I left the TV room while the show was still on and found Tiffany out back. She sat at Val’s rusted mesh patio table with a fresh glass of wine, staring out at the pool. I couldn’t watch the show a minute longer. What I’d signed up for wasn’t acting. I’d known that going in, and this wasn’t the end goal by any means, but I wondered if this would be everything Mike Galloway had dangled in front of me. Was it a silver bullet to the career I wanted? The cameras had been around while I’d volunteered, but was it the right kind of attention for the animal shelter I went to?

Tiffany fumbled with a pack of cigarettes. As she lit one, my first thought was Manning—the smoky, mint-on-nicotine taste of him. He’d finally let me around his cigarettes after years of wanting to be part of it and anything that involved him. But Tiffany, she’d been in it all along, and now that I stood there watching her inhale deeply with satisfaction, I couldn’t help but see things from Manning’s point of view. Finally. He’d exposed us both to it, but he’d protected me and not Tiffany. “Do you smoke a lot?” I asked, closing the sliding glass door behind me.

“I quit during the pregnancy if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I didn’t mean that.” I could tell that being here was hard for her, I just wasn’t sure why she’d made the effort. “Did you see how awful the show was?” I asked, hoping to break the ice. There was no better way to bring Tiffany out of her shell than to give her the chance to make fun of me. “Everyone keeps saying it’s a hit, but it’s so bad. I’m so bad.”

“You’re, like, adorably awkward. Naïve but not in an annoying way. People like that stuff.”

“I guess.” I pulled out the seat across her, steel scraping over concrete, and sat. “How’s Mom?”

“She’s excited, even though she can barely get through a conversation about you without crying.” She shrugged. “And Dad . . . well, you know how he is.”

“He probably thinks this whole reality thing is silly.”

“Pretty much.”

I touched the thin gold bracelet Dad had given me as a teen. I’d started wearing it again for filming. Even though I was angry at my father, when the cameras were in my face, the bracelet made me feel close to my parents—and Manning, since it was the reason we’d met. No matter how old I got, how successful I might become, my dad’s rejection would never not sting.

Tiffany blew smoke from the side of her mouth. “But I guarantee he’s watching tonight.”

“What about you?” I asked. “How are you?”

“Good.” She sat back, crossing an ankle over her knee. “I got a used bike on the Internet for only twenty bucks. I mean, I’m not starring in a TV show or anything, but it’s something.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Look, I know this is weird, but you don’t have to make it worse.”

“I thought I could do this,” she said, stubbing out her half-smoked cigarette on the cement. “I thought enough time had passed that I could come here and be happy for you, but I just . . . it all seems so unfair.”

I digested her words a few moments. For as long as I could remember, Tiffany had taken offense to my success and happiness. “What part, exactly, is unfair?”

“You have everything handed to you,” she said, “and you just shrug, take it or leave it, like it’s nothing. You throw away your relationship with Dad. Your acceptance to USC. You ignore us for years to run around New York City calling yourself an actress. And then someone shows up at your door and hands you fame and fortune and now you’re not even sure you want it.”

“That’s not how it happened,” I said. “I spent years struggling with nothing, trying to make a life for myself without any of your support. I lived in a tiny apartment with a broken heater—” A broken lock and a broken heart, I thought, my chest squeezing. “The point is, you’re wrong. The only injustice is that you can’t ever be happy for me unless you have a leg up.”

“I came all the way here to support you, even though you never congratulated me on my promotion. When I call you, you’re too busy to talk.” She crossed her legs and fixed the twisted strap of her shoe. “How can you blame us for not being there for you when you made it impossible to be?”

I got quiet as I thought of the myriad excuses I’d invented over the years to get off the line with her or my mom. “Okay,” I said, “but it’s not as if any of you, not even Mom, were beating down my door, trying to get me to come home.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?” she asked. “Someone did beat down your door.” She pulled another cigarette from her pack. “He was never the same after New York, you know.”

After years of pretending not to notice Manning and me, the veiled accusation had me leaning in, wondering if I’d misheard. “What?”

