Chapter 3

Fifteen minutes later, the events coordinator found me by the coat rack — a fourth-year named Priya.

"Joanna — if the dinner's moving, I need a date. The room's booked through Sunday."

I was still holding the ring. I hadn't realized my hand was still closed around it.

"Don't hold it," I said. "The dinner's done. Everything's done."

She wrote something down and left me alone.

My phone went off in the elevator.

Vivian had posted in the department group chat.

A photo. Passenger seat of Ethan's car, her shoes up on the dashboard, a boba cup in her hand.

Some people get a mentor. I got the whole package.

Fifteen replies in three minutes. Hearts. Laughing faces.

Four years and I'd sat in that seat twice. Both times he'd asked me to move because the angle of the mirror made him nervous.

I put the phone in my pocket and walked the rest of the way to the dorm.

Maya was already there. She'd beaten me back and had the door open.

"Are you going to say anything?"

"Give me a minute."

I sat on my bed and pulled the clip out of my hair. Then I got up and wiped my face off, one side then the other.

The person in the mirror was fine. Tired. Twenty-two.

All those years I'd told myself he wasn't careless, he was just wired wrong — that the problem was in his head, not his heart, and that as long as he was looking at me he was mine. I'd made that excuse for him so many times it had started to sound like my own idea.

Vivian had been around for eight months. Less than a school year. And she'd already gotten more from him than I'd had in four.

At that point, holding on just looked stubborn.

I called my mom.

"Graduation's still Saturday, right? Your aunt's talking about driving up."

"It's off. Don't come."

A pause. "Joanna. What did he do?"

"I can't do this on the phone. I'll call you Sunday."

She started to say something else and I hung up before it could land.

Then I texted Priya: [Give my gallery slot to whoever's on the waitlist. I'm out.]

I'd been assigned a corner of the gallery, the best one. I'd been planning it since December.

It took her nine seconds to write back. [Are you sure?]

[I'm sure.]

I got in the shower and stayed until the water went cold, then lay down in my clothes, which is a thing I do when I don't want to think.

When I woke up it was dark and the room was empty. Maya had left a note on my pillow and a granola bar.

My phone had four messages from Ethan, all in a row, all short.

[Can't leave. She needs a scan done.]

[Bring me something from the dining hall when you come.]

[Get the shrimp fried rice.]

[Jo, you're up, right?]

I sat there for a while.

Then I took a picture of the ring on my palm and put on my shoes.

I wanted to see it.

Not him — the room. I wanted to know if I'd been imagining things for four years or if I'd just been too tired to look.

---

The campus clinic closed at eight for students, but there was a walk-in side for faculty and families, which is why Ethan was in a back room with his mother and his sister.

I heard them before I saw them.

His mother's voice, the one that fills a room without trying: "So she's the one you described blindfolded. In front of everyone. That's the kind of thing you can't fake, honey."

Ethan's sister: "He doesn't even know our birthdays. He knows hers. Do the math."

The door was open about an inch. I pushed it with the bag of food.

Ethan was sitting on the edge of the bed with a paring knife, carving the skin off an apple.

Vivian was propped against the pillows, ankle wrapped, hair down. She was wearing a hoodie of mine.

His mother was holding her hand.

I'd met his mother three times in four years. Each time she'd shaken my hand and then found something else to look at.

I'd always assumed it was because I didn't fit. That she'd have been warmer to a girl from the right family, that it wasn't personal.

Watching her now, I understood: she'd been perfectly capable of warmth the whole time. She just hadn't spent any of it on me.

Ethan looked up.

"Jo — hey. You made it."

"Put it down," he said. "We'll eat."

Then his eyes went back to the apple, and a slice went onto the edge of the bed toward Vivian, and he didn't look up again.

"I'm here," I said.

Nobody answered. I took my hand off the table and put it in my pocket.

His sister said, "You missed the whole thing. They said she has an actual sprain. Mom wants her to come over Sunday and do dinner."

His mother, cheerfully, without looking at me: "Vivian, you're welcome any Sunday. I mean it. It's nice to finally meet someone who gets what he's like."

Vivian pressed her mouth into her hand.

"Mrs. Whitmore, you're too kind. This is really Joanna's —" she looked at me, quick, like a stage nod — "I'd feel awful if I—"

"Take it," I said. "It was never mine."

His mother reached into her bag and brought out a small velvet box, worn at the corners.

She opened it without ceremony and lifted out a thin gold bracelet, old, the clasp worked into a knot of leaves.

I'd seen it once before, on the mantel.

"It was Ethan's grandmother's," she said, and closed Vivian's hand around it. "You wear it Sunday. And after that, we'll see."

Vivian looked at the bracelet. Then at me. Her fingers didn't close around it.

"I couldn't," she said. "This is Joanna's."

His sister snorted. "Nobody's signed anything yet."

I looked at the gold in Vivian's palm, the clasp open, waiting.

"Keep it," I said.

Everyone relaxed at once. His mother's shoulders came down. His sister sat back.

Ethan set the knife on the tray and finally looked at me, and his face had that pleased, tired look he gets when a thing has been handled.

"See," he said. "That's more like it. You behave yourself, and I'll get you something better. Something big, after."

I shook my head.

"No," I said. "There's no after."

I put the ring on the table between us, the little cat face upturned.

"We don't have a graduation. We don't have a wedding. We don't have anything."

I walked out past the plastic chairs without looking back.