one of those people.