Saturday afternoon, she took the dorm elevator down to the first floor. She stepped outside and felt an autumn breeze, and zipped her sweater up to her chin. She glanced at her phone, and walked down the sidewalk to wait at the curb. 

When she saw a car pull up, and saw Sam in the driver's seat, a tingling sensation began at the top of her head. It traveled down her body and alerted every cell, and she realized that she really was attracted to Sam. Maybe that was how it worked - a sudden big awareness of allure. Pulling open the car door, she stuck her phone in her pocket and got into the passenger seat. 

"Hey," Sam said. The radio was on the '90s station, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers blasted out of the speakers. He pulled out into traffic and asked, "So it's off to the Art Museum?" 

"Mm-hmm," she said. And then, awkward as could be, she informed him: "You know, I just realized, I don't know your last name."

Sam laughed. "It's Lawson," he said. "Samuel James." 

"Oh. Well, mine's Kang. Alyssa Marie."

"So now we know."

She directed him through the streets, and they got to the museum and parked. "So how much do you like art?" he asked. "On a scale of one to ten?"

"Oh, well, depends," she said, really thinking about it. "If it's something I like, I guess ten."

"I feel very... uninformed about art."

"Yeah, I do too," she said. "But it's something I want to know about."

"Yeah."

They stepped into the building, and the atmosphere was overwhelming. The ceiling was hundreds of feet above their heads, and there were marble columns, and everything seemed very old and very new at the same time. "Well, let's just go in here," Alyssa said, and they passed into a room of oil paintings. 

Two hours later, they'd seen Picassos and Rembrandts, O'Keeffes and Renoirs. They stepped out the front doors, and were in a maze of flora. Artistically-trimmed hedges surrounded a small pool, and in the pool were lilypads and frogs.

Sam took her hand, and they wove their fingers together. "Looks like we're the only ones out here," he said, and Alyssa looked around and said, "Yeah."

"So," he said, and sat down on a stone ledge. "How do you like college?"

"It's okay," she said, sitting next to him. "It took some getting used to."

"Yeah, it's less stressful now. Compared to last year."

"Yeah, last year I was like, 'Where am I supposed to go? Where am I supposed to be?"

"Yeah," he said, and laughed. "And I was having trouble with my girlfriend.... We were breaking up, really. But it took us like a year to break up."

"Oh?" she asked. "Do tell."

"Well," he said, "she was my first girlfriend, really. And we lost our virginity to each other. And maybe we just didn't know how to be in a relationship. And then we didn't know how to break up."

"Oh," she said, and looked at the ground. 

"What about you?" he asked. "Have you dated anyone since you got here?"

"Um, no...." Which was the truth....

"So you had a boyfriend before? Like in high school?"

"The summer after graduation," she said, which was a lie. "Someone named Logan. He went away to college, so we ended it."

"Were you in love?"

"Um, no. I wouldn't say that."

"But you did it with him? You did the deed?"

"We had the sex?" she said, and laughed. "Yeah. He was the first.... Well, the only. So far."

They stood up off the ledge, and held hands again. And Alyssa felt guilt creep over her body. 'Cause there had been a guy named Logan, but she'd barely known him. He just happened to pop into her head. She didn't know if he'd gone away to college, or anything else about him. And they'd certainly never had sex.