While they waited for their order he had asked her whether she was heartbroken over her career-ending injury, hoping it wasn’t too soon for so personal of a question. She’d seemed fine to talk about it, quickly saying her dad told her it was pointless to wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t busted her knee up, because she did. And her mom still got angry and looked for blame even though it was no one’s fault. Kimmie said Dustin was sweet to ask, though, and then commented that since she had been home not one of her so-called friends here had bothered to ask her that question. She was disappointed but wouldn’t go so far as to say she was heartbroken over the whole thing.

Now Kimmie turned the tables and asked Dustin whether he had ever had his heart broken. “Not really,” he said. His longest relationship to date lasted exactly one session at Harvard Summer School last year. He told Kimmie the truth and said he’d had his version of a “camp romance” with a girl named Susie S. from Philly but it never got serious. “We both were into classic films, but let’s just say it takes more than understanding Last Year at Marienbad to make my heart sing.” Kimmie didn’t respond for a long time, and he was getting worried. “Talking about another girl is rude,” he added, hoping this would prompt her to say something. “And coupling it with a pretentious French cinema reference probably made it unbearable. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I totally get it. And, besides, I asked,” she said in a half-hearted way that made him question whether she was being honest. What Dustin didn’t know was that Kimmie was only quiet because she was silently praying he wouldn’t ask her if she had ever been with someone who made her heart sing. She was no idiot. She knew Dustin liked her, and she liked him, too. She just didn’t like him enough, or maybe she just liked that he liked her. She had felt her heart sing only once in her life and it was on the same night she had met Dustin, but it wasn’t him—it was Count Vronsky who had played her heartstrings.