Amy’s face in the warped mirror over the wooden dresser was flushed, her eyes wide. It was just the cold, she rationalized, not the anticipation of Nick’s surprise. She looked away from the obvious excitement in her face to the rectangular room standing out in bas-relief—a reverse Polaroid of the dorm room she’d lived in when Nick hadn’t come back for her. Sheer pink curtains, stained with salmon-colored streaks in the pattern of a rising sun, attempted to brighten the room. A metal desk squatted under the window with a black metal chair whose peeling paint revealed a bright blue undercoat.

Once in a while she would come back to the dorm to find a burned candle, an open book or piece of clothing and the odd thought “Who has been in my room?” would pass through her mind. Then she’d remind herself the room was nothing but a place to crash one night a week.

How odd. How many times had she stood in a dorm room that didn’t look much different than this—except with her own 1970s paraphernalia covering the walls-—brushing her hair and wondering what she and Nick would do that night? Without the items that defined family and home surrounding her, she believed that this was just another evening with Nick, just another dorm room. Yet it was a different dorm room, and Nick was waiting for her—which is all he’d ever done . . . wait for her.

Now there really was nothing left to think about, was there? She just needed to watch it all unfold. Letting go of any control over the situation felt good, a relief warming her middle.

She grabbed her purse and headed down the concrete stairs to the foyer where Nick stood waiting, just as he had a hundred other times. She smiled at the desk attendant who, for the first time all day, actually sat at her post.

“Mrs. Reynolds . . . you need to sign in your guest.”

“We’re leaving. Thank you, Melissa.”

He’d startled her in class, his voice echoing below her consciousness before she saw his face above the students. When she’d seen him, she’d understood she was the only one who really knew him, who could fill all those wide, empty spaces inside him.

Nick turned and flashed his “You’ll forgive me for leaving” grin at the cute girl, who waved goodbye to him. He opened the door and Amy walked through, brushed up against his arm; her skin prickled beneath her coat and sweater.

His pickup truck was parked next to her SUV; a low-lying birch shed its leaves on their car roofs, on the curb and bricked street. The freezing temperatures of the past weeks had risen, but not by much. She shivered and pulled her coat closer. Nick wrapped his arms around her and walked her to the passenger side of his truck.