He drove to her house and was surprised to find her car missing. He assumed she’d be home. She had said she wanted to go home. She would not have gone to David’s house, for godsakes. He knocked on the door and her father, a retired schoolteacher, answered in his pajamas. Bent with age but nevertheless wise from years of working with rowdy kids, he saw something was wrong and quickly invited Matt inside. They sat on the couch and Matt told him what had happened. Amy’s father had always loved Matt deeply, but there was nothing in the universe more precious to him than his daughter. He kept shaking his head as Matt spoke.

“She wouldn’t have done this,” he said. “She would never have betrayed you this way. I know my daughter, that is not her, no.”

Matt shook his head sadly. “None of us knew her.”

He waited an hour for Amy to show up but she did not. Finally it sunk in that she was with David. He said good night to her father and went home and lay on the floor and wept. He kept hoping she would knock on the door to beg his forgiveness. His brain had short-circuited on an endlessly repeating loop:

This is not happening. This cannot be happening.

At two in the morning, she called.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hi,” she said, cold.

“Where are you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. Where are you?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” she said.

“I have to see you. We have to talk.”

“I’m not going to talk to you.”

He could not believe her insolent tone.

“You’re not going to talk to me? After what you’ve done? You should be on your knees begging me to take you back. How dare you! You cheated on me!”

“Look what you did to me! You talked to him because you wanted to hurt me. You wanted to convince him that I was really your girlfriend when I’m not. You were always trying to convince me that he was a jerk and I never believed you.”

“Wait a second. What are you saying? You’re my girlfriend. You’ve been my girlfriend for two years.”

“I have not! Did I ever have sexual intercourse with you? Did I?”

Matt got a real bad feeling on top of a mountain of bad feelings. “Why are you saying such things? Is he there? Are you trying to get me to say I’m not your boyfriend?”

“He’s not here.”

“Liar. He’s listening right now. Or else you’re taping this conversation so you can play it for him later. You’re trying to put words in my mouth so you can swear to him you were never in an intimate relationship with me. Where are you?”