Ezra went statue-still. No drunken wobbling, no inebriated fidgeting. Just the cutting edge of her words, slicing the air between them.
“Fuck you, Frankie,” he said. And because Ezra never fought back, Ezra never retaliated, she believed the vitriol behind his words. She felt the punch deep in her guts, and she thought that she’d feel victorious—that she’d finally broken him—but what she really felt was hollow. She thought that his anger would make it easier to justify her own anger, but she’d gotten that all wrong.
He turned to go and got as far as twenty or so feet. She stood there with a frozen hand against the lamppost, her head thumping, her heart pounding. But then, because Ezra Jones was always a good guy, the best guy, he turned around and came back for her.
“I can’t leave you out here to die,” he said.
“I won’t die,” Frankie said. “I’m basically invisible.”
“I think you mean invincible,” he said, correcting her even while his words were getting slurry, the Portland brew really taking effect. “But you’re not that either.”
And then Frankie stared at him and he at her, and she, unbelievably, started laughing. Gut-bursting, side-cramping laughter. So Ezra did too. Soon, they each had tears streaking down their faces, each of them hiccupping for air, faces contorted into utter ridiculousness. Each time Frankie thought she had a grip on herself, she started again.
Finally, Ezra righted himself and gave her a long, piercing stare. And Frankie felt the connection all the way into her heart.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?” she asked.
“Waverly’s. I’m going to show you the new me.”
“Wait,” she said.
“Why?” he asked.
And Frankie looked at him for a beat, and then another one, and then she said: “Run.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Ezra
Ezra checked the time on the clock over Bruno’s shoulder. Thirty minutes until midnight. He could stay here with Bruno, but he didn’t think he wanted to usher in the new millennium with a grumpy security guard when he had anticipated proposing to his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. He corrected himself and said the word over and over again in his mind and found that unlike every other breakup, he was entirely ok. It was odd, he realized, how he could have been so wrong about someone, and also, having cut it off before it spiraled into an honest-to-God disaster, that he wasn’t panicked, wasn’t lying flat on the marble floor wondering when the world would stop spinning. He could almost hear Frankie telling him:thiswas progress.
And it was.
He didn’t know why Frankie was still clanging around his brain, however. He didn’t mind that she was, but it was bothtoo familiar and unfamiliar, and rather than allow it to evolve into something that terrified him, Ezra decided to just let it be. Maybe Frankie Harriman would always rattle around his brain sometimes. Maybe that’s just how it would go. Maybe he would be ok with that too.
THIRTY-NINE
Frankie
They had made it about halfway to Waverly’s when it became obvious that Frankie really could not, in fact, run. Ezra was ahead of her, sprinting in a janky, drunken stride but still half a block in front, and finally, she threw herself onto a bench bordering the path and cried out, “Ezra, stop, I can’t.”
He slowed and turned, suspicious because it wouldn’t be above her to cheat. “Sure, right.”
He plopped his hands on his hips, and Frankie stared at him in the lamplight with snow falling all around.He is a vision, she thought.I should have married him, she also thought and genuinely startled, gasped at the notion. Never in her life, never ever, had Frankie considered that she had made a mistake with Ezra. Not because she didn’t make mistakes, but for her, life was a forward, fluid motion. Looking back meant unearthing her pain, and she had never been in the business of trading on pain.
“Really, Ezra, my head is in bad shape.”
He walked back toward her and stood in front of her. She didn’t want to meet his eyes, and yet he refused to budge until she did.
“Proposal,” he said. “If I run the table—”
“I don’t really think you’rethatgood,” Frankie interrupted. The Ezra she knew would never have beenthatgood at poker, at something as risky as gambling.
“If I win, you have to play something for me. On the piano.”
Frankie started to protest, which came out more like a moan.
