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awful thing was, I couldn’t help but be elated.
    “What grade do you teach?”
    “Third, which I love.”
    She looked more mature than the girl I remembered. But the beauty, the softness, and the lack of ego or edge all remained. I found myself staring at her, studying her. I tried to remember when I first heard about Alyssa Roberts getting married. It was a few years after college, to some guy whose name sounded vaguely familiar. The news hadn’t shocked me. Seeing Alyssa without a ring did.
    “What?” she asked, breaking my silence.
    I hadn’t even noticed my sigh until it was all the way out.
    “Just—being here—around college. Time can be a strange thing.”
    “It doesn’t feel like ten years.”
    “Eleven,” I said.
    “Kirby said you’re looking for Alec.”
    “Yeah. Trying to see if he’s still alive.”
    “I’m surprised you guys didn’t stay in touch.”
    “With Alec?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t surprise me. Then again, there was a lot of cleaning up I needed to do after college. One was my choice of friends. It was easy with Alec. He just disappeared.”
    “Do you ever think about those days?”
    I didn’t want to tell Alyssa the truth. “The more time goes by, the less I find to look back on.”
    “I think of the person I used to be,” Alyssa said in earnest. “This little prim and proper girl working for the dean of students. It was unbelievable how sheltered I was. It was a hard adjustment after I graduated.”
    “Yeah, tell me about it. I think it’s hard for everyone.”
    “I just—if there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do, Jake—I just want to apologize. …”
    I looked at Alyssa in disbelief. “What for?”
    “For being so judgmental.”
    I laughed. “I was breaking rules, you know.”
    “But more than that. There were a lot of things with you—with us. Things I regret.”
    “You didn’t do anything to me, Alyssa. You were one of the few bright spots of Providence.”
    “I just thought I knew exactly where I wanted to go and what my life should be like. That young naïve girl is gone.”
    “I remember I really liked that girl,” I said.
    She nodded and looked down at the table.
    You’re still that girl
, I thought.
You will always be that girl
.
    We talked for a few minutes about superficial stuff. A thousand unspoken words and feelings between the two of us, and I found myself talking about the suburb of Summit or the new science building at Providence or listening to Alyssa talk about the house she lived in.
    “Or, well, used to live in,” she corrected. “Before things basically got flushed down the toilet.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    “Yeah. Me too.”
    She glanced over at me with those soft, haunting eyes I could still remember in my dreams.
    “I just never thought I’d have to—that I would be sitting here talking to you about my failed—”
    Alyssa couldn’t continue. The last few words cracked, and she composed herself.
    “I feel like—this is weird, I know—I feel like this huge disappointment.”
    I reached over and without a thought embraced her hand.
    “Hey—I’m the
last
guy who would ever be disappointed in you. Come on. You remember who you’re talking to?”
    “I really used to believe,” Alyssa said.
    “Believe in what?”
    “Believe in everything. Happily ever afters. The myth. The fairy tale.”
    “That’s funny, ’cause I didn’t believe in anything.”
    “Has that changed?”
    “I think you’d be very surprised.”
    She wanted and expected more, but I wasn’t ready. There were many things to tell her. Eleven years is hard to compress into one conversation.
    “Let me show you something,” I told her.
    I opened my wallet and slipped a finger inside one of the pockets. I produced a photo that had been cropped to fit and handed it to her.
    She stared at it, her head shaking in disbelief. “I can’t believe you still have this,” she said, glancing at the photo and back at me.
    “It’s gone