April arrived like a test written by a teacher with a sense of humor. The anniversary of Theo's missed showcase sat on the calendar without pencil ambiguity. Rowan felt it coming the way animals feel weather. Theo felt it coming the way people feel guilt that has learned their address.
On the morning of the anniversary date, Theo texted before Rowan woke: Today is a hard date. I am not going to pretend it isn't. I will be at your evening class unless you tell me not to. I will bring nothing symbolic except myself on time.
Rowan stared at the message for a long time in bed. Part of her wanted to tell him not to come, to keep the date as a private museum. Part of her was tired of museums.
She wrote: Come. Sit in the squeaky chair. Do not bring flowers. Flowers make apology look decorative.
Theo came. He sat in the squeaky chair. He did not bring flowers. After class, Rowan laced off her skates and sat beside him in the lobby while parents collected gloves and siblings.
"I'm still angry on a cellular level," she said lightly, which meant she was serious.
"I know."
"I'm also glad you exist in the squeaky chair."
"I'll take that as a seasonal visa," Theo said. "Renewable pending good behavior and continued ugly honesty."
Rowan leaned her shoulder into his. "Renewable. For now."
For now, Ned would have said, was the only tense anybody actually got.
May turned warm enough that the outdoor rink's season felt like a memory stored in muscle. Bridie hosted a bakery closing shift party with leftover croissants and a playlist Otis was not allowed to touch. Otis came anyway, hovered near the espresso machine, and eventually apologized to Bridie without a soundtrack.
"I treated carefulness like a personality," Otis said, echoing his own advice to Theo with the stricken look of a man hearing himself too late.
Bridie considered him over a tray of unsold eclairs. "I don't want to date you again," she said. "But I will let you buy me dinner as a person who is learning, and I will not weaponize the playlist era."
"Dignity," Otis said, hand on heart.