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at the edge of the city. “There’s someone else.”
    “But you’re Jessie
Effing
Morgan,” Myra said, adamantly. “Doesn’t he know that?”
    “Apparently not,” I said. I bit at the tough skin on the side of my fingernail without thinking about it. It was a bad habit, but I almost never did it in front of other people.
    “I’m sorry. I won’t make you talk about it,” Myra said.
    “It’s fine,” I said, sliding my hands under my thighs. “It’s not like pretending it didn’t happen is going to make it go away.” I shouldn’t do this, I thought. I shouldn’t use this girl to work out my problems. But I couldn’t stop myself. “The thing is—I’m not sure I know who I am without Deagan. I never wanted to be one of those girls, you know? The kind who plans her whole life around some guy.”
    “But you thought he was so much more than some guy,” Myra said, waving her right hand around enthusiastically. “I know. I’ve been there.” She sighed. “Remember John Hayes?”
    “No,” I said, forgetting completely that I was supposed to be Jessie Morgan.
    “Yeah, I guess maybe you wouldn’t. We didn’t really get to be friends with him until after you left. But, oh my God, the summer after graduation, I fell so hard. I gave up a scholarship to the Fashion Institute in New York for that boy. I went to school here instead.” She shook her head. “He said all the things I wanted to hear, you know?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I do know!”
    “He said he wanted to marry me. We got engaged. I had a ring. And then right before junior year, he said he was bored. He decided he was going to transfer to Fairleigh Dickinson, and he moved to New Jersey without me, like he wasn’t even leaving anything behind.”
    “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said.
    “I told him I’d try to transfer, so I could move with him. And he said—get this—he said, ‘I think things have run their course.’”
    “What an ass!” I said. “Run their course? What is it with guys and their stupid breakup statements?” I told her about Deagan and his exploratory mission.
    Myra laughed. “Don’t they realize that the stupid shit they say when they dump us will live in our heads for all eternity?”
    “They must be completely oblivious,” I said. She was right too. For the rest of my life, whenever I thought about Deagan, all the memories I had of us would be replaced by the image of him in bed with Faye, wearing a pith helmet, exploring.
    “I can practically still hear it. ‘I think things have run their course.’ Like I was all chewed up and ready to be spat out.”
    I wondered why Jessie Morgan wouldn’t know anything about Myra and John—why she left Mount Si right after graduation. She didn’t even stay for the summer. And if they were such good friends, why didn’t Myra call to tell Jessie about her heartbreak?
    “He’s coming to the reunion,” Myra said, her voice wobbling. “He’s bringing his wife. I mean, I know I should be over it. It was a long time ago now, but whenever I think about having to see him, I just get angry.” She wiped the corner of her eye with her sleeve. “I gave up too much for him. And then, of course, he came home for the next two summers, and I was stupid enough to think, both times, that it would last longer than just the summer. Like he’d actually stay for me.”
    “I’m so sorry,” I said. I thought about how I would feel when I got back to Rochester, running into Deagan and Faye at Wegmans. Seeing them out at the Lilac Festival, holding hands and sharing a funnel cake. I felt the dread in my stomach. Everything about me, all my friends except Luanne, revolved around being Deagan’s girlfriend, and I felt so incredibly stupid for letting that happen.
    “And I can’t act like it still stings all this time later,” Myra said. “That would be completely pathetic.”
    “Maybe he’s bald,” I said. “Or fat. Or smelly.”
    Myra laughed.
    “Maybe his wife is bald and