But instead she said, “Well, I didn’t want it to come to this, but alas.”

Before he could stop her, she reached down for the brick by the door that appeared to serve as a doorjamb, and casually, as if she were a Little League pitcher, tossed it through a pane of glass just to her left. The shattering was high-pitched, startling, and Ezra nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Holy shit!” he yelled. “What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

She brushed shards of glass off the surrounding pane and then hoisted herself over the threshold and disappeared.

“Frankie!—” Ezra said, but found himself striding toward the broken window and peering in. “This is officially a crime!”

Silence. He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, if he’d hear sirens cutting through the still campus air. But there was just the soft hush of falling snow, of branches shifting under the snow’s weight.

The back door swung open, and Frankie looked triumphant.

“You’re welcome!” she said.

“You’re welcome?” Ezra held his ground, which he quickly realized was futile because they both knew he was going to follow her in.

Frankie rolled her eyes as he scrunched his hands into fists and literally shook them at the sky, then she raised her eyebrows, and he said, “Fine!” and she held the door as if she were being chivalrous.

Once inside, Ezra patted the wall until he found a light switch.

The lights flickered and then eked on, as if they needed coaxing. Ezra looked around. The bar hadn’t changed much in a decade: same stench of spilled beer, same faux-wood bar top, same mismatched counter stools. The back wall had signed photographs of celebrities who had passed through the area, probably for a summer concert series or a stay at the exclusive spa twenty minutes down the road. None of the faces had been updated or changed in ten years, which made Ezra feel old. Older, anyway. Above them, someone had haphazardly taped up a HAPPY NEW YEAR banner, along with purple and gold streamers, Middleton colors, which floated toward the floor. Ezra had never spent the holidays on campus: he’d always been happy, even eager, to get home. Not because he was homesick. Rather, as if by being there, he ensured that his mom was okay. New Year’s Eve meant they could throw out the shit from the calendar the year prior, and too often, that shit was chemo, radiation, and abject terror. A fresh start was the most he could ask for. Once Frankie began joining him, he sometimes wondered if he could just stop time, stay in his boyhood room forever, with his mom down the hall and his girlfriend under his comforter, and his Eagles and Phillies posters pinned on the walls, so that nothing could ever shatter the stability of those moments.

“No, no, turn the lights off,” Frankie called from over her shoulder. She was already behind the bar searching for something, which Ezra could only assume was extremely high-proof tequila. “No need to draw unnecessary attention. I know what I’m looking for.”