“You’re right. I’m sure this girlfriend will pass like all the others, so let’s make the best of it.” Phil reached out, laid his hand on Amy’s knee while arguing with the announcer about the outcome of the game. She startled herself with the need to flick his hand off—which she didn’t do. Instead, she told herself to pull it together, compartmentalize her emotions in as efficient a manner as her closets and drawers at home.

The drone of the radio, the vibrating hum of the car finally lulled her into a sunbaked doze as she remembered the last time she’d seen Nick Lowry.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The winter quarter Nick was scheduled to spend in Costa Rica approached like a lumbering train, a hulking gray rumble in the distance. Amy heard it in her sleep and waking, during their lovemaking. She began to see the bulked shape the week before he left, smell its acrid smoke and feel the trembles of the earth as it barreled down the tracks toward them. They made the decision together, as they did all things—Nick would spend the winter quarter in a Costa Rican tropical biology conservation program where his interest in reforestation and preservation could be explored in the rain forest. She would stay at Saxton University and wait for him.

They were to reunite in three months and begin their life together after he fulfilled his internship. He would come back knowing exactly what he wanted to do, what they wanted to do and where. All they knew was that it would involve Amy preserving architectural gems while he saved the land and wildlife. Together, saving.

Amy stood in the airport departure lounge to say goodbye to him, consumed by a feeling of finality so complete that she couldn’t catch her breath. In those days she felt everything so sharply, her skin felt peeled. Each emotion arrived strong and complete, and often Nick seemed to be her only protection against the onslaught.

During their final farewell, Amy found herself begging him to stay. He was usually the sole witness to her symptoms of emotion, yet that day the out-of-focus and sharply delineated faces of other Costa Rica-bound travelers saw her fall apart; there was the Indian woman with the dot on her forehead in the green plastic chair, the flight attendant placing white letters on the flight board while glancing behind her shoulder at Amy’s tears.

The gate attendant called for the final boarding. Amy grabbed Nick’s cotton shirt. She was desperate to pull him back from the bulk of the white plane outside the grease-streaked window. Her voice was raspy with fear and lack of sleep. He was so solid: his thick hair, his muscular shoulders, his dense copper eyes without variation in color. She was light, air, exposed and he held her to the earth. She clung to him.

“Don’t go. Do. Not. Go.”