“Actually, I take that back.” Tiffany flicked her lighter a few times before it finally caught. “He was never the same after he found out he was going to New York. I can remember the exact moment he came home from work after having been approved for an East Coast trip to see his ‘clients.’ He could hardly hide the spring in his step.”

I stared at my sister, noting the new wrinkles around her eyes, the veins in her hands, the slight yellowish hue of her once flawless white teeth. I’d buried the memory of my last few moments with Manning as deeply as I could—it wasn’t how I liked to remember us, pain rolling off him while he’d relayed what should’ve been the best news of his life. “I’ve bit my tongue a lot of times around you,” I said to her, “but what you did to him was so messed up. You got pregnant because you were scared you’d lose him.”

“You’re right, I was scared—that my sister would steal my husband. Is there anything more messed up than that?”

“If I could’ve helped how I felt about him, I would’ve. Trust me.” I shifted in the metal chair to ease my stiffness. When I talked about Manning, everything ached, even my elbows and knees. “It’s been nothing but heartbreak for me.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo.” She pointed her orange-tipped cigarette at me. “That didn’t give you the right to screw around with him.”

I jerked back, shocked equally by the venom and the conviction in her voice. Had Manning confessed everything? “You make it sound cheap, but you knew what he meant to me.” I took a breath so my voice wouldn’t break. This was a conversation I’d never wanted to have. Despite what Tiffany might’ve thought, I didn’t want to hurt her, but I couldn’t forgive what she’d done to us. “You knew what you were doing from day one.”

“I thought it was a stupid crush,” she muttered to the table. “Do you know how many crushes I had at that age? I could barely keep track. I thought you’d get over it.”

“It wasn’t a crush. It was more.” I leaned forward, waiting until she lifted her head to meet my eyes. “I loved him, Tiffany. I didn’t care about anything else. Do you have any idea how it felt to watch him walk down the aisle with you?”

She stood, flicking the butt of her cigarette so ashes landed inches from my feet. “Do you have any idea how it felt to walk down the aisle knowing he was thinking about you?”

“No, I don’t, because he didn’t choose me,” I said. “He chose you.”

“If you think that, you’re even more naïve than I thought.” She stared at me, her jaw clenched as she shook her head. “How can you still not see the truth? He chose you. In the end, he chose you, and that’s what matters.”

“Do you see him here with me?” I asked.

“He chose you so many goddamn times. He kept me at arm’s length our entire marriage because I wasn’t you. After the m-miscarriage,” she stuttered, “things got worse, but you know Manning. I figured he’d just keep punishing himself.” She scuffed the ground with the bottom of her platform shoe, looking torn about whether to leave or stay. “He didn’t. Somehow, he finally found the guts to walk away from me.” She sat back down, her posture wilting. “But everything he is now, everything he’s done—it’s for you. He chose you, and you know it, and why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he want the perfect girl who gets everything she doesn’t even ask for?”

Where was he now? What had he done? I didn’t know, because he wasn’t mine. Considering what he’d lost, it’d never felt right to call him, and once he’d left Tiffany’s, I didn’t know where to reach him. Not that I would’ve tried. What could I say that hadn’t already been said? He knew I loved him. He knew I’d give up anything to be with him. He hadn’t come for me, and so I’d had no choice but to accept the truth—it wasn’t our time, and might not ever be.

“I haven’t spoken to him since New York,” I informed her.

“Well, then maybe you got what you deserved. Maybe we all did. You’re alone. He’s probably alone. My baby is gone.”

“How can you say that?” I asked. “Nobody deserves that kind of loss.”

“What do you know about loss? You never lose anything. You get everything.”

“And you never try to see anything from my point of view. What makes you think I’ve got it all figured out?” I asked.

“Because I’ve had to stand by and watch it my whole life. That’s the result of living in your shadow.”

“In my shadow?” I asked. That was the last straw. How could she possibly think that was true when it’d been the other way around? I nearly vibrated with anger. “Growing up, you were constantly talking over me, getting everyone’s attention any way you could manage, even when I wasn’t fighting you for it. I let you have the spotlight and you pushed me out of it anyway.”

