Chapter 2

He didn't move at first. Just looked at me with that flat, cornered look he gets when something costs him more than he expected.

"Jo. Come on. Not now."

"Now or never. Pick one."

"Don't do this here." He said it low, like a warning.

Maya put her glass down. "She's got a point, though. Blindfolded or not, that's not her ear you described."

Somebody near the end of the table said something I didn't catch, and it was enough.

Vivian's shoulders went small. She took a step back, eyes on the floor, hands around her water glass so tight her knuckles paled — everything about her saying "I didn't mean anything by it."

Ethan turned toward her, and the same hand that had been reaching for me landed flat on her back.

"You're fine. This isn't about you."

I was standing a foot away. Nobody said a word to me. Not one.

His jaw tightened. "This is between me and Joanna. You guys go ahead and jump on a sophomore over nothing."

He crouched. That was the thing — he crouched.

Last week I'd spent three days alone putting together the graduation dinner, the seating and the deposits and the slideshow, and I got so sick I ended up in the campus clinic at 2 a.m.

I called him four times. He picked up on the fourth, and all he said was "Jo, I'm slammed. You're twenty-two. Figure it out."

Vivian had tripped on a curb in the parking lot. That was all.

He was already outside, one arm behind her, his voice coming back soft and quick through the door.

"Hey. Hey, you're okay. Walk me through it. Does anything hurt?"

She'd still been searching for the words. She always was.

The first time she fumbled a supply order and the club burned through its whole budget by October, he called her a sophomore.

The second time she borrowed his key and left the tap running in the apartment sink until the floor warped, he called her a sophomore.

The third time she dragged a private photo of mine into a group chat by mistake — and he still let her stay.

The room emptied fast. Chairs scraped.

Somebody pulled the string lights off the wall, and the banquet room went from a party to a rented hall with the party scraped off it, one long table down the middle.

"I know what you're going to say," he said, coming back in, unbuttoning his collar. "The ear thing. It's a mark, not a face."

I held up my hand. The ring caught the light and slid around to the joint. Four months of finals.

"It's loose," I said. "It's been loose since the day you gave it to me."

He waved it off. "It's a promise ring, Jo. I'll get it resized. Vivian picked the band, actually — she's got better taste than me."

I looked at it again.

A thin silver band with a tiny cat stamped into it. Some cartoon thing with round eyes. Two hundred dollars' worth of advice from a girl he'd known eight months.

When I asked why he'd switched from the plain one we'd picked out together, he said her taste was better and I should be flattered he took it.

"Ethan. It's not just the ring."

And then, from outside, a sharp cry. "Ethan!"

He was out the door before I finished the sentence.

Somewhere in the rush, his arm knocked the shelf behind him.

Two figurines went over — the matching pair his cousin had mailed from Paris last winter.

Two little figures in academic gowns, holding hands.

They landed face down, and I saw the underside of one of them.

Stitched in blue thread, small enough to miss if you weren't looking for it.

"V&B."

Nobody else in the parking lot would have noticed it. I noticed it because I'd spent four years looking for my initials on things.

I laughed. It came out of me once, short and flat, and it surprised him enough that he turned.

"Jo, I'm taking her to the clinic. The dinner's off, okay? I'll fix it tomorrow. All of it. Tomorrow."

He was already halfway to his car.

Maya and two other girls had come back out and were standing on the sidewalk, arms crossed, blocking him without meaning to.

"Let him through," I said.

"Jo—"

"Let him go."

They stepped aside. His car started. The headlights swept the curb and then the street.

I stood there a minute longer than I needed to, watching the taillights go, and I felt something in my chest settle — not break, not crack, just settle.

I took my hand back from Maya, who had been holding it.

"Are you okay?" she said.

"Yeah." I slid the ring down over my knuckle and closed my fist around it."I'm fine. I'm just done."