9:58 P.M.

“OF COURSE WE WERE HAPPY,” Tobias says. He’s still holding my hand. “But sometimes it felt like we left too much up to fate.”

“Interesting,” Conrad says. He’s leaning forward, his elbows on the table. Audrey swats them off.

“Sabby had this idea that we were fated to be together.”

I try to pull my hand away. It feels like he’s exposing me in public here tonight. I don’t like it. I thought we had a contract to stay in that place together.

“Stop,” he says, holding my palm steady. “It’s true. You were always pissed I didn’t remember you from Ashes and Snow.”

He’s not wrong, strictly speaking. Although pissed isn’t the right word. Sad is probably closer to it.

“She had this sense it was just supposed to work, and you weren’t supposed to have to work for it,” Jessica says. “Like their love story was so epic the day-to-day didn’t matter. But that’s what relationships are. They’re the day-to-day.”

“I’m right here,” I tell her. I pull my hand out of Tobias’s so I can more properly face Jessica. “Can you please stop talking about me as if I’m a child in the other room?”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “I didn’t say that. I just…”

“What?” I snap at her. “You didn’t want me to be with him. Just admit it. You act like you loved him.”

“I went with you!” Jessica says. She’s gesturing wildly now. “I practically pushed you. I was the one who found that photography club. I was the one who drove you to UCLA.”

Tobias is looking at me curiously. “You never told me how you got that photo.”

“Of course I did. After Ashes and Snow I didn’t even know your name. I went to UCLA. I found the photography club. You weren’t there, but I bought that photo.”

“No,” Tobias says. “You never told me that.” He looks concerned, stressed. Flushed like he’s just come in from running.

“See this, right here? This is what I mean!” Jessica says. “You both always thought it was coincidence, but it wasn’t. You needed everything to seem like magic. You couldn’t accept that you were both human.”

We found each other again, against all odds. In New York City! We were magic.

“I didn’t need magic,” Tobias says, mostly to me. He still looks alarmed.

“Where did you think she got the photograph?” Audrey interjects. “Surely…”

“You knew,” Robert says. “You just didn’t want to admit it to yourself, because of the responsibility it would mean, because of what you’d owe her.”

Robert’s tone has changed. There is something almost paternal in it. It makes us all stop and look at him.

“No,” I say. “Come on.” Because if I’m going to defend one of them, it’s going to be Tobias.

Tobias exhales. “He’s right,” he says. “I think so, anyway.” He runs his hands over his face. I feel my body tighten next to him. “Sometimes I was scared of letting you down,” he says. “You thought so highly of me. I wasn’t always that person.”

“I saw you,” I say. “I saw us. I saw this whole future.…”

Tobias looks at Robert. The two of them exchange a glance, and for the first time tonight I take them in like this, sitting next to each other. They look nothing alike. Tobias with his big head of curls and bright green eyes, my father with his near-balding head, patched skin, and sunken chest. But there’s a nervous quality to them both. They’re on high alert. I remember a still image, like a snapshot, of my father pacing in the kitchen, his fingers nipping at one another. An uncomfortable thought presents itself. I push it back down.

“Fine,” I say. “You were human. I was wrong about you. It was my fault.”

“That’s not what I said,” Tobias says. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I hold my arms out. “Well, if it wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t your fault, then what?”

Silence falls over the table. I hear Audrey clear her throat. Finally, Conrad leans forward.

“Then we order dessert,” he says. Audrey shakes her head at him. “What?” he says. “I need something sweet.”

We each busy ourselves with our menus, the heat of the last few minutes hanging in the air between us. The words all swim together until I can’t make them out. He did love me the way I needed to be loved. Being with him was all that ever mattered. And if we can’t figure this out, if we can’t go back, he’s going to be lost to me forever. It doesn’t feel like we’re getting any closer. In fact, it feels like we’re getting farther away.

“Soufflés?” Conrad asks, and the group starts talking about ice cream and sorbet and peach cobbler, and I sit back and wonder what would happen if I just got up and left. If I walked out of the restaurant and home. They’d disappear. My father. Audrey. Conrad and Jessica, too. But then Tobias would be gone for good, and I can’t have that, not with so much still left between us.