“They want us to move over the holidays. So I’m there for the start of the new year.”

I leaned away from him, transferring my weight in a way that made Luke grimace. He shifted beneath me, trying to get comfortable again. “Did you already tell them yes?”

“No,” Luke said. “Of course not. I said I had to talk to you first.”

“When do you have to give them an answer by?”

Luke frowned, considering. “I think I should let them know in a week or so.”

The ligaments in Luke’s legs tensed beneath me, bracing for my meltdown. I suddenly realized the leverage I had if I could keep my cool. It meant accepting a decision that made me sad, but the other option made me afraid, and I was so tired of being afraid. “I need to talk to LoLo,” I said, imagining the meeting in her office, her chemically calm face incapable of expressing what a massive mistake she thought I was making. “Maybe she’ll hook me up with a job at the UK brand.”

Luke smiled, surprised. “I’m sure she would.” He added, generously, “She loves you.”

I nodded, all agreeable Ani. Fiddling with a button on his shirt I said, “I actually have to talk to you about something too.”

Luke’s golden eyebrows twitched.

“The production company wants to film the wedding.” I rushed the next part before Luke could butt in and object. “They just felt really moved by my story, and it’s kind of cool because they also offered to basically be the videographer and put together a wedding video for us. For free.” WASPs love the occasional freebie.

Aaron had approached me after Dean wheeled up the ramp and into the handicap cave of his private car. I’d been so brave. So fearless. I slunk in on myself as he piled on the praise. “You really are emerging as this sort of tragic hero,” Aaron said. “I think it could be so powerful to end the movie on your wedding. Your happily ever after. So long deserved.”

I didn’t disagree. This ending was the easy one.

I realized that I must have told Aaron I’d discuss his idea with Luke at the same time Luke was telling the partners he’d discuss London with me, both of us having something we wanted that only the other could make possible. I wondered if Luke exited his meeting, pep in his step, picturing the sleek modern flat the company would put us up in, dismissing the possible killjoy in the whole scenario, me. She’ll be no problem to convince, he probably thought, as only a person whose life has been one endless loop of pass-go-and-collect-two-hundred-dollars thinks.

My meeting with Aaron had ended much differently. I waited to react until I was alone in the Jeep. Our Jeep, I reminded myself, grimly. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my teeth chattered, and then I was slumped over the center console, wailing my resignation into the leather that smelled faintly of skunk, like one of Luke’s friends spilled a beer a very long time ago and never bothered to clean it up.

Luke scratched an ingrown hair on his neck. “For free?”

There was a give in his voice, and, for a moment, buyer’s remorse crept in. Why not just let him say no? Why not just fight and cry and say, “I can’t do this,” and really mean it this time? I spoke loudly, over that possibility. “For free. And you know they’ll do a good job. A really good job.”

Luke stared at the naked white wall above the TV, thinking. I’d been meaning to get to Brooklyn Flea, find something “eccentric” to hang there. “I just really hate the idea of our wedding being in that documentary though.”

“It really will be just a few minutes at the end,” I said, the lie ready and waiting. “We’ll get a say in the final cut.”

Luke bobbed his head around, considering. “And you trust them?”

I nodded, meaning that at least. Aaron had surprised me after I decided to stop despising him. “I do. I really do.”

Luke tilted his head back, the brown leather couch puckering beneath the full weight of his skull. His parents had bought us these couches. I’d gone from sharing a Diet Coke–and-pizza-grease-stained futon with Nell to these couches, the leather like butter, Mom said the first time she visited us, running her French tips along their creamy skin. Sometimes the transition seemed too much, too quick. There had to be an in-between, and it seemed unfair that I had skipped it. Like something I could be punished for later.

“Luke.” Now I released the tears that had been building since I nosed the Jeep onto the West Side Highway, the sudden, disorienting panic that where I was headed was no longer home snowballing as the West Village became Tribeca. “This weekend was so good in so many ways. I really feel like, for the first time, everyone is on my side. Dean is on my side. I saw Dean. I think they want to—”

“You saw Dean?” Luke’s head snapped upright. I stared at the couch, at the way it held his skull’s imprint tight. “I thought you weren’t planning on talking about what happened with him.” Luke brought his thumb to his mouth and chewed on it angrily. “I knew those producers were going to manipulate you.” He wiped saliva on his shirt and pounded his thigh with a tight fist. “I knew I should have gone with you.”

A tingle, electric and wild, sparked all along my spine. Never in my life did I think I would feel the need to defend Dean Barton. “I saw Dean because I wanted to see Dean,” I snapped. “And relax. We didn’t talk about the rape.”

That word stopped Luke cold. I’d never said it out loud. Not to anyone.

“His story changed,” I said, rushing to fill in the uncomfortable silence, confirming what I’ve always suspected about Luke: He doesn’t think it was rape. He thinks it was an unfortunate incident, something that happens when hornball kids get together and drink too much. “He doesn’t think I had something to do with it anymore.” Remembering the picture I had promised to return to Mrs. Finnerman, I swung my legs over the arm of the couch and stood, making my way to the bookcase in the corner. I crouched in front of the bottom shelf for the folder where I store all things Bradley—news clips, memorial service cards, the image of Arthur and his father, laughing at the drab Jersey ocean, pastel seashells lining the memory.

“He said that?” Luke asked behind me.

I shook the folder, trying to locate the picture. “He told me that. He apologized for ever saying so. On camera.”

Luke peered over the surface of the coffee table to see what I was doing. “What are you looking for?”

“That picture,” I said. “Of Arthur and his dad. I promised Mrs. Finnerman I’d give it back to her.” I dumped all the contents onto the floor. “It’s not here.” I pushed through it all, one more time. “What the fuck?”

“You probably moved it and forgot,” Luke said, suddenly helpful. “It’ll turn up.”

“No. I would never have moved it.” I eased one leg across the other on the hardwood floor and sat.

“Hey.” Luke got up off the couch, and there was that sound, like peeling a sticker off a piece of paper. I felt his hand on my back, and then he was next to me on the floor, collecting the file’s contents. “It will turn up. Stuff like that always does when you’re not looking.”

I watched him neatly file away my tragedy. The care on his face gave me the courage to try one more time. “Aaron understands how invasive it could be to have the cameras there. He really is going to just look like the videographer.”

Luke sealed the folder shut. “I just don’t want, like, an entire camera crew at our wedding.”

I shook my head and held out two fingers. “That’s it, that’s all they need.”

“Two guys?”

“I told them the same thing.” See, Luke, we’re on the same page. “They promised me, two. No one will be able to tell the difference between them and a regular videographer.” I didn’t mention the part about everyone having to sign releases. I just needed to get him to a yes.

Luke balanced the bulk of evidence in his lap. “This is going to make you happy, isn’t it?”