Frankie didn’t want to get into all of that, even though she realized that she had been the one to raise it. She reached into her purse and wedged her fingers into the tiny satin pocket that sat just below the zipper. She clasped his grandmother’s ring and took four long steps toward him. Then she grabbed his right hand and forced it into his palm, then pressed his fingers closed, into a fist.

“And now,” she said, even though she knew it was spiteful, “it’s about to be a new century, so we’re done entirely. A fresh start. As if we never met.”

THIRTY-TWO

Ezra

Ezra did not want Frankie to have the last word. Goddammit, he knew he needed to leave it alone. What was even the point of the verbal sparring, of the back-and-forth, when all he wanted—all he needed—was to go back out to the party and dance with Mimi and enjoy the buffet and propose at midnight.

Instead, he marched after Frankie and grabbed her arm before she could slide out from backstage.

“What?” she barked. “What else is there possibly to say?”

Ezra didn’t know. He hadn’t thought it through. Certainly, there was a lot to say, even though most of it should have been said a decade ago, and now, it felt like an emotional excavation. Leave, he thought. Just leave it. Just leave her. But like so many things with Frankie Harriman, he felt powerless to do so. Surprisingly, he did not feel like panicking; he did not feel the rise of an oncoming anxiety attack. He’d always assumed that Frankie had somehow played a part in his spiral of nerves, but he was here now, with her, facing an incoming shitstorm, and when he surveyed his heart, his mind, he didn’t find the usual static that clouded him, that terrified him, that sent him to the floor trying to breathe.

Ten years ago, just a couple of weeks out from graduation, before everything changed, Laila had seen Frankie run from Burton Library crying. Laila had been on the pay phone out front with her mom, she’d told him, so she couldn’t chase after her.

“She looked wrecked, like, really, really upset,” Laila had said, her face awash in concern. They both knew that Frankie never cried; she rarely, if ever, even lamented. Ezra had never questioned that until now: he’d just assumed she was gifted with a stoic constitution, the very opposite of him. He stood in the lobby with Laila and realized that was one of the reasons he loved her. It would be a long time until he realized that what he thought he’d loved had been make-believe, just a construct.

“I don’t know where she went,” Laila said, looking helpless. “Do you think it’s something with her parents?” Ezra had no idea what to think because she hadn’t shared anything about them recently, and well, he hadn’t asked. But he did think he knew where to find her.