Max led her up a single flight of stairs to a heavy, carved door that was flanked by a pair of brassy light fixtures. “After you,” he said.

Avery tried not to look too knowing as she started up the steps. One of their friends must have moved here, and Max had asked them to help organize a surprise party for her. A little presumptuous, given that she wasn’t technically admitted to Oxford, but Max was always ready to celebrate things that hadn’t happened yet.

She paused to arrange her features into a suitably surprised face, and pushed at the front door. It swung open easily at her touch.

The Surprise! she expected didn’t come. Avery blinked, puzzled, and stepped into the entryway.

It was a charmingly old ramshackle apartment, with scuffed wooden floors and faded yellow walls. There were a few stray pieces of furniture, a heavy rug and a bookcase covered in a fine film of dust. She walked past the narrow kitchen to a small patio out back, where a single folding table and matching chairs had been arranged.

“What do you think?” Max followed her outside.

Avery turned around slowly, taking it all in. “Who lives here?”

“We do. I mean, if you want to,” Max amended hastily. “I put in an offer this morning.”

Avery felt suddenly light-headed. She sank into one of the metal folding chairs.

“Max,” she said helplessly, “we don’t even know if I’ll get in. . . .”

“Didn’t you just say that you crushed the interview? You’ll get in,” he declared. “I figured it makes sense for us to buy a place instead of paying rent; we’ll be in Oxford for the next four years at least, while you’re at university. Maybe longer, if I get into the PhD program, or if you decide to go to grad school.”

“I’m not sure I want to get a PhD,” Avery protested.

“Why not? You’re smart enough to,” Max declared. “This is a great place for us, Avery.”

“It is,” she said softly, glancing around. This apartment seemed so . . . Max. But she wasn’t sure it felt like her.

“I know it’s a little unfinished. It needs some rugs and art. Which is where you come in,” Max said and smiled. “But can’t you picture us here, curling up in the living room to grade papers? Having friends over for dinner? Standing out here on a warm summer night to watch the fireflies? You can almost see part of the river, if you look that way,” he added, pointing eagerly.

Avery felt as if the air in her lungs was trapped. Max was only two years older than her, yet he was so much surer of himself. He had his whole life—or rather, both their lives—completely planned out.

Max seemed unnerved by her silence. “Unless you don’t want to live here. I mean, if you aren’t ready yet. . . .”

Even though she felt frozen by an inexplicable sense of panic, Avery recoiled from the prospect of hurting Max. Her face unfolded into a smile. “Of course I want to live here,” she assured him, and paused as another idea occurred to her. “Did you say that you bought this place? Max, please at least let me pay for half of it.”

“It’s okay. I have some money saved. I wanted to do this, for you. For us.” Max leaned forward with a quiet intensity. “I love you, Avery Fuller,” he began, and even though they were both sitting—even though he wasn’t on one knee—Avery had the sensation that what he was about to say was something akin to a proposal.

“The last year with you has been so perfect. You are perfect. You’re like a dream that I’ve been longing for my whole life and never thought I would find. And now that I’ve found you, all I can think about is how much I want to be with you always.”

Avery felt that flutter of panic again. “I’m not perfect, Max.” It wasn’t fair of him to ask that of her, to build her into some untenable ideal in his mind and then inevitably be disappointed when she failed to live up to it. No relationship could withstand that sort of pressure.

Atlas had always known better than to use the word perfect with her.

“Right, no one is perfect. You’re just as close as it is humanly possible to be,” Max replied, not understanding her meaning; and for some perverse reason Avery needed him to understand. The way Atlas always had.

She also knew that she shouldn’t be thinking of Atlas right now.

“I’m not perfect,” she repeated. Something in Max’s eyes frightened her, though she wasn’t sure why. “I’m impatient and defensive and petty, and I’m not worth that kind of blind devotion. No one is.”

His face had gone pale. “What are you saying? Are you telling me not to love you?”

“No, I just . . .” She let her head fall forward into her hands, fighting off a nameless sense of dread. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“And I don’t want to disappoint you, Avery. But I’m sure I will, a thousand times, and I’m sure you’ll disappoint me too. As long as we’re honest with each other, we can get through anything.”

As long as we’re honest with each other. Avery pushed aside the tiny voice that was reminding her of all the things she hadn’t told Max: The truth about Eris’s death. The investigation about Mariel. Her relationship with Atlas.

But none of that mattered anymore, she reminded herself. Those secrets all belonged to the old Avery, and she had left the old Avery behind in New York. She was starting over.