She nodded.

Julianne considered the question with the patience of someone who'd spent fifteen years answering it in her dreams. "No," she said finally. "I regret that I wanted to fight. I regret that I thought love was a competition. But you and Kimmy—you built something real. Something I wouldn't have known how to build. I was too busy being clever and afraid."

"Anything."

Not Michael. Never Michael. But Kimmy—Kimberly Wallace O’Neal, the sweet, impossibly sunny woman Michael had married instead of Julianne. Kimmy had become, against all logic, Julianne's friend. Not a close friend. A once-a-year Christmas card friend. A "like your Instagram post about that ramen place" friend. But a friend nonetheless.

"I saw you in that burgundy dress. You were looking at me like I was the last boat leaving a sinking island. And I thought, 'What if I've made a terrible mistake?' But then Kimmy smiled at me from the altar. And she was so sure. So good. And you—you were always the hurricane, Jules. I loved the hurricane. But I needed the harbor."

She didn't cry. Not then.