He swung open the door, and Mimi was there in the lobby, sitting on a low windowsill, staring out at the unfamiliar campus. Bruno, evidently working a double shift, still sat at the security desk and looked up, his reading glasses low on his nose, and said, “Oh, I see you’re back. Zoe’s gone, so I’m not giving you special access.”

And Mimi turned to him, her face ruddy and streaked with mascara, and said, “Zoe? I thought this was about Frankie!” And her voice bounced off the rotunda, and Bruno sighed loudly.

“No, Zoe’s just a girl I met—” Ezra stopped. He didn’t even know how to explain it. Zoe was just a girl he met when he woke up in her dorm room where he fell asleep spooning Frankie? “Anyway, she’s not important. And this isn’t about Frankie either, Meems.”

“I came all this way for you!” Mimi hiccupped. “You have no idea how difficult it was for me to get here!”

And Ezra didn’t; that was true. She still hadn’t told him the truth of why she’d missed her flight. What else didn’t he know? He felt an uneasy bubble of anxiety rise through him. No no no. That was only supposed to be a Frankie Harriman side effect. If he had a full-blown meltdown here, in the marbled lobby of Burton, who would talk him down? Mimi didn’t know about the breathing technique. Mimi didn’t know how to handle him at his most undone because she’d never had to; he’d never shown her his vulnerabilities.

Maybe we tell each other a multitude of lies, he thought, just so we can find someone to love us.

“Why didn’t you get on the plane last night, Mimi?” he heard himself ask.

“Because it was canceled! I told you this! You weren’t picking up, probably I realize now because you were with her—Zoe or Frankie or whatever—and I had to try to figure it out on my own,” she cried. “I mean, which is fine! I’m an independent woman or whatever, but I’m here, and I did the best I could!”

“But I know your flight wasn’t canceled,” Ezra said quietly because it was the thing he didn’t want to say.

“What are you talking about?” Mimi was on her feet now, half crying, half shouting, and Ezra’s instinct was to apologize to Bruno for the disturbance. Not because he was sorry but because he didn’t want Bruno to see Mimi this way; he didn’t want this stranger to see her at her worst. What he wanted to do was protect her, when maybe, it occurred to him suddenly, Ezra Jones should stop trying to look out for everyone else and start looking out for himself. Maybe he should be in control of his own destiny.

“Mimi, I checked with the airline. Your flight took off and landed, and I’m not angry, I’m not upset, I’m just trying to understand why there’s this gap between us that I wasn’t even aware of until now.” He paused. “Gregory told me about Kmart.”