Two days before her wedding, 30-year-old Frankie sits at a welcome dinner in the dining room of Darlington Manor, a historic country estate. Despite the glittering setting and her large yellow diamond engagement ring, she feels unable to breathe. She reflects that this is technically her second wedding, though the first didn’t count. She briefly recalls that earlier ceremony under an apple tree, remembering a small stain on her groom’s sweater.

Her bridesmaid Aurora notices Frankie’s distress and glances at an empty chair that tightens the knots in Frankie’s stomach. Frankie excuses herself and calls George from a nook under the staircase, leaving a voicemail begging him to attend. She returns to sit with Aurora; Aurora’s girlfriend, Betty; and her fiancé, Nate Bacon, a 46-year-old mathematics professor with ginger hair. She avoids looking at the empty seat beside George’s grandmother Mimi Saint James.

Frankie reflects on the wedding’s scale—it involves 120 guests, an expensive dress, and a string quartet learning the theme from the 1994 film version of Little Women. She relates to Jo March and sees parallels in her own life. She met Nate at a coffee shop two weeks after leaving her sous-chef job due to burnout. Six months later, they were engaged.

A server brings crab-stuffed ravioli, but Frankie can’t eat. Her mother, Rebecca Gardiner, notices her worry, and Frankie reflects on their complicated relationship, which began when her mother left for 18 months when Frankie was eight. Aurora points out Frankie’s strange behavior and sees her texting under the table. She asks if George is really running late—the story that Frankie has been telling everyone.

Frankie’s phone vibrates with a text from Moby saying that she looks sick and suggesting that she call off the wedding. Feeling ill, Frankie starts toward the bathroom but then sees George standing in the arched entryway.

George stands in the entrance looking surprisingly neat despite his characteristically messy hair. Frankie charges across the room and embraces him. He stiffens before relaxing into the hug, and for the first time that evening, she feels like she can breathe. George apologizes for being unreachable—his phone died on the plane.

Nate approaches and shakes George’s hand warmly. Frankie knows George well enough to recognize a subtle facial tic that signals his dislike, though he maintains a polite facade. She lists the tiny moments that define their bond: holding his hand when George had to get stitches as a kid, comforting him as he sobbed on their apartment floor, receiving his call when he thought he might die, and their matching name tattoos. She notes that they would make a terrible couple—they’re too similar and hotheaded, like Laurie and Jo from Little Women—and that they’ve never kissed, except for one time she doesn’t count.

George is immediately surrounded by the Gardiners. Frankie notes that only she has her mother’s unusual eyes. Darwin and their father work together in the family cabinetry business; Moby works in Ottawa as a cybersecurity engineer. Rebecca, who treats George like a favorite child, mentions that he looked tired when he visited last month. Frankie is hurt to learn that he was home without telling her. George explains that it was brief; as an environmental journalist, he travels constantly. Moby references a Christmas argument between Frankie and George. When Nate asks about it, George claims that they fought about holiday stuffing rather than revealing the truth.

Frankie reflects on their history: They were inseparable from age eight, her father called George her missing rib, they moved to Toronto together after high school, and George eventually left for work. Their relationship grew more distant three years ago, after he covered devastating wildfires and began traveling more frequently. George sits with Mimi, who whispers something in his ear, and Frankie returns to her seat.

With George present, Frankie feels happy and relieved. George sits with Frankie’s three-year-old niece, Birdie, who is coloring while her parents, Darwin and his wife, Anh, look on gratefully. During dessert, Frankie signals to George to meet outside in five minutes, and he agrees.

Nate pulls Frankie onto the dance floor. She recalls that Mimi, a former ballerina, taught her and George ballroom dancing as children. George was naturally talented, while Frankie always tried to lead. Nate is clumsy and steps on her toes. George mouths an old insult from Mimi about Nate’s dancing, making her laugh until tears fall.

The evening grows more festive after the older guests depart. Moby serves as DJ while Darwin distributes scotch. George cuts in to dance with Frankie and leads her in a waltz; they move together perfectly. He tells her she looks beautiful and happy. She agrees that she has never felt happier.

When the music changes, she tells George that she missed this. She senses something is troubling him, but he deflects. They watch Nate and Moby engage in a mock breakdance battle. Frankie asks about his girlfriend, mistakenly calling her Chiara instead of Lara. George reveals that they broke up months ago.

