She placed her hands on his cheeks. “I would allow for a dog. And it’s possible I’d consider a baby someday, though I don’t do diapers, and I can’t promise more than that. I just do not want a ring.”
Ezra stared down at her, considering it all.
And then, above them, an explosion of real fireworks. They each craned their necks upward, and all around them, reds and purples and golds soared across the night sky. Frankie and Ezra stood there under the cascade of lights as students shouted their countdown. They were at ten, and then nine, and then eight, then seven, then six, then five, then four, then three, then two, and finally, they were on the precipice of a new millennium, a new century, a new start.
And Frankie gazed at Ezra, and Ezra gazed at Frankie, and it was so odd, she thought, how much she already knew she loved him, even the ways he had changed, even when she remembered all the terrible parts. She pressed up onto her tiptoes because she was the one who had to do it now, and she raised her chin and clasped her hands behind his neck, and then, sober, non-concussed, not under the influence of mistletoe, and not riding the adrenaline of the mishaps of earlierin the day, rather simply with the hope of starting over, Frankie Harriman kissed Ezra Jones in the very spot they’d splintered.
Finally, Ezra pulled back and said: “Wow, that was really something.”
And Frankie giggled, so Ezra giggled too, and then he leaned down and kissed her again, wholly, taking his time, because it felt exactly like it used to and entirely different as well.
“We should probably go back to the wedding,” she said eventually, though neither of them moved.
“So you remembered everything from last night?” Ezra asked.
“I did.”
“And you’ll tell me?”
Frankie linked her hand in his, and they started toward their old friends at their old school with a new start.
“You told me to call you Mr. Harriman,” Frankie said, and Ezra doubled over in laughter. “Because I told you I had to keep my name.”
“I like it,” Ezra said. “I like it very much.”
“But no ring,” Frankie repeated.
Ezra pulled her close to him and kissed the top of her head. “No ring,” he repeated. “Just a dog.”
Frankie looked up at him. “And me.”
“No ring, a dog, and Frankie Harriman,” he said, and Frankie thought he looked happier than she ever could have imagined.
“No ring, a dog, and Ezra Jones,” she said.
It was the twenty-first century now.
The past was behind them and the whole breadth of the world was in front of them. Frankie started to believe that anything was possible. Ezra, she thought, was starting to believe that too. She could be brave enough to leave herself vulnerable; he could be loose enough to trust that they could stumble wherever their road took them. And there was music to be found in that; there was music to be made. A melody, a harmony, a vast grand symphony.
EPILOGUE
Ezra
AUGUST2000
Ezra was bone-weary when he climbed up the stairs to Frankie’s apartment. The flight out of London had been delayed three hours, and the jet lag was making his legs rubbery, his brain a muddled buzz. Still though, the past three weeks with Henry had been nourishing, the type of time that his therapist would call good for his soul.We only have one family, Ezra kept saying to his brother.We need to be better about this.So Ezra met Henry’s fiancée; Henry met Frankie. He’d greeted her at the airport with a bear hug that Ezra was sure Frankie would flinch from, but Frankie leaned into him too, like she wasn’t afraid of openhearted affection, like she needed it as much as the rest of them.
Henry pulled back and said, “Finally, the infamous Frankie Harriman!” Ezra thought he saw her blush, but then she said, “My reputation precedes me, and I stand by it all.” And then they all laughed because both Henry and Frankie were right:theirs wasn’t the type of history you could shed even when you put it all behind you. And for three weeks, they ate a shit ton of fish and chips; they raised frothy ales in pubs in memory of Ezra and Henry’s mom; they played darts and lingered too long in museums and did all the touristy things that he’d missed out on since he really hadn’t visited in years and Frankie had missed out on because she worked too much. Most important, they remembered that being family,having family, was foundational, not just a footnote to any of their stories.
Ezra unlatched the lock to Frankie’s apartment with his set of keys just as his phone buzzed in his back pocket.
“Hello?” He swung the door shut with his foot, dropped the keys on top of the upright piano.
“Happy birthday!” He could hear Frankie smiling on the other end of the line. She hadn’t wanted to spend his birthday apart, their first together in so long, but they’d had to diverge at Heathrow—she was on to Stockholm with Night Vixen; he was back in Los Angeles to start grad school at UCLA. He’d turned down Google after April and Connor’s wedding; he’d decided that with his whole life ahead of him, he didn’t need to keep chasing something he wasn’t even sure he wanted. He decided, instead, to teach, which reminded him of his mom for no reason other than he thought she’d like that for him. And actually, he liked that for himself too.
“High schoolers are the worst though,” Frankie had said one night last spring. Ezra had just gotten his acceptance letter in the mail—he was using Frankie’s mailing address by then—and they were braided into each other in her bed, her apartment smelling of new paint because she’d had a purple wall that she thought no longer suited her. Ezra ran his handsthrough her hair, back to brunette, just like it had been at Middleton, and grinned. He felt her own grin against his chest too.
“Hormones and zits and attitude,” Ezra agreed.