“Exactly. You didn’t even have to try.” She gripped the arm of her chair. “Unless I was talking loudest, Dad ignored me. And the older you got, the worse it was.”

“That’s only because of college,” I said. “Once I wasn’t going to USC, he was done with me. Why do you still care what he thinks anyway? He’s always been a jerk to both of us, especially you.”

She held her cigarette deep in the “V” between her pointer and middle finger. After a drag, she squinted at me as if thinking. “You know,” she said, “you’re more like him than you realize.”

I pulled my shoulders back. Maybe once that’d been a compliment, when I’d bent over backward to impress my father. Now, there was perhaps no greater insult. “I’m nothing like him.”

“Neither of you will make the first move because you’re too proud. You’re both book smart but you lack compassion. That’s what my therapist says.” She coughed into a fist. “But you know what makes you the most like Dad? You’re a cheater. Manning wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened between you two while he was in New York, but I know enough.”

A cheater? I’d never heard myself described so callously. That was more the kind of adjective to describe someone like Tiffany or, yes, my dad. Except he wasn’t a cheater. Why would she say he was? “I don’t understand.”

“Never mind.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Forget it.”

“No,” I said, sensing she was trying to cover something up. “What do you know?”

Sighing through her nose, she ran her nail along the butt of the cigarette. “I guess you’re old enough now. Remember Dad’s secretary with the orange hair? It wasn’t quite blonde or even red . . .”

The sister I’d barely spoken to in years was suddenly talking, but I didn’t know how to register what she was saying. My dad had a funny way of showing love, even to my mom, but he’d always taken care of us. He’d always been loyal. But then again, everyone liked to say how naïve I was, and maybe in this case, it was true. The patio’s overhead light got eerily yellow as I put two and two together. “Dad had an affair?” I asked. “When?”

The lines in Tiffany’s face eased a little and she turned her face away, as if she were the guilty one. “When we were kids, I walked in on it at his office.”

My dad’s secretaries had come and gone over the years. I vaguely recalled who Tiffany was talking about because of her hair color and the amount of makeup she’d worn. At the time, she’d seemed older to me, maybe even sophisticated. Trying to picture her again, I only saw a girl younger than I was now. “She was, like, early twenties, wasn’t she?”

“Young, old, pretty, ugly. Whatever, who cares?” She rubbed her eyebrow. “Maybe there were others, too.”

“Does Mom know?”

“Yep.” She bobbed her head. “I was really confused about what I saw, so I told her. She brushed it under the rug and got some nice outfits out of it.”

The cigarette smoke was getting to me. First, it’d been just another frustrating reminder of Manning, but now it seemed to have filled my lungs, thickening into a mass in my chest. “How come you never told me?”

She picked at the table’s rubber edge. “I just . . . didn’t think you needed to know. It was kind of weird growing up with that information. And you looked up to Dad.”

“But it would’ve changed how I saw him, and didn’t you want that?”

“I don’t know. Not enough to traumatize you, I guess.”

It was weird to think Tiffany had protected me in her own way when it’d rarely felt that way as a kid. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You could’ve told me.”

She looked out at the pool. “I wonder if it would’ve changed anything.”

With Manning was the part she left off. Would I have stayed away from him in New York if I’d grown up knowing my dad as an adulterer? I didn’t think so, and I doubted Tiffany did, either. “You think I’m like that?” I asked. “Like what he did?”

“Are you going to tell me you aren’t? That you didn’t?” She trained her eyes on me. “That innocent Lake kept her hands to herself the whole week Manning was there?”

It was my turn to look away, wiping my upper lip with the heel of my palm. I couldn’t lie to Tiffany and say I’d behaved, so I just sat there sweating under the yellow light like I was being interrogated until the sliding glass door opened.

“There you are,” Sean said, fisting a beer and a joint as he came over to kiss my cheek. I realized belatedly that I’d heard his motorcycle out front a few minutes before.

I gestured across the table. “Sean, this is my sister.”

