Harry had had two major relationships in college. The first had been with Florence Lee, a girl he’d met his first week at Mather when they were both volunteers at the student-run movie theater. Their first night together they had stayed up till dawn talking about the French new wave and Vonnegut novels. She’d done most of the talking, actually, but it was like she was speaking both his thoughts and her own out loud. The next night they stayed up till dawn having sex. Those two nights combined to convince Harry that Florence Lee was the one and only true love of his life. They were inseparable until the following spring, when Harry discovered that she’d never stopped fucking her high school boyfriend back on Long Island. Harry had been inconsolable, even considering leaving Mather. Paul Roman, claiming he’d never liked Florence, had finally gotten Harry out of the funk.

Then Harry had started spending time with Paul’s friend Kim, so different from the cerebral, depressive, highly sexual Florence. She was a very sarcastic theater major who wore retro dresses and smoked American Spirits. They stayed close all through sophomore year, Harry coaching Kim through her own complicated, emotionally abusive relationship with a fellow theater major named Antoine. When Kim finally shed Antoine, at the beginning of junior year, Harry and Kim started fooling around, jokingly at first. They agreed to keep it quiet, and they agreed to take it slow, each having been damaged by previous sexual relationships.

“How slow?” Harry asked, the first morning after Kim had spent the night in his bed.

“When it snows we’ll do it. How about that?”

Harry pulled up his dorm room’s blind and looked out at a blue sky. It was early November, and most of the trees were still holding on to their changed leaves.

“First snow, really?”

“Sure. Sounds about right. When it snows I’ll let you put your penis in my vagina.” She was hooking her bra behind her back and smiling widely.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

By the middle of December, there hadn’t been so much as a snow squall, and the weathermen were predicting a decidedly nonwhite Christmas. The mild fall had become a constant joke between Harry and Kim, the weather conspiring to keep them apart. On the last night of fall semester, Harry had one paper left to write, five pages on the Protestant Reformation. He was just finishing up when he received a text from Kim.

Done yet?

Almost.

Come over when you’re finished.