But they had never argued; they didn’t even know how to really. And eventually, luck ran dry: you couldn’t exist together with such opposing desires and forge peace, find common ground. The pregnancy wasn’t the wedge that would drive them apart, though on that they were also divided; rather, it was the light bulb that illuminated brighter and brighter for Frankie that what she needed was out. Ezra’s notions of the future terrified her, but more than that, they enraged her. He knew she had spent her years at Middleton attempting to break the shackles of her childhood, even if he didn’t know the full-dimensional why of it, and here he was, pretending that a baby, that cohabitation, that New York were all on a new road map for the course she had charted, a course she should just rewrite.

It had been a balmy, bright day in May. Ezra’s mom was in town for graduation, as were Frankie’s parents, though her mom and dad were barely speaking. Frankie’s mother had booked a table for the five of them for dinner at the nicest restaurant in town to celebrate. Frankie pulled on her cap and gown, and spun around in front of the mirror a few times, then turned to the side and cupped her belly, which was still flat—she was only seven weeks pregnant—and gave herself one moment to consider shelving LA and her flight out that night and giving in to everything Ezra wanted because she did love him. But she met her eyes in the reflection and knew she had done that for the first seventeen years of her life—played dress-up for someone else’s aspirations—and she also knew, even as much as she did love him, even as wide as her love was, that this was simply too much to ask.

Her phone rang on her desk, and she answered it. Ezra was at Burton, calling from a pay phone. Come meet me, he said, then we’ll go to the holding area together. It was too early to line up for the graduation ceremony, but Frankie didn’t have anything else to do: her room was packed, she was dressed, and besides, as fraught as these few weeks had been, she wanted to leave for Los Angeles on a good note, with only fond memories. She’d call him from there and say that she couldn’t have the baby, that she’d had it taken care of. He’d be angry, she knew, but ultimately, he had his whole life in front of him too. One day, he’d be grateful.

She descended the steps to the dorm and pushed open the metal door into the bright blinding sunshine and wandered through the campus, trying to pinpoint what she was feeling, how she could explain. And then there he was, exactly where he said he’d be in the archway to Burton Library. Her Ezra. He didn’t break his promises.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at her cap and gown. “You look beautiful.”

And before she could even reply, he was down on one knee, his grandmother’s ring in a black velvet box.