When I’m with Joe none of this matters. I think he is a reporter because he likes to talk to people. Wherever we go we end up talking to strangers. And liking them.

I don’t think I ever really liked the world until I met him. My parents don’t like the world, or me, or they would trust me.

I hoped he’d say he’d wait for me, that he’d still be here when I got back. But he said that if I really loved him I’d marry him right now. I reacted to that. He needs to graduate; he only works part-time. I didn’t say more of the truth which is that I don’t want to leave school. I want to study Shakespeare, the Romantic poets. He said we could live with his dad until we had enough money. We were crossing the bridge over the Rio Grande when I said I didn’t want to get married yet.

“You won’t know for a long time what it is you’re throwing away.”

I said I knew what we had, that it would still be there when I got back.

“It will, but you won’t. No, you’ll go on, have ‘relationships,’ marry some asshole.”

He opened the car door, shoved me out onto the Rio Grande bridge, the car still moving. He drove away. I walked all the way across town to the dorm. I kept thinking he’d pull up behind me, but he never did.