When she stopped, Ezra mumbled something like: “You’re incredible,” and she rose from the bench and curled up on the beanbag next to him, mostly because her head really was throbbing, and she wanted to be horizontal, but also because she found that she just wanted to be near him, to get closer to him, in any way that she could.

She said: “I would have done it all differently, you know. And I’m sorry I didn’t.”

And his eyes fluttered open, and he said: “Me too.”

She reached into his jacket pocket and found his grandmother’s ring and slid it on her finger. She was curious how the weight of it would feel, because she’d spurned the chance ten years ago. She held it up to the light, and Ezra shook his head and said, “Wow, this is really a mind-fuck,” and it wasn’t eloquent, but Frankie laughed, and then so did he, because he was right.

And one of them, even now with a few minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, as Frankie slowed her pace because Ezra was in front of her, she couldn’t remember which one, said: “We should start over, go all the way back to Homer and just start over.”

And so they did. Ezra slipped the gold band over his finger, and he called her Mrs. Harriman because she said she’d still keep her maiden name, so he said, “Great, I’ll be Mr. Harriman because why not,” and she said, “No, no, no, Ez, you gotta learn to keep parts of you for yourself,” and he nodded because it was true. And then they waited for someone to emerge from the Homer gate, and they tiptoed inside, which was pointless because no one was really around. And then Ezra found his freshman-year room, and it was unlocked because everything at Middleton was safe. And they curled up into bed together and fell asleep, just slept because it was what they needed most and maybe that was the most intimate thing they could do with each other now. His heartbeat like a metronome in her ear, her breath a welcome calm in his busy, ever-anxious brain.

And then they woke up this morning, and everything was forgotten.

FORTY-FOUR

Ezra

Ezra checked his watch, and it was nearly time. On the lawn across the way, some students were setting off shitty makeshift fireworks, and he turned for a minute and fought the urge to run over and tell them to be careful. That they could blow off a finger or an ear. But he didn’t need to take care of everyone; he knew this now.

Besides, Frankie was in front of him, out of breath, and it was almost midnight, and he was tired of always being the grown-up. Where had that gotten him? The most success he’d had was when he gave in and followed his passion, quitting law school, building his gaming platform, losing himself to the numbers or the cards or, yes, how much he had loved Frankie Harriman. He’d do it differently now. He’d take the time to listen to her fears; he’d take the time to understand why and how he could love someone whose perspective on their future was so out of sync with his own. She had been awful about the pregnancy, New York, the rest of it, but he’d been awful in his own way too. Maybe that’s just who you were at twenty-two, but he’d repeated plenty of those mistakes between then and now all the same.