“I’d have to learn first.” I did not have good memories of wheels on my feet. I’d tried skating once, before in-line skates were invented, in third grade for somebody’s skating rink birthday party. I could still remember that party as one blur of strobe lights, repeated playing of “Celebration,” bruises, and that wood floor. Pretty much all I had seen of that party was the floor when I fell face forward, the disco ball when I fell on my butt, other people’s skates narrowly missing my head, and occasionally the tush of a friend who allowed me to hang on to her to try to learn balance. I think there had been cake at some point, blessedly allowing me to escape the floor for fifteen minutes without seeming a sissy.

“That could be fun,” he nodded. “Maybe sometime this summer.”

I flexed my hand in his and hunched. “I’m supposed to be leaving,” I blurted out.

He stopped as if he’d run into a wall. There was a second where he didn’t say anything and didn’t move, and then he turned. “What? I thought you were going to school here and working.”

“No, I’m going to school back home in the U.S. They just sent me here for a year. And the year’s up June seventeenth.”

He stared at me. “That’s in three weeks.”

I hunched my shoulders further and kicked a cobblestone. “I know.” Couples passed us two by two, old and dressed in layers, in their forties and elegant, teenage and in jeans that showed the boy’s underpants, which were made of more cloth than the girl’s top.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Sébastien asked.

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

He dropped my hand. He looked as if I’d just slapped him.

“I mean, we’ve just barely started going out.” Tears started to leak from my eyes, right there in public. “And I wanted to go to Cambridge. I’m lousy at relationships. I’m just no good at this.”

“Why did you even agree to go out with me if you knew you were leaving so soon?” Peripherally, I noted he still thought he was the one who had asked me out.

“Because you’re so cute.” I sniffled, tears leaking down my face. “I thought you’d be a jerk.”

“A jerk? Why?”

“Because you’re so cute!” How could he not understand this?

“You judged me before you even met me? Just based on my looks? Why did you go out with me at all, then?”

“Because you’re so cute!” I yelled. “But I just assumed it wouldn’t become much of anything because you’re too cute to be anything but a jerk.”