“Oh, hey.” He sat and gave her his signature sexy—and somewhat hollow—smile. “What’s up?”

Tiffany eyed the tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves. “Hey.”

“Are you an actress too?” he asked, relaxing back in the chair.

She crossed her legs in his direction. “No,” she said. “I used to do some modeling, though.”

“I could see that,” he said, nodding. “Your family’s got good genes, Lakey. Either of you have a light?”

I gagged on the inside. Lakey not only sounded gross, but it was like combining Birdy and Lake, and I didn’t want my memories of Manning anywhere near Sean. “I’ve asked you so many times not to call me that,” I said, but they were ignoring me.

“Just don’t steal it,” Tiffany said, leaning forward to hand him her BIC. “These things are expensive.”

“I know, right?” He lit the blunt. “I’m always losing mine.”

I looked up at a movement in the doorway. Corbin leaned outside. “You forgot to shut the door, man. You’re getting smoke in the house.”

“Sorry.” Sean waved in front of his face as if that’d help. “It’s just pot. Won’t smell.”

Corbin came out with a red plastic cup and took the last seat at the table. He lowered his voice as Tiffany asked Sean about the show. “Did you two have a good talk?” Corbin asked.

“I don’t know. It was an honest one at least.”

“You missed the end of the show.”

“I know. It feels super weird to see myself up there, though. I don’t think I like it . . . like at all.”

“I know what you mean.” He stretched his long legs, leaning back. “They edited the promos to make it look like Sean and I were fighting over you during one of my visits. Guess that’s why they always mic me when he’s around.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I warned you, though. You didn’t have to participate.”

“I know. I think it’s funny.” He sipped his drink. “You know when I do come around, I’m just looking out for you, right?”

That was Corbin’s gentlemanly way of making sure I knew he wasn’t trying to be any more than a friend to me. He and I hadn’t hooked up since before Manning’s trip to New York, but Corbin and I had never really talked about his feelings. “I know. I just wish you were here more.”

“I might be, Kaplan.” He winked. “I just might be.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not. I told you I’ve been thinking about starting my own consulting firm, and I could do that out here if I want.”

“Really?” I asked, grateful for some good news. “You’d move back?”

“Maybe. I could set my own hours, work with clients I actually respect, and then there’s the whole settling down thing we’re supposed to start thinking about. Raising a family in New York, it’s not the same. I kinda miss Cali.”

“No way.” I smiled. “I never thought I’d hear you say that. Did you meet someone and you’re trying to play it off like this was the plan all along?”

He chuckled. “No, but I want to.”

“Well, you tell me who you want, and I’ll make it happen. The girls on my show all love you. Whatever I can do to sway you, I will. Val and I want you here.”

His mouth crooked in one corner as he squinted into the backyard. “I was thinking maybe a waterfront place in Malibu. Open all the windows, live right on the beach. New York has been good to me, but nothing like going downstairs and hopping in the water with my board and my girl. Sounds all right.”

Better than all right. New York had been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but California was in my blood. I wasn’t so sure about the reality TV thing, but there could still be some opportunities for me in Hollywood, so this felt like where I needed to be right now. The thing I still lacked was what Corbin described—a home. Val’s house and my little bungalow in Santa Monica with Bree had been good substitutes, always filled with friends and food and sometimes pets since we dog-sat a lot. Still, as my sister flirted with my current fling, I knew my life would never go back to what it’d been before I’d left. The rift between my dad and me was too big, and especially now that I knew he’d cheated on my mom, I wasn’t willing to cross it. Nor could Tiffany and I ever just be sisters again.

A lump formed in my throat with the biggest truth of all—without Manning, I didn’t know that I even wanted to try and make a home anywhere else. I thought I could float through cities and decades if I were never anchored to him. Did I even want that anymore? It’d gotten so hard to even think of Manning. Sean and everyone I’d dated since had been easy, and that seemed like the way to go in the future.

“It sounds like you got it all figured out,” I said to Corbin. “I’m jealous.”

“Of me? You’re the one killing it out here. See all the people who showed up to watch your ascent into stardom? And how many of our friends, all those people you worked with who are barely getting by, watched you on TV in New York tonight?”

