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Shelby wondered how much she’d changed in fourteen years. Track star, zero-body-fat Matt looked nothing like how she’d left him at high school graduation and the all-night party that followed.

She thought she’d see him again, even wondered if they’d make something of that Winter Formal night sophomore year, when lust led them where it takes you when you’re young, infatuated, and a little bit stupid. She’d had a good time that night and thought he had too, but it never happened again, not even at the all-nighter two-and-a-half years later, when Shelby thought they might do it again.

It’s not like he’d dated anyone between sophomore Winter Formal and graduation, or at least not at their school. Shelby had heard the rumors that Matt only dated college women, a boasted she hadn’t realized men aspired to. It was usually her female peers who bragged that they’d spent a Friday night in a dorm room at Boston College or BU.

But Matt had ignored her at graduation and the all-night party, even though they’d become friends after their sophomore dance romp. She’d sort of considered herself his girl those two-and-a-half years, since he hadn’t said she wasn’t, even though they never so much as kissed again. But he spent those years passing her notes in the high school hallways, hanging around her locker, and giving her cute grocery store Valentine’s cards in those little envelopes every year.

She’d occasionally wondered why they were something but weren’t anything, but she assumed the best because she wanted Mark to be her guy. It was a real-life catfish situation of sorts: He was right there, real, the person he said he was, at least by name and age and school enrollment. But he wasn’t there: He never said why their occasional all-night phone calls never led to any dates.

When the all-nighter came and went with Matt ignoring her, Shelby thought he was just upset about something, nothing to do with her. Their relationship was intact and fine. They just wouldn’t get to have sex for the second time in two-and-a-half years, that’s all.

But when college began, luring her to UT Austin and Mark to Amherst, they didn’t stay in touch, not even on Facebook. He didn’t seem to be on social media, even LinkedIn as they grew into their twenties and early thirties.

So Shelby was surprised when Mark called her at thirty-two years old. How he even had her number, she had no idea. She didn’t think to ask; she was just so happy to hear from him, even though she couldn’t really say she’d missed him. She’d had a string of real boyfriends since freshman year of college, and now she was engaged to Dan, a quiet, patient, consistent man. No frills, just always there, supportive. Real.

Shelby met Mark for coffee. She was in Boston for a few weeks—she wondered how Mark knew that too, since it wasn’t the holidays and no one in her family had died—so they met at Gracenote Coffee, her hands shaking while she waited for him. Five minutes late, he walked in, looking right at her, so she knew it was him.

Well, him plus fifty pounds and about forty years. He looked awful. Worse, he spent their hour togther flirting like something might happen, even though she looked better than he’d left her, so he should have read his chances better, even before she dropped the f-bomb on him.

“Fiance? Yeah? Well, would you look at that!” he’d replied, a little too happy for me.

Would I look at what? I was a scientist at a presitigious lab, for god’s sake, and I looked like a shorter, only slightly uglier Angelina Jolie. I was a catch, and Mark was embarrassing himself.

On my way to Gracenote, I’d thought I would ask Mark why he never made a move on me after that night sophomore year. I wondered if I would lose my nerve. But once I saw him, it turns out, all I lost was my desire.