Twice he saw Elana. Once by the mailboxes, just days after the breakup. She gave Phil a knowing frown and said, “She’s getting by,” as if he’d asked. He responded with an earnest nod.

The second time was about three weeks after the breakup. Elana had stopped to talk to Phil in front of his apartment door. She asked him if he’d ever met Nick Markakis, the Baltimore ballplayer who women always seemed to want to sleep with, and of course Phil had. He saw the guy almost every night. When Phil told her this, Elana licked her lips and bobbed her head from left to right, not quite listening to the rest of his answer. She was flirting with him. What an asshole, Phil thought. He imagined that her curls were hissing snakes. For a moment, he considered calling Elizabeth to inform her that her so-called friend was trying to get into his pants.

It was about six weeks after the breakup that the Orioles ended an eleven-game home stretch and took a road trip to the West Coast, leaving Phil with his nights free.

On that first free Thursday, Phil spent much of the night on the couch, flipping between several cable stations until he settled on a repeat of the medical show House, a program that had become a favorite of his mother’s. After watching the show for about twenty minutes, Phil decided that the young female doctor on the program reminded him of Elizabeth. She was much taller than Elizabeth and, in fact, didn’t look much like Elizabeth, but this doctor on House was female, and Phil was lonely, and she made Phil think of Elizabeth’s breasts and Elizabeth’s smile and Elizabeth’s nose ring and the time Elizabeth gave him oral sex even though she had a head cold and both of them laughed every time she paused to sneeze.

Before Phil could stop himself, he was standing up, suddenly determined to go next door and win her back.

Then, with as much intensity, Phil sat back down, wondering if Elizabeth was even there, if she would want to see him, and what seeing her would mean. Then he had another troubling thought: what if Elizabeth was already dating someone else?

“Fucking piece of shit,” Phil said out loud, referring to his imaginary rival.

At that moment Phil devised a safe plan. He would go next door and ask Elizabeth if she still had his Emilio’s take-out menu, which he knew she did. Once he retrieved the menu, he would suggest they order food together, to save the delivery guy a trip. If there was a man in Elizabeth’s apartment, or if she looked apathetic about seeing him, he would take the menu and retreat.

Flawless, Phil thought, as he hurried into his bathroom to make sure his hair was in place.

Elizabeth answered the door looking even smaller than Phil remembered her. He didn’t even get the chance to ask for the menu. He barely even registered what she was wearing, which was, in fact, his old Loyola sweatshirt. Before he could say anything about Emilio’s, Elizabeth pulled him into her apartment by his shirt, took his hands, and walked him straight to her bedroom.