He always knew how to make me smile in spite of myself. I took his hand and squeezed it. “As long as you and Val aren’t going anywhere, then that’s all I need.”

I realized Tiffany and Sean had stopped talking and were both looking at me. Sean pinched his joint and stood. “Well, I’m in no shape to ride. It’s cool if I stay the night with you, Lakey?”

“Sure,” I said. “We can leave in a bit.”

“Dope.” He winked at me. “I’m going to get another drink.”

When he’d gone inside, the look on Corbin’s face sent me into a fit of giggles. “Did he say Lakey?” Corbin asked.

It took me a minute to catch my breath. I just hoped the nickname didn’t catch on nationwide.

Tiffany fidgeted with her pack of cigarettes as if she wanted to light another. It annoyed me how Manning, and now she, too, couldn’t get a grip on such a life-threatening habit. She shifted in her seat and joked, “Third wheel.”

“Hardly,” Corbin said.

“Why is that, though?” she asked. “How come you two never got together? Or did you and nobody knew?”

“We’re too good of friends,” Corbin said, and I wondered with the swiftness of his answer, how many times he’d given it before.

I was grateful, though—that he’d saved me from having to answer, and that he recognized it was true. What Corbin and I had was special. Maybe if we’d ever slept together or decided to date, we wouldn’t be friends now, and that would be the real tragedy. “I figure there’s some saintly woman out there who deserves him,” I added. “It’s not me.”

“No, I guess not,” Tiffany said. “Not very saintly to sleep with a married man.”

Maybe I deserved that, but my cheeks flamed nonetheless. I hated that she’d said it in front of Corbin. Since he was quick to defend me in any situation, his silence confirmed that he agreed. He still didn’t bring up Manning’s name in any other context than as Tiffany’s ex-husband, but that didn’t mean Corbin was in the dark about anything.

But it was out there now, and once my shame wore off a bit, I was actually a little relieved. I’d lived in this secret world with Manning so long, I was exhausted from hiding our attraction to each other. So, in the interest of honesty, I finally stopped trying to protect everyone. “Did you ever really love Manning?” I asked. “Or did you just marry him to spite me?”

Tiffany’s blue eyes flashed over me before she glanced at the ashtray. She went to pick up her pack again, but I snatched it and threw it in the pool. “Hey,” she said.

“Just stop already. You and—” I stopped myself from saying Manning. “You’re better than those cigarettes. It’s not an emotional crutch—it’s a filthy habit that will kill you.”

“What Lake’s trying to say is that she cares what happens to you.” Corbin gave me a reproachful look. “And she’s right. Smoking like a chimney isn’t going to make anything better.”

Tiffany slumped down in her seat, biting her cuticle. “Fine. You want the truth? Until Manning came along, I had one thing you didn’t—men wanted me. You had the grades and Dad’s attention and USC, but I could flirt the pants off a gay man.” Her gaze darted from me to Corbin and back. “Then when I saw how Manning looked at you, suddenly everything changed. Guys started noticing you, too. Including Corbin, but he’d wanted me first, didn’t you, Corbin?”

Corbin stilled, only his eyes moving as he looked between us. “Oh, I . . . uh.” He shifted in his seat. “Yeah, I guess. When you were dating Cane, you were like the girl. It was hard not to, like, like you.”

He looked so uncomfortable that I brought the conversation back to myself. “I was sixteen,” I said to Tiffany. “I got boobs and grew into my limbs that summer. It wasn’t Manning’s fault.”

“But Manning . . . he was the one thing you wanted,” she said. “It was so painfully obvious you had this little-girl crush on him that first day he came over for a sandwich.”

“So that’s why you went out with him?” I asked. “To rub it in my face?”

“It wasn’t that conniving. It bothered Dad and it annoyed you, so it was kind of fun. Manning just felt like some rare thing I could have and you couldn’t.” She looked longingly at the pack of smokes bobbing in the pool. “I mean, I didn’t plan it like that. When I say it now, it sounds calculated but it just happened. I never meant for things to go so far, you know. Manning was too old for me and not that much fun. He was so serious all the time.”

