“He taught a philosophy class I was in as a freshman,” you said. “He’s like, twenty-six.” This was fifteen minutes later, as we were walking down Washtenaw toward our neighborhood. You had sobered up quickly.

“Ew.”

“Don’t ‘ew’ me,” you said incredulously. “I’m already judging myself enough about this.”

I apologized.

Even though we hadn’t talked very much since the time we went to the coffee shop together, it was easy to talk to you. When we got back to my house we stood facing each other expectantly on the front porch stairs. I studied your nearly bald head, your goofy smile, and I nervously pushed a strand of hair behind my ears, stuffed both my hands into my jacket pockets.

“Can I kiss you?” I said.

When you looked back at me, the amber glow of the streetlights had washed all the green out of your eyes. You closed your mouth, but you were still smiling. Then you looked down at your shoes and took a shuffling step backward.

“No,” you said carefully. “I’m sorry, I just — ”

“It’s okay,” I said, with what I hoped was finality. You smiled and hugged me tightly, like before but more briefly, and I went inside.

January 1

When you apologized for being drunk and making a scene on the rooftop a couple days later, I was a little sad that you never mentioned the moment on my steps, but I understood. I knew that you knew how much I was infatuated with you, and I took it as a compliment that you still wanted to be my friend enough to apologize to me when you didn’t need to.

You stood in the doorway to my room while you said your piece. I was reading The Second Sex for a class, wearing two sweaters underneath the covers in my bed. I told you to come in, and you told me to come to the library with you.

“I have a paper due tomorrow,” you said. “I’ll probably be there for a while. I just didn’t want to be alone.”

It was the Saturday of the winter study break. Everything was covered in a strange purple glow that descended from the overcast sky and made warped shadows on the snowbanks. We climbed the wide steps to the huge, glowing library in silence.

We eventually came upon a forgotten corner, deep in the stacks, far away from any sign of life. The rows of books veered off into infinite space under the buzzing fluorescent lights. Against a bare wall, two green, scrolled armchairs sat next to each other with a little circular table in between them. It looked like a corner of a house where a married couple reads the newspaper every night.