We sit like that for a long time, watching the world move past the window. The city is still out there, loud and bright and full of ways to get lost. But in this room, for the first time in forever, I am found.
I turn to Thomas, resting my head on his shoulder. “You know what’s weird?” I say.
He squeezes me, gentle. “What?”
“I feel like I can breathe again. Like really breathe. Like I was underwater, and unable to move, speak, or do anything really. But now, I can.”
He kisses my temple, his lips lingering there. “That’s all I want for you, Andie. I adore you, and everything about you, sweetheart.”
It’s not a happy ending. Not yet. But it’s the beginning of something, and maybe that’s enough.
We’ll figure out the rest. Together.
For now, that’s all the promise I need.
EPILOGUE: ONE YEAR LATER
Andie
The penthouse glows golden: every bulb hidden behind frosted glass or cut crystal, refracted a thousand times into a haze that blurs the edges of people and things. The air is lemony with polished marble and the scent of canapés. Someone has rigged twinkle lights over the long white-linen tables, and every glass on every table seems to be full, and every hand finds one before it’s empty for more than a breath.
It was Stella’s idea to host my graduation party at Thomas’s place—“bigger rooms, better booze, and we can kick everyone out when it’s over,” she’d said—and now the building’s security desk is issuing paper wristbands to guests and checking IDs at the elevator. Upstairs, the room is a dreamscape: guests in suits and cocktail dresses, catering staff moving silently between the groups, Stella floating between them all in a sheath so white it’s almost reckless. At the center of it all, I hover in a navy-blue slip dress that fits like spilled ink, my blonde hair loose and wavy over my shoulders, my honors diploma rolled in a ribbon andjammed under my arm. My glass keeps going empty, but there’s always a hand to refill it, sometimes mine, sometimes not.
I drift toward the edge of the crowd, past the river-facing windows where Minneapolis stretches out like a prize: all the light and bridges and the flat sheen of the Mississippi under an early summer dusk. There’s no sound from outside, just the low throb of bass from a Bluetooth speaker and the hum of a hundred conversations. It’s the last party before everyone scatters for internships, grad school, or whatever comes after. It feels like the last party of the world.
Simone finds me first. She’s not hiding anymore: her pregnant belly is unmistakable, a high, taut orb beneath the cut of her green velvet dress. She glows, literally. She glows so radiantly that a woman at the bar gives her seat up just for Simone to have a place to rest. Her hair is up, a mass of gold, and the flush in her cheeks is real this time.
“Drink?” she asks, winking as she sinks into the chair.
I laugh, “I think that’s contraband,” but she shakes her head.
“It’s Sprite, I swear.” She lifts her glass, clinks it against mine. “It helps with the barfing.”
I glance at her hand, which sparkles with a ring from her boyfriend, Professor Liam Thomas. He’s here too, in a navy jacket over a white button down, looking more like a male model than faculty. He glances at her from across the room, the intensity of his stare so hot that the air practically sizzles, and I laugh. There’s no more hiding for Stella and Liam, nor for me and Thomas either. Not tonight, not ever. Our relationships are now into the open, and I’ve never been happier.
“Congratulations,” I say, and I mean it.
Simone beams, then turns conspiratorial: “Did you ever think I’d be the first one pregnant, of all people?”
“Honestly?” I lean in, lowering my voice. “I thought it’d be Mary Kate, with twins. You know how much that girl loves kids.”
We both giggle, attracting attention.
“I heard that,” Mary Kate says, sliding into the conversation like a shark in a gold lamé dress. She drains her mimosa, then grins. “So what if I adore kids? They’re cute. Anyway, you’re all going to miss me when I move out next week. I’m going to move closer to work. I’ll be living at my stepdad’s mansion.”
“Oh really?” Simone asks, eyebrows raised. “The stepdad who’s getting a divorce from your mom? Is that normal?”
Mary Kate shrugs, trying for casual but missing by a mile. “Probably not, but like I said, it’s closer to work. And my stepdad’s house has a pool.” She lifts her chin, lets the words hang, then glances at me with a sly side-eye. “I happen to love skinny-dipping, when no one’s home of course.”
I shoot my friend a look.
“Of course.”
Then, Kayleigh floats over, cell phone in hand, her curls pinned back with a rhinestone barrette. She looks radiant, but her eyes are glued to the screen. “Damn, he’s not going to text,” she mutters. “He said he was at a wedding, but he’s totally ignoring me.”
“Who?” I ask, but I already know.
She bites her lip, then sets the phone face-down on the bar. “Whatever. He’s a liar.” Then, as if flipping a switch, she smiles at us: “Let’s have fun. You graduated!”