Nobody understood that better than me. “All the time,” I agreed.

Her shoulders rose with a deep inhale. “But it turned out, that was what I needed. Dad had given up on me early. Manning didn’t. He talked to me, not at me. He listened and cared about what I was thinking. At camp, he treated me so well, I let myself believe he was falling for me, too. Then that last night at campfire, when you snuck off with him—”

“You did?” Corbin pursed his lips at me and sat back. “Fuck.”

I did my best to look contrite, knowing Corbin wouldn’t like hearing something so out of character for me.

“It was like . . .” Tiffany continued. “Like I was starting to really like him and once again, you were getting everything.”

“So you married him,” I said.

“It’s probably easier for you to believe I didn’t love him,” she said quietly, “but I did. He was the only person who saw me, who treated me with any respect, even in my own family.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “I looked up to you, Tiffany. I tried to step in with Dad when I could. I feel like I lost a sister the day of your wedding.”

Crickets filled the next few moments of silence. Even the party inside seemed to quiet as Tiffany and I avoided each other’s gaze. “Then I guess that means I lost a sister, too,” she said.

Having Corbin there was less comforting than it normally would’ve been—and a whole lot embarrassing. When it came to Manning, he and I never went there, but I guess now he knew enough.

Finally, Tiffany got up. “I should get home. I have to work in the morning and it’s a long drive back.”

“You can stay here,” I offered.

“It’s fine. Congrats again on all this stuff.” She sounded tired. “I’ll be watching the show. It’s actually really good.”

There wasn’t anything I could say to take back what I’d done. I didn’t exactly want to jump to forgiveness, either. Tiffany had made mistakes, too. If she’d reacted maturely to anything, ever, we wouldn’t be in this situation. That didn’t mean I wanted her out of my life, though. She’d intentionally hurt me, but I wasn’t lacking in compassion like she thought. I understood her actions were less out of malice than fear. “You should come by the set some time.”

“I . . . would seriously love that,” she said.

I knew she would. Tiffany lived for that kind of stuff, and I was pretty sure the possibility of that was a small part of why she’d come tonight. It didn’t matter why, though. I was glad she’d made the effort.

As she picked up her bag, I stood. I went to hug her, but she wasn’t expecting it, and we did a back-and-forth maneuver while Corbin chuckled. I hugged her more tightly than I meant to.

“I still need time and distance,” she said, “but I . . . you haven’t, like, lost me. Not forever.”

I swallowed. Maybe I hadn’t been fair just now. Maybe Tiffany really had come to see me—and not just on TV. “Same here.”

Once she’d returned inside and Corbin and I were alone, I said, “I’m sorry you had to hear all that.”

He just shrugged, leaning on his knees as he laced his fingers together. “Yeah.”

“But I feel like she’s gotten more empathetic. Maybe it was going through the miscarriage. Or I guess I just haven’t seen her in a while, and we’ve both matured.”

He nodded at the ground. “Yeah.”

A moth fluttered around the overhead light. I was rambling. Corbin and I had talked about most things under the sun, but we rarely discussed love. Anything to do with Manning, or Corbin’s feelings for me, we pretended didn’t exist. The longer we sat that way, though, the harder it became to ignore the ebb of Corbin’s normally sunny disposition. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

He looked through the sliding glass door at Sean, who was checking out Tiffany’s ass as she walked away. “That guy, Lake? Really? In his crusty leather jacket, not understanding half of what’s going on around him?”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Easy. Sean and I—we’re just having fun.”

It took a little bit for him to respond, but for Corbin I had time. I waited until eventually, his blue eyes found their way to mine. I started to smile but stopped, sensing this wasn’t a happy moment. “Why not me?” he asked.

I flinched, surprised only that he’d asked, not by the question itself. Even though I’d wondered the same thing many times, I only had one answer—the truth—and I wasn’t sure Corbin wanted to hear it. “Corbin . . .”

“That guy’s a loser. So are most of the guys you date. Why didn’t you ever give me a shot?”

