I shook my head. Savannah. Always Savannah. Everything on this trip, everything about my life, I realized, always led back to her.

By one o’clock, I’d finished working out, cleaned up, packed most of my things, and called the restaurant to renew my reservation. I knew Savannah’s schedule by then and assumed that she would be rolling in any minute. With nothing else to do, I sat on the couch and turned on the television. Game shows, soap operas, infomercials, and talk shows were interspersed with commercials from ambulance-chasing lawyers. Time dragged as I waited. I kept wandering out on the patio to scan the parking lot for her car, and I checked my gear three or four times. Savannah, I thought, was surely on the way home, and I occupied myself with clearing out the dishwasher. A few minutes later, I brushed my teeth for the second time, then peeked out the window again. Still no Savannah. I turned on the radio, listened to a few songs, and changed the station six or seven times before turning it off. I walked to the patio again. Nothing. By then, it was coming up on two o’clock. I wondered where she was, felt the remnants of anger starting to rise again, but forced them away. I told myself that she probably had a legitimate explanation and repeated it again when it didn’t take hold. I opened my bag and pulled out the latest from Stephen King. I filled a glass with ice water, made myself comfortable on the couch, but when I realized I was reading the same sentence over and over, I put the book aside.

Another fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty. By the time I heard Savannah’s car pulling into the lot, my jaw was tight and I was grinding my teeth. At a quarter past three, she pushed open the door. She was all smiles, as if nothing were wrong.

“Hey, John,” she called out. She went to the table and started unloading her backpack. “Sorry I was late, but after my class, a student came up to tell me that she loved my class, and because of me, she wanted to major in special education. Can you believe that? She wanted advice on what to do, what classes to take, what teachers were the best… and the way she listened to my answers…” Savannah shook her head. “It was… so rewarding. The way this girl was hanging on everything I was saying… well, it just makes me feel like I was really making a difference to someone. You hear professors talk about experiences like that, but I never imagined that it would happen to me.”

I forced a smile, and she took it as a cue to go on.

“Anyway, she asked if I had some time to really discuss it, and even though I told her I only had a few minutes, one thing led to another and we ended up going to lunch. She’s really something—only seventeen, but she graduated a year early from high school. She passed a bunch of AP exams, so she’s already a sophomore, and she’s going to summer school so she can get even further ahead. You have to admire her.”

She wanted an echo of her enthusiasm, but I couldn’t muster it.

“She sounds great,” I said instead.

At my answer, Savannah seemed to really look at me for the first time, and I made no effort to hide my feelings.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I lied.

She set her backpack aside with a disgusted sigh. “You don’t want to talk about it? Fine. But you should know that it’s getting a little tiring.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She whirled toward me. “This! The way you’re acting,” she said. “You’re not that hard to read, John. You’re angry, but you don’t want to tell me why.”

I hesitated, feeling defensive. When I finally spoke, I forced myself to keep my voice steady. “Okay,” I said, “I thought you’d be home hours ago….”

She threw up her hands. “That’s what this is about? I explained that. Believe it or not, I have responsibilities now. And if I’m not mistaken, I apologized for being late as soon as I walked in the door.”

“I know, but…”

“But what? My apology wasn’t good enough?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what is it?”

When I couldn’t find the words, she put her hands on her hips. “You want to know what I think? You’re still mad about last night. But let me guess—you don’t want to talk about that either, right?”

I closed my eyes. “Last night, you—”

“Me?” she broke in, and began shaking her head. “Oh no—don’t blame me for this! I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t the one who started this! Last night could have been fun—would have been fun—but you had to sit around acting as if you wanted to shoot someone.”

She was exaggerating. Or then again, maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I kept quiet.

She went on. “Do you know that I had to make excuses for you today? And how that made me feel? Here I was, singing your praises all year long, telling my friends what a nice guy you were, how mature you were, how proud I am of the job you’re doing. And they ended up seeing a side of you that even I’ve never seen before. You were just… rude.”

