When she told me Dad wasn’t interested in coming, I muttered, “How out of character for him.” Mom sighed and asked me not to start with her.

Aunt Lindy laughed suddenly. “Spicy veal ravioli?” She made a face. “Doesn’t sound very Chinese.”

Mom gave her a pitying look. “It’s fusion, Lin.” Beyond Mom’s shoulder, I saw Andrew stand and motion to me. He walked along the perimeter of the restaurant, toward the hostess station and bathrooms.

“Will you order the lemongrass shrimp for me?” I bunched up my napkin and tossed it on the table. “I need to use the bathroom.”

Mom scooted back and pulled out the table for me. “But what do you want for an appetizer?”

“Just pick a salad,” I said over my shoulder.

I tried the bathrooms first. I even swung open the door to the men’s room, pretending like I’d mistaken it for the ladies’. A mustached father drying his hands informed me where I was. I called out Andrew’s name and left when the man repeated himself, angry this time.

Mom and Aunt Lindy were sitting with their backs to me, so I hurried toward the front door. Outside, the air smelled so much like nothing I wasn’t even sure if I was breathing. It took a second for the night’s objects to focus before my eyes, and then I saw Andrew, leaning against the scuffed-up trunk of his car, like he had been waiting for me there all along.

I apologized to him with my arms. “She blindsided me.”

Andrew shoved off the trunk and met me by the restaurant, underneath some scaffolding where the streetlights couldn’t reach. He wiggled his fingers, witchily. “Mother’s intuition. Like she knew you were up to no good.”

I shook my head and laughed to show him how wrong he was. I didn’t like Andrew referring to us as “no good.” “No. She just really likes a free dinner at Yangming.” I backed into the restaurant’s brick siding as Andrew came up on me.

He brought his hands to the sides of my face, and I shut my eyes. I could have fallen asleep right there, standing up, his thumbs stroking my cheeks and the odorless breeze teasing hairs across my face. I layered my hands over his. “Just wait for me somewhere,” I said. “I’ll meet you wherever. After.”

“Tif,” he sighed. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

I held on to him tighter and tried to keep my voice light. “Come on.”

Andrew sighed, and his hands slipped out from underneath mine. He cupped my shoulders in a brotherly way, and I started to splinter up a little inside. “We could have done something we couldn’t take back last night,” he said. “But we didn’t. Maybe we just walk away from this now, before we do something we regret.”

I shook my head and measured out my tone carefully. “I won’t ever regret anything with you.”

Andrew hugged me to him, and until he said, “I might though,” I actually thought I had convinced him.

The door to the restaurant opened, releasing a shriek of laughter. I wanted to scream at everyone inside to shut the fuck up. It’s never harder to stay in control than when everyone else is having a good time. “We don’t have to do anything,” I said, hating how desperate I sounded. “We can just go somewhere. Have a drink. Talk.”

Andrew’s heart ba-bummed in my ear. He smelled like a date, all cologne and nerves. I felt his sad sigh on the top of my head. “I can’t just talk with you, TifAni.”

Somewhere, that windshield finally shattered whole. I only knew how to strike, and I planted my elbows in Andrew’s chest and pushed. He hadn’t been expecting it, and he gasped, whether the wind was knocked out of him or he was just startled, as he stumbled away from me. “Of fucking course you can’t.” I waved him off. “I actually needed a friend. But you’re just another guy who wants to put it in the Bradley slut.”

Under the streetlamps now, I saw Andrew’s face all pinched up with hurt and I immediately hated myself. “TifAni,” he tried. “My God, you know that’s not true. I just want you to be happy. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. But this”—he pointed between us—“this won’t make you happy.”

“Oh, even better!” I laughed nastily. “Someone else to tell me what will make me happy. Exactly what I fucking need.” Don’t do this. Don’t say this. But I couldn’t stop. “I know, okay?” I took little steps toward him until we were kissing close. “I know what’s best for me.”

Andrew nodded kindly. “I know you do.” He wiped a tear off my face, and it only made me cry harder. Would that be the last time he ever touched me? “So do it.”

I gripped his hand to my face, leaking tears and snot all over him. “I can’t. I know I won’t.”

The restaurant door yapped open, and Andrew and I broke away from each other as a couple, fed and happy, trotted down the stairs. The man waited for the woman on the street, slung his arm around her shoulders when she caught up with him. She pretended like she didn’t notice my glassy eyes as she passed by, but I knew by the look on her face that she had. Knew she was thinking, Couple’s spat, glad it’s not us tonight. I would have killed for us to have been a couple, fighting about how Andrew’s been working too much, how I spend too much at Barneys, anything other than what we were really doing here.

We waited for them to walk to their cars, listened to the doors slam shut. Hers first, his another few seconds later. He’d opened the door for her. I hated them.

Andrew said, “I never meant to upset you, TifAni. I hate seeing you like this.” He thrust his arms in the air, angry at himself. “I let it go too far. I should never have done that. I’m sorry.”

I wanted to tell him I was sorry too, that this wasn’t what I meant to happen either. But I couldn’t make the words come out, just more lies and excuses. “I think I gave you the wrong idea about Luke.” Andrew pushed his hands at me, tried to stop me from explaining, but I pressed on. “It is not easy for someone like me to be happy. This is as close as I’m going to get and it’s pretty great—”

“I didn’t mean to imply that—”

“So don’t you dare,” I cry-hiccuped embarrassingly, “feel sorry,” another hiccup, “for me.”

“I don’t,” Andrew said. “I never did. I’m bowled over by you. You cared for Peyton. You held Peyton’s hand. After what he did to you. You don’t even know how amazing you are. You should be with someone who sees that.”

I picked up the collar of my shirt and acted like I was just drying my face, but I wasn’t. I was hurling quiet sobs into my protective mask. I heard Andrew’s nice dress shoes take a step in my direction, but I shook my head and gave a muffled warning not to come any closer.

He waited for me, a full body’s length away, while I destroyed my shirt. I couldn’t ever return it to the fashion closet now; I was going to have to act like I lost it or something. Strategizing this new lie was the only thing that could calm me down. Was the only thing that dried me up inside and gave me the strength to clear my throat and say, just barely composed, “My mother’s probably wondering where I am.”

Andrew nodded at the pavement. Like he’d been watching it the whole time, giving me my privacy. “Okay.”

I at least managed to get off a pleasant-sounding good night before I turned and took the stairs. Andrew waited behind me again, making sure I got inside safely. I didn’t even deserve him anyway.

“There you are!” Mom said as I squeezed myself between two tables and into the booth. “I ordered you the most boring salad they have.” She dunked a crispy noodle into orange sauce and bit into it. “I know you’re on that crazy diet.”

“Thanks.” I snapped my napkin over my lap again.

Aunt Lindy noticed my face first. “You okay, Tif?”

“Not really.” I tossed a crispy noodle into my mouth without dipping it into anything and munched. “I mean, I did just spend the afternoon with the mother of the boy I murdered, so that may explain why I’m a little blue.”