Corbin and I had been on countless dinner dates and attended myriad events and parties together. We’d kissed, we’d fooled around, we’d slept in each other’s arms. He’d asked me out and he’d tried for more, but that was a long time ago. We’d become so much more since then. He knew it would never work between us. “You know why,” I said.

“Manning.” He stuck his tongue in his cheek and got a look like the ones Manning used to get over Corbin. “I never understood it. What was Tiffany talking about, sneaking out at camp? You were so, I don’t know, gullible back then. I knew you had a crush on him, but if I’d realized he was taking advantage of you—”

“Nothing happened while I was under eighteen,” I said. “New York was the first time.”

“After he was married to Tiffany.” He opened his hands, shaking his head. “Explain it to me, Lake. What do you see in him?”

I’d been wrong just now. It wasn’t jealousy I was seeing like I’d thought. Corbin just didn’t trust Manning, and I couldn’t fault him that. “I can’t put it into words,” I said.

He opened an arm toward the door. “So that guy in there, hitting on your sister—he’s the next best thing?”

“Not at all. He’s just nothing. We have a good time, he makes me laugh, and he leaves me alone.”

“I don’t get it. I really don’t. You could have anyone.”

Anyone? I wanted to say. Don’t you know I don’t want anyone? I want Manning. I pushed the thoughts away and scooted my chair closer to Corbin’s. “You asked why it wasn’t you?” I said. “Of course I thought about you and me a lot, especially after September eleventh.”

“Yeah,” he said. I didn’t need to explain what I meant—he’d lost not just colleagues but friends in the terrorist attacks, and it was an unspoken truth that it’d changed many of us.

But because I always wanted Corbin to know how much I cared about him, I did explain, even though I’d told him the story many times. “I remember every detail of that morning,” I said, taking Corbin’s hand. “I was seeing that guy Brandon from Chicago, and we’d been out late, so we were still sleeping when we got the call.”

“Your mom.”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to keep anything from Corbin anymore now that we’d started talking honestly about this area of our lives. “Actually no. I never told you, but someone else called first.”

“Who?” He glanced at my face, and then said, “Oh.”

Brandon had answered the phone, and a man on the other end of the line had asked for me. I’d picked up with a cheery “hello?”—none the wiser about what’d happened downtown.

“Lake,” was Manning’s response. Simple. One word. But my name from his mouth—it’d always had a certain kind of power over me.

“What’s wrong?” I’d asked him.

“I just needed to hear . . .” He’d paused and said, “You should call home.”

I’d held the receiver long after he’d gotten off the line, but the moment I’d hung up, the line had rung again. That time it was my mom and she’d been hysterical, ordering me to turn on the TV.

“For a split second,” I said to Corbin, “I couldn’t remember where you were.” My eyes filled up, and I blinked the tears away. “Panic completely wiped my brain. I started screaming for Val, and she ran into the bedroom. She hadn’t heard yet so when I asked her where you were, she thought I was going crazy. ‘He left for San Francisco three days ago, you loon,’ she’d said. ‘You took him out to breakfast before the flight.’ When I told Val, she completely lost it, Corbin. I basically had to stop falling apart because she was freaking out so bad. She was inconsolable.”

Corbin rubbed his face. He’d heard this story, but not all of it.

I told him the part I’d been keeping to myself. “After the fear and panic and grief I felt that morning, I thought, maybe I do love Corbin. Maybe he’s the one.”

He sat back. “But?”

“I did love you. And I was attracted to you. That was never the issue. You know the truth deep down—you would’ve always been second best, Corbin. Always. The only person I love more than you is Manning. My feelings for him are immoveable—I know it in my gut. Nobody will ever replace him.”

He searched my eyes with his endless blue ones. They were rarely sad like now, and I couldn’t help noticing how beautiful they were despite that. Or maybe because of it. “Back then, I would’ve been fine with second best.”

“I love you too much to do that to you. You need a girl who looks at you, and . . . you’re her world, Corbin.” Her universe, her sky, her stars. Her Ursa Major. “She wasn’t me.”

