“Why are you telling me this, Dylan?”

“I guess I want you to know who I am.”

“No offense, but why does that matter?”

“Because I learned who you were from your poems, and you never got a chance to know me.”

“It was only one date,” she reminded me. Then she said something extremely strange. “Wasn’t it?”

I wanted to say: No. No, it was so much more than that. But I didn’t.

“You’re right. It was just one date.”

She almost looked disappointed at my reaction.

I realized that my coffee cup was empty. I picked it up and crumpled it in my hand. She smiled; I smiled. Two nervous, awkward smiles. I checked my watch, and she checked hers. We’d swayed on the edge of being something other than strangers, but that was all we could be here.

“Well, it was good seeing you, Karly.”

“You too.”

“Take care of yourself. Be safe.”

“I will.”

“Maybe—” I began, then stopped.

“Maybe what?”

“I don’t know. It’s foolish. I was thinking, maybe sometime we could try a do-over. On our date, I mean.”

She hesitated. “Maybe.”

I got up from the table, but then sat down again immediately. I couldn’t let go of her so easily. I couldn’t let this be nothing more than a vague promise of seeing her again sometime in an uncertain future. I needed more than that. “Actually, do you mind if I ask you one other question?”

“If you like.”

“It’s about your book. Why Portal?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no poem by that name in the book. And the cover, with the endless mirrors. I didn’t see any connection in the poems. What did any of that have to do with what you wrote?”

An answer rolled smoothly off her tongue, as if she’d said it a million times. “I tell people that the book was a portal from who I was to who I am. I was leaving my relationship with Susannah, and my guilt over what happened to her, in the past. I was stepping through a door to somewhere else. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, it does.” But somehow I thought she was testing me, so I relied on my instincts and plunged ahead. “Except I feel like that’s not the real reason. Is it?”

She hesitated. “Actually, no. It’s not.”

“What is?”

Her fingers twisted strands of her hair in a gesture I knew very well. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Trust me, I won’t.”

“I have no idea why I’m saying this to you, Dylan. I don’t know you, and I’ve never admitted this to anyone.”

Because we’re still connected, I thought.

“I’ll keep your secret,” I told her.