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True to Seth’s word, we were able to catch up with his friends. Kylie’s face split wide open in a smile as she saw us approach her booth. Like most of the other craft tables, it was a rickety wooden stand cloaked by a red cloth roof, every inch of it displaying her homemade ornaments. “You came!”

As she and the others caught up on what they’d been up to over the last couple of days, I browsed her offerings. I’d never been a crafty person myself, so I appreciated the extra effort that had clearly gone into crocheting and beading and knitting every miniature Santa hat–wearing octopus and red-nosed reindeer and glittery silver dolphin that didn’t seem to be celebrating Christmas outwardly at all, which made me feel inclined toward it. I picked it up between my fingertips, rolling it over to examine the tight weave of pearly gray yarn and metallic silver thread. The dolphin’s eye gleamed rhinestone, and it was probably just the light, but it seemed to be staring right at me.

“You get a friend discount, if you want it.” I jumped when Kylie appeared right in front of me with a toothy grin. “Twenty-five percent off.”

I rolled the dolphin around in my hand. I didn’t have a Christmas tree. It didn’t make sense to buy a Christmas ornament when I didn’t have a Christmas tree.

Only just because it had a hook didn’t mean it had to go on a tree, right? I couldn’t help but picture the bare walls and surfaces of my shitty little apartment. They’d never bothered me before. Honestly, it wasn’t like they bothered me so much now. I’d gotten used to them.

But maybe this little dolphin would look nice chilling on my fridge, or hanging out on a windowsill, where the sunlight would make it glitter. Maybe I’d smile when I saw it in a month or a year from now, when this whole adventure was nothing more than a memory, when Kylie had made a whole new stable of ornaments I wouldn’t be here to see.

I cleared my throat. What the hell. “I’ll take it.”

As I tucked the small brown paper bag containing my new friend into my purse, Seth appeared at my elbow, sipping on what smelled like hot cocoa with a kick of cayenne. “It’s not anywhere near as good as yours,” he said. “Want some?” I was all sugared out from my waffle and cookie butter, so I shook my head. “Which ones should we get for my mom? She likes to give them to the doormen and cleaning lady along with their holiday tip. Says it adds a personal touch.”

By the time we’d selected a cheery turtle with a red-and-green-striped shell and an assortment of safari animals wearing Santa hats, the group was beginning to trickle onward through the festival. I grabbed a mug of mulled wine from a booth on the way, partially because I liked holding the smells of orange peel and cinnamon and nutmeg under my nose—another entry for my spa one day—but mostly because my hands were freezing.

We were standing around, Seth off talking to Dan and a Mike, me content to stand there breathing in the mulled wine steam and occasionally drinking it, when Freya sidled up next to me. Her ears and forehead were covered by her powder blue knit hat, her chin and mouth cloaked by a matching scarf, so that all I could really see were those pale blue eyes and two bright circles of pink on her cheeks. Like Seth, she held a hot chocolate in a paper cup decorated with snowflakes. “The city still treating you well?”

I wondered if “the city” actually meant the city, or if it meant Bev. Either way, the answer was, “Still good. What have you been up to for the holidays?”

Her older brother and his fiancée were in town, she told me, which was nice because they lived in San Francisco and she didn’t get to see them much. “They’re talking about having a baby soon after the wedding, which is so exciting. I can’t wait to be an aunt. I mean, I can’t wait to be a mom, but being an aunt will be fun until then.”

I stretched my mouth into a smile. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d interacted, truly interacted, with a child under ten. Sometimes parents brought them into my coffee shop. They seemed like an alien species, saying things I didn’t understand and making expressions that meant the complete opposite from what they actually meant and sometimes letting out sudden, startling shrieks from nowhere that made me jump. It wasn’t that I didn’t like kids; I just didn’t understand them.

But Seth? Seth would be an incredible dad. I could see him patiently teaching a kid how to play T-ball, helping them with math homework, weaving ribbons into braids (after patiently learning how to braid). A contrast to me as a terrible, awkward mom, if I even wanted kids.

“Wow, congratulations to them,” I said. A bitter taste rose on the back of my tongue. I took a sip of my mulled wine to chase it away, but it didn’t budge. “When’s the wedding?”

Freya told me all about how they were planning the wedding for next winter here in Manhattan, and her brother was going to wear a white tux, and they were hoping for real snow but had already reserved some fake snow just in case. “And I’m going to be the best woman, of course,” she said. “He’s five years older than me, so we weren’t all that close as kids, but we became pretty close once he went to college and we were no longer in the same house to fight over everything we could think of. You know, Seth apologized to me.”

I blinked. The sudden turn in the conversation had thrown me for a bit of a loop. “What?”

“Seth,” Freya said. “He apologized to me for how our breakup worked out. You know, with the ghosting. Just now, when we stepped away for hot chocolate.”

While I was looking through the ornaments. It was good of him to keep it between him and Freya, so that she wouldn’t feel obligated in front of the group to accept it. “Oh,” I said. “That’s good, I guess.”

“Real relationship or not, you’re a good influence on him.”

I didn’t know why hearing that made me feel so awkward. All I knew was that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “It’s cool your brother made you best woman. Do you wear a suit for that?”

She didn’t seem bothered by my own turn in conversation, only chattered excitedly about her lacy blue dress in the same color as the groomsmen’s ties. “And what about you, Abby? Do you have any siblings?”

I took a sip of my mulled wine. It was starting to get lukewarm. “No,” I said as breezily as possible. “I’m an only child. Do you have any other siblings?”

“No, just me and my brother. Where did you grow up?”

Sweat broke out on my forehead. What was with all these questions? Why did all these people want to know about my past? It’s a normal thing to ask, the rational part of my brain reminded me, but the rest of me wasn’t having it.

Maybe this was why my approach to my past had worked so well so far: because I wasn’t letting anyone get close enough to me to ask these normal, boring questions.

I was getting a tension headache. Category 1.

Part of me wanted to make up an excuse to push Freya away. But I couldn’t do that. Not if I wanted to be a Good Fake Girlfriend.

And, honestly? It felt kind of like I was making a girl friend for the first time in a long time. And making a friend felt pretty nice.

“In the area, actually,” I said. Having already been through this today, making the words come out was less stressful. “But I wasn’t sad to leave it behind. I really like it in Vermont.”