He sets his elbows on the table and leans forward. “When Daphne was little, she was a big-time reader. And I had this girlfriend who worked at a bookstore, got a huge discount. So I’d always bring books when I came to visit.

“But me and Holly—Daph’s mom—neither of us really had ‘disposable income,’ per se. So I always got in trouble with her. I’d get Daphne the first book in a series, or worse, the second, and then Holly would have to buy her the first. She finally told me she wanted me to stop bringing presents. Thought I was trying to buy Daphne off.”

He rolls his eyes as he says this, but also shoots Julia a wink. “Maybe a bit. Anyway, we compromised. I’d take Daph to the library every time I was in town instead. You’d think I’d brought her to Disneyland. Put this girl in a room full of books, and she’s happier than anyone I’ve met. Never understood it myself, but it was cute as hell to watch her stack up as many as she could carry and slide them onto a desk higher than her forehead to check them out.”

Starfire puts a hand over her heart at this.

My own is beating a little fast, uncomfortably.

His telling of it feels so different from my own memory. What loomed so large for me, bigger even than the magic of being surrounded by bright colors and free books, was being excited to show him what I’d found. Wandering the stacks in search of him. Finally spotting him flirting with a librarian, hardly aware of me there, waiting for his attention.

One of my earliest memories of joy, and one of the first times I realized I’d always come in second.

“Excuse me.” I push back from the table and stand. “I’ve got to use the restroom.”

I serpentine through the tables on the deck into the restaurant, adjusting to the dim Edison bulb chandeliers before cutting over to the bathroom hallway.

Both are occupied, but it’s not that I needed to pee so much as I needed to breathe, while I wait out this confusing torrent of feelings. I lean against the gilded wallpaper and close my eyes, willing my heart to slow.

“You okay?” comes a soft voice.

I open my eyes. Miles steps uncertainly into the hallway.

“Yep. Mm-hmm. Fine!” I say. “Bathroom’s in use.”

He nods. “Then I’ll leave you to it.” He turns away, and I feel this desperation.

To let it out, or just to keep him here a moment longer. “I never know how to feel when he’s around,” I blurt.

Miles turns, considers for a moment. He walks back and leans into the wall beside me. “Somebody recently told me that feelings are like the weather. They just kind of happen.”

I try to force a smile. “Sounds like she has no idea what she’s talking about.”

“She’s very smart,” he says. “And hot, if that’s relevant.”

The glow in my chest isn’t strong enough to break up all the dark clouds churning in there. “He’s being so nice,” I say weakly.

Miles thinks about this for a second. “It seems like it, yeah.”

“So why am I upset?” I say.

“Maybe because . . . when he’s nice, it’s hard to be mad at him.” He takes my hand gingerly. “And you are, so then you feel bad about that.”

“Maybe,” I say. Then, “Maybe exactly.”

He pulls me into his chest and winds his arms around me. Warm, friendly, familiar Miles, and it surprises me how much it hurts to be this close to him. How it only seems to underscore that I won’t be any closer.

“We can run if you want,” he murmurs.

“Dine and dash?” I say. “I’m appalled at you, Miles Nowak.”

“More like, pay on the way out,” he says, “and take a speed-limit-abiding cab somewhere they can’t find us.”

“We couldn’t do that. Julia would end up along for the ride to Vermont. Next thing we’d know, she’d be taking steroids and training for the Women’s Olympic Ski Team.”

“She can hold her own,” he says.

“So can I,” I argue.

He draws back to look into my face. “I know,” he says. “I just don’t want you to have to.”

I look toward the deck, blinking back the rising emotion. “The truth is, he seems different.”

“Is that bad?”

I shake my head. “No. I just . . .”

I don’t want to trust him.

I don’t want to be disappointed.

“I made my peace with how things have always been between us,” I admit. “It took me a long time to stop expecting more than he’d give me.”

“That makes sense,” Miles says, tucking my hair behind my ear.

I don’t want to go back to feeling unsteady. I don’t want it to hurt every time he lets me down.

I already feel it again: the aching emptiness where my dad’s love should be. And this time, I don’t have my mom nearby, or Peter and the Collinses to fill the gaps.

And no matter how genuinely nice Starfire is, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s a woman who paid someone actual money to recount the plot of Titanic to her as a prophecy, and she is worthy of Dad’s love, when I never have been.

Just like Petra is worthy of Peter’s.

Just like Peter is worthy of the commitment of all those friends from whom I’d worked tirelessly to earn approval since we moved here. The ones who had no time for me since the breakup. Still worthy of Sadie’s love, after I’d stopped being so.

Life isn’t a competition, and neither is love, but I’m still the loser.

A frown creases Miles’s forehead as he cups my chin.

I shake my head. “I just want it to be real.”

“What?” he says.

“The memories he has of us,” I whisper. “This visit. I want to believe it all means something.”

“Maybe it does,” he says.

The bathroom door opens behind us, and his hand falls away as we press ourselves against the wall to let the emerging man slink past. As he goes, he finishes tucking his dress shirt back into his pants and eyes us with unbridled suspicion.