I’d been dodging Dawn’s calls, not wanting to tell her what happened until I spoke to Frank. But since I no longer felt like I owed him anything, the next day, when Dawn called, I picked up.

“Oh my god,” she said, before I even said hello, her voice high and excited. “I’m so glad you’re finally around! Have you been sick or something?”

“Well—” I started, but she was already continuing on.

“I have a date tonight! With Matthew! He asked me yesterday. We’re going to the movies, isn’t that great?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling myself smile for the first time in days, beyond glad that Collins had taken my advice. “That’s fantastic.”

“So you have to help me figure out what to wear,” she said. “But maybe later tonight? I’m at work now anyway, and it’ll help to be in front of my closet.” She took what sounded like a much-needed breath. “What’s up with you? Are you okay?”

“Frank and I kissed,” I blurted out. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make small talk about anything else with that on my mind, since it was pretty much the only thing I had thought about for the last three days. “I kissed him,” I admitted. There was just silence on Dawn’s end, and I went on, in a rush, “And now I don’t know what’s going on. He texted me back, but it doesn’t seem like he really wants to talk to me. And I just want things to go back to how they were. . . .” Even as I said this, I knew it wasn’t true. I didn’t really want that at all. But I would have preferred that over whatever we were doing now.

“Emily,” Dawn said, and her voice was colder than I had ever heard it. “He has a girlfriend.”

I blinked, a little startled by Dawn’s change of tone. “I know,” I said slowly. “And I feel terrible about this. I—”

“Do you?” she asked. “Because you knew he had a girlfriend when you went ahead and kissed him, didn’t you?”

“Dawn,” I said, trying to regroup. I had actually hoped to talk to her about this, to get her take on things, and instead, it felt like I was being attacked. “I—”

“Did you honestly think I would be on board with this?” she asked, her voice rising. “After what Mandy did to me? After what Bryan did?”

I closed my eyes for just a second and rested the phone against my head. “No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do, and—”

“Look, I can’t really talk right now,” she said, her voice clipped and cold. “I’m at work.”

“Okay,” I said, a little confused, since Dawn had never exactly been committed to her job. “Should I call you later?”

“I have to go,” she said, not really sounding angry any longer, just sounding sad. “I have to work, and then I have this date to get ready for, so . . .”

A moment too late, the penny dropped. Dawn didn’t want to talk to me anymore. She didn’t want to be friends with me, not after what I’d done. We said stilted good-byes and I hung up the phone, feeling like everything in my life was suddenly breaking apart and floating away just when I needed it most.

After I hung up with Dawn, I called Collins. When he answered the phone, he sounded wary, and I hadn’t gotten far in my halting explanation when he cut me off.

“I know what happened,” he said, letting out a long breath. “This isn’t good, Emily.”

“I know that,” I said.  Any last hopes I was holding on to that Frank might want to still be friends again, or that we might be able to move past this, ended when I heard the resigned tone in Collins’s voice. “But I just wanted to—”

“You know I can’t do this, right?” he asked, not sounding angry, mostly just tired. “I can’t take your side. He’s my best friend.”

“I know he is,” I said, “But if you could just talk to him—”

“I can’t,” Collins said. “Even if I wanted to, which I really don’t. He’s in New—” Collins stopped abruptly, but I’d heard enough to put it together. I hadn’t realized that I could feel worse, but I did. I now understood why Frank’s truck hadn’t been at his house. He was gone. He had gone to Princeton. He had chosen his girlfriend. Of course he had; it wasn’t even a question.  And he’d slept there, with her.

I knew I had no right to feel mad about this, but even so, I had to fight back the tears that were threatening to escape—for what Frank and I had had, and for what we would never have, and for what I’d broken.

“I’m sorry, Em,” Collins said, and I could hear that he meant it.

“Yeah,” I whispered, not trusting myself to say much more, trying to keep my voice steady so that he wouldn’t hear that I was about to burst into tears. It was suddenly becoming clear to me that I had nobody on my side. “Have a good time tonight.”

“Thanks,” he said, and his voice was gentle when he added, “Take care, okay?”

And I’d nodded, even though Collins couldn’t see me do it, and hung up, realizing that he had just told me good-bye. So I’d lost Dawn, and Collins, and of course, Frank. With one stupid action, I’d just wrecked everything that I’d built over the course of the summer.

And now my mother was standing in my doorway, because even she had noticed that something was wrong. “Hi,” I said, setting down the pair of shoes Sloane had bought for me the last time we’d been at a flea market together. I squinted at my mother, and noticed that she was wearing actual clothing, and that her hair was washed. “Did you guys finish your play?”

My mother gave me a smile that was equal parts thrilled and tired. “Late last night,” she said.

“Wow,” I said, making myself smile at her. “That’s great. Congrats.”

“Thanks,” she said, her smile fading as she took a step closer into my room. “I’m just a little worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” I said quickly, automatically. And if my mother had still been deep in writing mode, she would have left it at that. But she just looked at me a moment longer, the kind of look that let me know that she was back, and the slack I’d been able to have all summer was pretty much over.