“Did you ever think that I might have been acting that way because I didn’t want to be there?”

That stopped her, but only for an instant. She crossed her arms. “Maybe the way you acted last night was the reason I was late today.”

Her statement caught me off guard. I hadn’t considered that, but that wasn’t the point.

“I’m sorry about last night—”

“You should be!” she cried, cutting me off again. “Those are my friends!”

“I know they’re your friends!” I snapped, pushing myself up from the couch. “We’ve been with them all week!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. Maybe I wanted to be alone with you. Did you ever think of that?”

“You want to be alone with me?” she demanded. “Well, let me tell you, you’re sure not acting like it. We were alone this morning. We were alone when I walked in the door just now. We were alone when I tried to be nice and put this all behind us, but all you wanted to do is fight.”

“I don’t want to fight!” I said, doing my best not to shout but knowing I’d failed. I turned away, trying to keep my anger in check, but when I spoke again, I could hear the ominous undercurrent in my voice. “I just want things to be like they were. Like last summer.”

“What about last summer?”

I hated this. I didn’t want to tell her that I no longer felt important. What I wanted was akin to asking someone to love you, and that never worked. Instead, I tried to dance around the subject.

“Last summer, it just felt like we had more time together.”

“No, we didn’t,” she countered. “I worked on houses all day long. Remember?”

She was right, of course. At least partially. I tried again. “I’m not saying it makes much sense, but it seems like we had more time to talk last year.”

“And that’s what’s bothering you? That I’m busy? That I have a life? What do you want me to do? Ditch my classes all week? Call in sick when I have to teach? Skip my homework?”

“No…”

“Then what do you want?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’re willing to humiliate me in front of my friends?”

“I didn’t humiliate you,” I protested.

“No? Then why did Tricia pull me aside today? Why did she feel the need to tell me that we had nothing in common and that I could do a lot better?”

That stung, but I’m not sure she realized how it came across. Anger sometimes makes that impossible, as I was well aware.

“I just wanted to be alone with you last night. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

My words had no effect on her.

“Then why didn’t you tell me that?” she demanded instead. “Say something like ‘Would it be okay if we do something else? I’m not really in the mood to hang out with people.’ That’s all you would have had to say. I’m not a mind reader, John.”

I opened my mouth to answer but said nothing. Instead, I turned away and walked to the other side of the room. I stared out the patio door, not angered so much by what she’d said, just… sad. It struck me that I had somehow lost her, and I didn’t know whether it was because I’d been making too much of nothing or because I understood all too well what was really happening between us.

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I was never good at talking, and I realized that what I really wanted was for her to cross the room and put her arms around me, to say that she understood what was really bothering me and that I had nothing to worry about.

But none of those things happened. Instead I spoke to the window, feeling strangely alone. “You’re right,” I said. “I should have told you. And I’m sorry about that. And I’m sorry about the way I acted last night, and I’m sorry about being upset that you were late. It’s just that I really wanted to see you as much as I could this trip.”

“You say that like you don’t think I want the same thing.”

I turned around. “To be honest,” I said, “I’m not sure you do.”

With that, I headed for the door.

I was gone until nightfall.

I didn’t know where to go or even why I left, other than that I needed to be alone. I started for campus beneath a sweltering sun and found myself moving from one shade tree to the next. I didn’t check to see if she was following; I knew that she wouldn’t be.

In time, I stopped and bought an ice water at the student center, but even though it was relatively empty and the cool air refreshing, I didn’t stay. I felt the need to sweat, as if to purify myself from the anger and sadness and disappointment I couldn’t shake.

One thing was certain: Savannah had walked in the door ready for an argument. Her answers had come too quickly, and I realized that they seemed less spontaneous than rehearsed, as if her own anger had been simmering most of the day. She’d known exactly how I would be acting, and though I might have deserved her anger based on the way I’d acted last night, the fact that she hadn’t appeared to care about her own culpability or my feelings gnawed at me for most of the afternoon.