George’s expression turns serious, and he asks if Frankie is truly happy. She promises she is and then asks him to promise the same. Just as Nate cuts in, George says that he promises and steps away. Nate shouts to the room that they’re getting married, and everyone cheers. Frankie thinks it’s the best night of her life, but eight hours later, everything falls apart.

Frankie wakes to a note on her pillow from Nate written on hotel stationery saying, “I love you, but I can’t marry you” (32). What follows exists largely as fragmented memories. Nate’s phone goes to voicemail; her hands shake as she removes bobby pins from her hair. Aurora brings Frankie’s mother to the room, and they hold her while she sobs. She remembers George’s scent as he carries her to her parents’ car, whispering that everything will be okay. In the back seat, she vomits while Aurora sits beside her.

Her father buys her ginger ale at a gas station. Her mother says that she has never seen Frankie in such a state. Her father replies that he has: on Frankie’s ninth birthday, the one her mother missed.

As they approach Toronto, Frankie realizes that she has nowhere to live. Panic sets in, and she struggles to breathe, feeling faint. Aurora presses a cool hand to her cheek and tells her to breathe. Frankie pleads not to go back to her parents’ house. Aurora offers her sofa. Frankie asks about her wedding dress, and Aurora reassures her that George is packing her belongings and will handle everything.

Frankie makes a nest of blankets on Aurora and Betty’s sofa, where she stays with Aurora’s cat, Atomic Yellow. George and her brothers retrieve her belongings from Nate’s house. When George tells her that he must leave for an assignment in Peru, she has her first panic attack, begging to go with him. George refuses, telling her, “Not yet.”

Nate ignores her calls and texts. Frankie becomes obsessed with understanding what she did wrong, blaming herself the way she did when her mother left. She compiles a list of her flaws, circling “bad temper” three times. George checks in more frequently than he has in years. Avery Harper-Klyne, a running joke between Frankie and George since grade school, sends a sympathetic message, mentions her own divorce, attempts to recruit Frankie into a hair-product pyramid scheme, and asks if George is single.

After a week, Frankie returns to work developing recipes for food influencer Brie Palmer. A series of small disasters follows: She yells at a man on the phone who addresses her using Nate’s last name; Brie’s finance person reprimands her for overspending on cheese; and she preheats Aurora’s oven without checking it first, incinerating a stack of stored sweaters, and maxes out her credit card buying replacements. Betty gently suggests that she find an apartment, but Frankie can’t afford first and last month’s rent.

Nate finally agrees to meet at a café—he looks as devastated as she feels. She returns the engagement ring. He offers no explanation, only apologies, and suggests that she take the half-paid honeymoon to Tofino. Frankie refuses Aurora’s suggestion of therapy. Two days later, her parents pick her up. From the car, she texts George, asking him to come home.

Frankie recalls her mock wedding to George when they were 10, held under the apple tree in her backyard. She wore a curtain as a dress; he wore his grandfather’s top hat. They recited handwritten vows and sealed the ceremony with a handshake and threw rice.

The wedding was prompted by anger at her mother, who had recently returned after 18 months on the East Coast working to rescue North Atlantic right whales. Rebecca had studied marine biology before Darwin was born, and Frankie’s early childhood was filled with whale facts—she was even named after a specific right whale that her mother had seen while pregnant. After her mother left, Frankie’s love for whales vanished.

After returning, Frankie’s mother quickly grew close with George. One day, over apple-berry crisp, she told him the story of Frankie’s name, and George declared that he wanted to work with whales too. Hearing her mother discuss whales again for the first time made Frankie furious. She dropped her bowl in the sink, told her mother that she wished she had never come back, and ran away.

George found her crying in a tree. She told him that she hated him and never wanted to speak to him again and then ignored him at school the next day. On the bus home, he gave her a letter saying that while he liked her mother, he liked Frankie more than anyone—she was his best friend, and he would prove it. He told her to meet him in their secret place: a forgotten cupboard behind a bookshelf in the Big House library.

Inside the cupboard, George had assembled everything needed for a wedding. They wrote their vows and pronounced themselves best friends forever.

George’s vows promised never to let anyone come between them, to never be mean, to share his grape sodas, and to always be her best friend, even when they fight.

Frankie’s vows promised not to yell too much, to apologize when wrong, to defend him even against her brothers, and to be the best friend she could be. She concluded by telling him that everyone else was inferior and that he was the best.