So I got up from the couch, and there was no sliding glass doorway, no lake outside, no guitar in the corner, just the snowy windows of our small apartment, and our bedroom where I was finally being allowed back under the covers. I crawled beneath the blankets beside her, and Erin wrapped her arms around me.

“I had an awful dream,” she said. “We were at this weird lake house smoking weed and we were so happy and in love, but you were cheating on me. I was playing this sad song for you on guitar, about the moon and my heart, and then you got up from bed and kissed me, and”—she started crying—“and I realized how much I’ve been missing you.” She put her hand against my face.

“You dreamt about a lake house?”

“Luke,” Erin said, wiping away her tears, “I’m sorry I cheated on you. I was sad and felt disconnected, and you didn’t seem to notice, you were just smoking weed all the time, and I thought you were becoming someone different … and I didn’t like the new you…”

“I understand,” I said. “But what about the lake house in your dream?”

“Who cares, it was just a dumb house, that’s not the important part. What’s important is the feeling I had of missing you and loving each other—I want that again.”

“I want that, too,” I said, and we kissed for what felt like the first time in over a year.

“Luke,” she said, pulling away to look at me. “What’s wrong? It’s like you’re somewhere else.”

“I’m right here,” I said.

“There’s just this hollow feeling—it’s awful. Like this morning, in class, I felt all this anger toward you, like you were cheating on me. Tell me the truth: Are you seeing someone else?”

“Just you,” I said.

And then we were kissing again, our bodies warm against one another like the first time after the Film Club, her hands slipping beneath my shirt as we pulled each other’s clothes off. “I haven’t told you,” Erin whispered, “but sometimes when you’re at work, I can feel you touching me. Your lips against the back of my neck, your hands on me.” She took my face and kissed me again. “I’ve been missing you so much. I’m sorry for what’s been happening; I want us back.” And we pressed our bodies together like we’d done at the lake house, the two of us feeling completely familiar and totally foreign from who we’d once been.

I knew I should mention Erin’s dream to Donnie—it was the kind of thing he needed to know—but the next morning Erin and I woke up and made love again, and when she asked if I could skip work, I called Donnie and told him I’d be late.