Contents ( 101)
- Also by Allison Winn Scotch
- Contents
- PROLOGUE
- SIXTEEN HOURS LATER
- ONE
- Frankie
- TWO
- Ezra
- THREE
- Frankie
- FOUR
- Ezra
- FIVE
- Frankie
- SIX
- Ezra
- SEVEN
- Frankie
- EIGHT
- Ezra
- NINE
- Frankie
- TEN
- Ezra
- ELEVEN
- Frankie
- TWELVE
- Ezra
- THIRTEEN
- Frankie
- FOURTEEN
- Ezra
- FIFTEEN
- Frankie
- SIXTEEN
- Ezra
- SEVENTEEN
- Frankie
- EIGHTEEN
- Ezra
- NINETEEN
- Frankie
- TWENTY
- Ezra
- TWENTY-ONE
- Frankie
- TWENTY-TWO
- Ezra
- TWENTY-THREE
- Frankie
- TWENTY-FOUR
- Ezra
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Frankie
- TWENTY-SIX
- Ezra
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- Frankie
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- Ezra
- TWENTY-NINE
- Frankie
- THIRTY
- Ezra
- THIRTY-ONE
- Frankie
- THIRTY-TWO
- Ezra
- THIRTY-THREE
- Frankie
- THIRTY-FOUR
- Ezra
- THIRTY-FIVE
- Frankie
- THIRTY-SIX
- Ezra
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- Frankie
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- Ezra
- THIRTY-NINE
- Frankie
- FORTY
- Ezra
- FORTY-ONE
- Frankie
- FORTY-TWO
- Ezra
- FORTY-THREE
- Frankie
- FORTY-FOUR
- Ezra
- FORTY-FIVE
- Frankie
- EPILOGUE
- Ezra
- Acknowledgments
- The Rewind
- Allison Winn Scotch
- Questions for Discussion
- What’s next on your reading list?
He shook his head and said, simply: “Mimi, I think . . . maybe we were a perfect match on paper but—”
She interrupted him. “Ezra, you knew that wasn’t real, right?”
“What?”
“The questionnaire, you knew that wasn’t real?”
Ezra narrowed his eyes into a squint. “What?”
“None of that is real!” she said, as if she were explaining that the world wasn’t flat, as if this should have been the most fundamentally obvious thing to him for the past two years they’d been together. “The questions are bullshit, the matchmaking is bullshit. It’s all just for an algorithm. We just want people to sign up and maybe some of them will have a few decent dates and get laid. Who am I to say who will be a perfect match, who will live happily ever after? It’s all fiction. We just wanted their credit cards, their monthly payments. If anything else worked out, that’s the fucking cherry on top!”
“But you trotted me out; you told everyone that we were the perfect example.” Ezra felt his cheeks flush with heat, embarrassed at his naivete, as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “I hated all of that. And you did it anyway.”
“You never told me you hated it!” Mimi scowled. “And you never even looked closely at my form. You never actually saw my answers! You just believed what you wanted to, and I guess I figured that you were smart enough to know that.” She crossed her arms, pursed her lips, then quieted. “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make this work. That doesn’t mean that we aren’t actually wonderful. We are!” Her eyes swam with tears. Then quieter still, a plea: “Please. Even if it started on a lie, I love you, I really do.”
“I can’t,” he said without artifice, his thoughts swarming and swirling then settling. “I just . . . I can’t.”
And she let out a string of ugly, monstrous wails, and Ezra didn’t judge her for it. He only wished he’d seen that part of her sooner, back when he would have found the ugly parts beautiful. Now, he knew, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t changed. So there was nothing else to see.
THIRTY-FIVE
Frankie
Frankie watched April and Connor slice into their red velvet cake and delicately feed each other a bite, which was a promising sign. She’d read somewhere that couples who shove the cake into each other’s faces have a higher chance of divorce. Honestly, Frankie thought that everyone had a pretty decent chance at divorce, but she was relieved, almost overjoyed, that her friends from so long ago had a shot at making it work.
The DJ invited everyone back onto the dance floor, and April let out a whoop, and Connor, bless his heart, tried to do a little pump with his arms timed to a gyration of his hips, and April laughed until she cried good tears. But the DJ changed it up at the last second—a trap to get reticent couples up from their chairs, a bait and switch for potential twosomes who were left flat-footed, expecting a jam, and being thrown a love song.