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but she can’t seem to look at me. Whatever she means to say, its not yes.
    Silence. All the air is gone.
    “I’m going to ask you again.” My voice cracks. “Will you please take this beating heart of mine out of my hands? Save my life. Marry me.”
    She looks to my left, not into my eyes. “You thought of this right now, didn’t you?” she says. “You’re just making it up. You have no ring. No plan. Twenty years from now, we’re still going to be in this basement.”
    I swallow hard. “I do have a ring. I was going to ask you on the bus home. But then you slept most of the way. I think I picked the right time. I think this moment is exactly—”
    “Don’t lie to me!” she says.
    My heart beats in my ears like a bass drum, but I stay quiet. Icy calm. “I’m not lying. Why do you say I’m lying?”
    She sits on the edge of the bed, away from me. “That was such a strange weekend, the time we went to Peter’s cottage.”
    “You’re changing the subject.”
    “No, I’m not. You said you almost asked me to marry you when we first met. Instead, we went to Peter’s cottage.”
    “He wasn’t supposed to be there,” I say.
    “Gregor! You told me others would be there. Or I wouldn’t have gone in the first place. I barely knew you!”
    “Peter said he would stay for half an hour. Then he would go back to the city.”
    “That’s how you planned it?”
    “But he stuck around,” I say. “He had fallen for you, too. As you and I both know. Remember when we were on the blanket, back in the shade, getting closer? Then Peter started yelling as if he was drowning? And you ran off to save him?”
    “You wanted me to fall for your stupid plan, not his. You’re just full of plans. But when you ask me to marry you, you don’t even bring a ring. Do you know how that makes me feel?”
    I don’t move. “I have a ring. It’s in the pocket of your father’s tuxedo.”
    She steps towards the closet. As if she wants to prove me wrong. But then she stops. “Why don’t you go get it?”
    “I would,” I say. My jaw is tight. “But you don’t believe me. And I really, really need my future wife to trust my word. When I’m being serious. Like now.”
    “Go get it if you have it!” She is only a few steps from the closet herself.
    I do not move. “That’s not the issue right now.”
    Silence.
    “I knew you didn’t have it,” Jess says. She throws herself back into bed and surrounds herself with pillows, as if for protection.
    I’m hot and cold at the same time. I rush to the closet. There’s the tux, but I don’t touch it. I pull on my pants, my coat, my shoes. Up the stairs. The door won’t open. I kick aside the magazine and then I am out. To hell with the door. She can close it behind me, she can ...
    Down the alley. Running, running, in the slush and the wind. It’s freaking cold. Why didn’t I bring a hat?
    I don’t need one. I just run, run. Work my lungs, my legs. Feel the whole planet turning beneath my feet ...
    She said no. I asked her to marry me. I showed her my soul, and she said ...
    Well, she didn’t say no, but she didn’t say yes. So really, she said no .
    Slap, slap, slap, my feet against the slushy road.
    Where am I going?
    I am just going.
    To Peter’s place. Of course. He’ll know. He’ll ...
    Oh God, God, God, the truth hits me like an arm suddenly held out in the darkness. Where I’m going. What I’m doing. How my life is all coming apart.

Chapter Seven
    I run around for a bit in the empty streets. I shout up at the moon, which does not answer. I watch my reflection in the black of shop windows. I should find a bar. Isn’t that what men do?
    But I do not find a bar, and I have no money, anyway. I circle around and around, and then I head back. Down the dark alley. To the closed door and past it, to our one window. I squat and look in. There she is, my Jess. Mine? I thought she was.
    She is not mine. Just Jess. Standing in my ... no, her father’s ...