“Good idea.” As Michael leaves some euros on the table, I rush into the cool night. He follows behind me tentatively. We dodge a couple of smokers and lean against a stretch of the cast-iron gate. The leaves of a dying potted plant sag along the rails, crunchy and brown. I busy my fingers by massaging the stem of the plant. Michael starts to nibble his nails, then catches himself and instead pulls a Swiss Army–style multi-tool from his pocket. He flips the bottle opener open and shut, open and shut. We both look at the ground instead of at each other.

He called me smart and beautiful.

I’m too soft, too frizzy to meet the standard definition of beautiful. I have some nice features: large brown eyes and a button nose, a butt that’s too big, or just right, depending on who you ask. Average pretty. But I understand that there is a distinct difference between pretty and beautiful.

Unfortunately, “average pretty” has never been good enough for Kor, but Michael seems to like it.

Not that it matters anymore. The disappointment burns deep. I guess I should have known Michael was too good to be true.

“So how old are you?” I finally ask him.

“Twenty-one.”

Okay, that’s not that bad. I went out with a senior during my freshman year of high school, and he must be about twenty-one by now. Kor’s already twenty. But the active distance Michael is keeping between us makes it clear that my age is a hard no for him.

I continue fiddling with the plant, wrapping it around the bars of the gate. It brings that tingling warmth to the skin between my fingers, a feeling I’m so used to suppressing that I immediately remove my hand from the leaves. I don’t quite know where to look or what to think as the silence descends between us, the buzz from earlier now completely unbuzzed, doused with a cold bucket of awkward.

The easy thing to do would be to walk away. But I can’t. No matter how disappointed I may feel right now, the fact that Michael is here to recruit students is not something I can ignore. I need to establish whether he’s who I’ve been sent to find.

Despite my instincts warring against the action, I reach out to touch the plant again; I can use it to help confirm my suspicions. I normally try to avoid the tingling in my hands at all costs, but now I do the opposite and let it flow freely. As I do, I pry for more information.

“Twenty-one seems pretty young to be a teacher at a graduate level,” I say. There’s no way he’s teaching anyone younger; that piano player had been a full-on adult.

Michael blushes at this and looks down as he says, “I was the youngest, uh, graduate in my field in the past two decades.”