He scrubbed his hands through his golden hair. “Yeah. I guess now you’re going to tell me you did me a favor rejecting me all those times.”

I couldn’t help laughing a little. “I’ll save that piece of wisdom for when you meet ‘the one.’”

“And what about you?” he asked.

I smiled sadly. “I already met him.”

“Your sister’s been divorced for like, over three years or something.” He picked up his cup from the table. “Have you seen him?”

I lifted my hair off my neck, warm under the patio light. “No,” I said, mustering as much nonchalance as I could. “It’s dumb. I thought, back then, you know, that Manning was . . . that we were . . .” Destined. I couldn’t even get through the sentence without my throat thickening. What was wrong with me? It’d been years and years of heartbreak and bad timing. How many times did the universe have to tell us this wasn’t right? “And I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if he and I were ever . . .”

“Ah, fuck,” Corbin said, wrinkling his eyebrows. I must’ve looked about to burst into tears, because he started to fidget. “This might be out of my league. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

I inhaled back the urge, shaking my head. “You didn’t.”

“It’s not dumb, Lake.” He put his ankle over his knee, resting his drink on his sneaker. “But would you take some advice from a reformed love-sick puppy?”

I failed to suppress a smile. “Sure.”

“Move on. I know it sounds obvious, but if you’re still pining for him years later, you’re not going to magically get over it. No matter how much you accomplish, a small part of you is holding back, don’t you think?”

I thought of what Corbin had said earlier this year about losing some of my fire after graduation. It was only now becoming clear to me that instead of accessing my pain over Manning as my professor had coached me to do, I’d buried it, and that’d hurt my ability to tune into my emotions. Maybe reality TV really was the best I could do, because Manning hadn’t just taken part of me with him when he’d left New York—he’d changed my DNA. He’d changed the dynamic of the city for me. His destruction had seeped into my career, my home, my heart, and even my innocence he’d been so hell-bent on preserving. I’d had to take the morning-after pill the same day he’d left. Flushing myself of him was a distinct kind of heartache I’d never forget.

“It’s like you’re waiting for him until you can be happy,” Corbin said. “But what’re you waiting for? It’s been years. Get closure if you need to, but then move yourself on.”

Move on. My hope for Manning and me had been holding strong for a decade, through the worst of it. What about his hope? Had he ever had it? If he hadn’t come for me by now, then maybe not. “I don’t think I wanted to get over him,” I said. “I really thought one day . . .”

“I know the feeling. It’s like—how could it not happen? But for most of us, it doesn’t.” He sipped his drink, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I don’t believe he’s the only person who can make you happy. You can fall in love with someone else if you’re willing to try.”

Corbin was right—my love for Manning wasn’t dumb, but since the day I’d met him, it’d been getting in the way of everything else. It was time to give up and move myself on. I hated to cry in front of Corbin because he was so protective, but I never thought I’d have to admit I’d been wrong about Manning. I never thought I’d lose hope.

“I guess this is why you and I don’t talk about girl stuff.” Corbin reached out to thumb away some tears. “Hey, Val,” he yelled, beckoning for her through the kitchen window.

Val had held me through too many nights of crying over Manning, so for her sake, I pulled myself together. When she poked her head out a minute later, I practiced moving on, like Corbin had told me, and forced a smile with all my might. “We miss you,” I said.

She came onto the patio with a bottle of wine and some stacked plastic Solo cups. “I’m not going to toast you again,” she said to me. “I know you wanted to strangle me for it.”

“Completely true,” I teased.

“I thought I was helping you out when I recommended you for this project,” she said, separating the cups. “It seemed like a good opportunity. Was I wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I have a lot of thinking to do about . . .” I glanced at Corbin. “Everything.”

Val nodded and filled up three drinks, placing one in front of each of us. When she took the chair Tiffany had vacated, I crossed my feet in her lap.

We sat that way, just the three of us, talking until the party died down.

Every once in a while, I’d catch myself looking up. The moon was full, but I wondered how long until I’d take in the night sky and feel anything other than empty.