8:01 p.m.: Nora: the poor mail carrier lol
8:17 p.m.: (+49) Ber-Finn: lol yeah
FINN COLLINS, DECEMBER 30, 2025
1:01 p.m.: Nora: everybody forgot my birthday
1:02 p.m.: Nora: even Bea
1:03 p.m.: Nora: like she remembered eventually but it was halfway through lunch. Her and Meriah are hosting New Year’s this year, I think she just got distracted with planning. You’re probably going to that party.
1:04 p.m.: Nora: You forgot, too
1:04 p.m.: Nora: even the German phone number forgot
1:06 p.m.: Nora: I feel like I don’t have any right to be mad at you
1:07 p.m.: Nora: like I’m the one that basically told you to leave! I don’t get to be mad at you for leaving! And for forgetting about my birthday after you left
1:10 p.m.: Nora: I’m mad at myself DUH
1:12 p.m.: Nora: I just…like you can see why I thought it was absurd right? You were going to turn down a JOB for a GIRL????
1:13 p.m.: Nora: if the tables were turned and I was giving up a JOB for a BOY?????
1:14 p.m.: Nora: absurd!
1:15 p.m.: Nora: doesn’t make any of this any easier though
1:16 p.m.: Nora: maybe I should stop texting all of this to our dead message thread and just TELL YOU
1:17 p.m.: Nora: maybe I should go to Germany and tell you
1:18 p.m.: Nora: omg Finn should I go to Germany? That would be like the baddest ass New Year’s Eve surprise wouldn’t it? Eat your heart out Nora Ephron.
1:19 p.m.: Nora: was Nora Ephron’s real name Eleanor?
5
CHAPTER 5: NORA
DECEMBER 31, 2025
My condo smells like Finn’s candles and the mulled wine I simmered on the stove all day. There’s a whole pot of it, but I’ve been nursing my first glass for about an hour, periodically refilling it with warmer wine.
Bea convinced me to put up a Christmas tree this year, if only because it looks so nice in the windows at night, so now my one thousand square feet are lit by the light above the stove, the tree’s twinkle lights, and the glow of the television.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Bea asks through the phone. “I’m not trying to pressure you,” she says quickly. “I just want to make sure you’re not…” She lets her words fade.
She wants to make sure I’m not alone, or sad, or both. But I am and I’ll be that way regardless of whether I’m here or at her party. Part of me is still tempted to go, of course. Finn will be there. He said he’d be there.
But I can’t see him again for the first time in front of all our friends and pretend to be normal about him. I’d probably climb him like a tree. I’d probably wear his hair like a hat.
I’d definitely cry.
The credits of one rom-com end and another one starts on my TV screen. I should probably stop watching these; they’re not helping. It’s just one of those channels that does movie marathons and it’s easier to watch that than have to search for something I might like.
I should go to bed. That’s what I always said I’d do if I got to do New Year’s Eve my way. I should just do it.
