Megan and Dan

Megan and Dan’s relationship is both a long-distance romance and a source of unresolved history for Ever. Dan’s return after more than six months apart gives Megan a joyful reunion, but it also forces Ever to confront her own brief first romance with him—a relationship ended when her parents intervened. The scene makes the three-way bond legible without reducing Megan and Ever’s friendship to rivalry: Megan knows what happened, recognizes Ever’s hurt, and continues to stand beside her.

The earlier romance and its interruption

Dan first entered Ever’s life as a student she helped with world history. He was doing well in that subject, though calculations did not suit him, and he came to the Wong home for tutoring. Ever’s father watched closely when Dan arrived, while the attraction between the teenagers developed beyond the studying. Behind the backyard shed, Dan held Ever by the waist; their time alone lasted only five minutes before Ever’s mother found them and angrily sent him away.

The consequences were swift. Ever went to Dan’s class the next day hoping to explain, but found him packing up his desk. He said he could not get in the middle of the conflict with her family, moved to the back of the room, and avoided her after class. Over the following weeks, Ever lost the courage to approach him. They could still exchange small courtesies—he lent her a pencil when she asked—but the intimacy was over. His later relationship with Megan meant that Ever encountered him again through her closest friend, rather than as the boy she had briefly been with.

Megan and Dan’s reunion

When Dan arrives in a blue convertible, Megan springs to her feet at the sight of him. The large hockey player gets out and kisses her hungrily. They have been apart for over six months, since his last visit from his freshman year at Rice. The kiss lasts only three seconds, but Ever experiences it as an eternity, scuffing the ground as envy tightens around her heart.

Dan greets Ever by name. His strawberry-blond hair is longer than it was at his farewell party, while his chipped-tooth grin remains familiar. Meeting his hazel eyes brings Ever’s memory of the shed back sharply: his hands on her hips and the kiss that taught her more than practicing on oranges with Megan in middle school. The present reunion therefore carries two emotional histories at once. To Megan, Dan is the boyfriend she has missed; to Ever, his return reopens a past that was abruptly cut short.

Friendship, care, and the cost of happiness

Megan does not treat Ever’s past with Dan as a secret or dismiss her feelings. She knows about their kiss and understands that it belongs to the past, even as Ever admits that most days she tries not to think of Megan and Dan together. Megan’s tenderness makes the strain visible: after the reunion, she wraps her arms around Ever, and Ever senses both her happiness and her guilt at being happy when that happiness may hurt her friend.

Megan also turns toward their shared future. She asks Ever if they can pick up their work the next day and promises that they will get Ever a scholarship. Ever squeezes her back, grateful and unwilling to make Megan worry, then deliberately makes herself hug Dan too, trying to treat him as just another friend. Her effort is not effortless reconciliation: she has to dare the embrace, and the moment ends when someone calls, making her jump and tangle her foot with Dan’s. The awkward interruption leaves the old attraction exposed even as Ever attempts to behave with generosity.

A bond across distance

The relationship’s separation is also part of its everyday context. While in Taiwan, Ever messages Megan through WeChat, asking how Dan’s visit is going and sharing news about her own life: classes, the other students, and her search for a dance studio. She mentions that she and others plan to sneak out clubbing, but Megan is asleep on the other side of the world when Ever waits for a reply. Their friendship and Megan’s relationship with Dan are thus carried across distance by brief messages, while the time difference leaves Ever momentarily without an answer.

The book presents Megan and Dan’s romance through Ever’s partial, emotionally charged vantage point rather than through a separate account of the couple. Their reunion is happy, but its happiness cannot be separated from Ever’s history with Dan or from the parental intervention that ended it. Megan’s care—her awareness of Ever’s hurt, her reassurance, and her continued commitment to their shared work—shows how the friendship survives that overlap. Their relationship marks a past Ever must acknowledge, not a competition that displaces the bond between the two young women.