“I just thought I’d call and see how you’re doing. Did you want me to bring you some coffee or something?”

“No, sweetheart. Just pretend I’m not here.”

“I just don’t like the idea of you having to sit outside in the cold.”

“This is what I do, remember? I’m ready to see you, though,” he added.

“Me too.” I cringed at how utterly ignoble my words sounded. I was glad that he could sense differently.

I walked back to the group and Ryan grimaced.

“Don’t start,” I warned.

Ryan shook his head and returned to his book. He fidgeted in his seat for awhile, and then finally heaved a big sigh. “Are you staying there again tonight?” he blurted out.

“That’s some more of your business,” I said, distracted by a particularly tricky equation.

“I thought he said you had dinner plans. Since you missed dinner, I thought maybe you’d just stay here tonight.”

“Still none of your business,” I murmured, scanning the words on the pages. Any divulging of my sleeping arrangements would only end in another argument that I wasn’t in the mood for.

Beginning the third subject, I looked up at the clock.

“Is that clock right?” I asked the group. Everyone looked in unison at the large round clock on the wall, and then peered at their watches or cell phones. In different tones, they all murmured confirmations.

“What?” Ryan asked, stretching as he watched me shove my things into my bag.

“It’s late, I have to go.”

I pulled out my phone and pressed the speed dial for Jared’s cell. He didn’t answer, so I rushed out the door. I stood there a moment, looking around, and then hurried down the stairs, banging the rollers of my bag against every step. The Escalade wasn’t there.

I tried not to panic, convincing myself that he was just in a well secluded spot. After ten minutes, I walked down the sidewalk a little over a block each way. My search was futile. Jared wouldn’t let me walk around in the dark; he wasn’t there.

My bag barely touched the ground as I sprinted across campus, glad that Claire had parked my car in the middle lot to be spiteful. I thought of all the possibilities for his sudden disappearance, but my mind kept returning to the hell I’d gone through just a week before. Jared didn’t have a history of warning me that he was going to end our relationship.

By the time I reached my car my lungs were frozen and aching. I fumbled with my keys and ripped the door open, heaving my bag to the passenger side. The tires squealed as I pulled out into the street, cursing every stoplight that cost me precious time.