Frankie didn’t remember what he said. White-hot anger was buzzing in her brain, and she was too clouded to focus. Eventually, he stopped talking, and she realized he was waiting for a reply. So she said no.

Then Ezra rose to his feet, clearly stunned, which Frankie didn’t understand because she’d never indicated that she had any interest in marriage, much less at twenty-two, which meant she would be exactly like her own mother and father, who were the world’s worst example of how to be married.

“No?” Ezra had parroted back.

“No!” Frankie said. “Absolutely, unequivocally no.”

“But—”

“But what?” she said too loudly. “What about me ever gave you the impression that I wanted to be someone’s wife?”

And it was unkind. She knew as soon as it was out of her mouth, but she was so furious at him. After two years, he had totally and wildly misunderstood her. What was the point of loving someone if they refused to see the entirety of you? What was the point of any of it?

“I mean, I love you, Frankie! I want to be with you forever!”

“You can’t love me,” she shouted, “when it is devastatingly clear that you don’t know me!”

“What does that mean?” Ezra yelled back. “I know every single thing about you.”

“Then you’d know that I would never in a million years say yes.”

They said some ugly things after that: how if he didn’t know her, it was because she refused to let him; how if she’d refused to let him, then maybe it was because she’d been the smart one; how she was too childish for motherhood; how he would fuck it all up because he was always in pursuit of his absent dad.

It was an undignified, messy ending, and they both deserved better. But they’d let so much go unsaid for so long that it all spilled out, too much, more than either of them really wanted. A decade later, running up the frozen brick pathway of Middie Walk, Frankie understood that. But back then, she was so angry at him, so offended by what she saw as a betrayal of who she was working so feverishly to become, that she didn’t know how else to react.

She made her mom cancel the dinner reservation. April and Laila happened to stop by her room while she was sitting on the floor crying, and they pulled her up, and she told them everything, and they listened with no judgment, then called her a cab and walked her to the curb and hugged her one more time.

“Do you want me to tell Ezra you left?” April had asked. “What can I do to make this easier?”

And it was such a simple question, such a perfect question, that Frankie started crying again. She didn’t want anyone telling her what to do, like Ezra had, like Ezra would. She just wanted someone to make it easier. This was what she owed April a decade later: an act of grace. And this was why she showed up for her wedding: because sometimes, you stood beside people to make things easier, to make them complete.