Amy walked into the stadium-style classroom mid-lecture. The lights were turned down and the screen was on. She found a seat near the back and quietly sat down. She was easily drawn into the presenter's lecture as it was a subject she found interesting; ancient Roman artifacts. She had some experience with this subject, and the presenter knew a lot about it. He clicked a new slide onto the screen and started in on the most famous ancient Roman structure; the colosseum. Amy smiled. This is where they had met. She let her mind drift back to that day five years earlier. She could still picture seeing him for the first time; tall, artfully windswept hair, muscular…and arrogant. Can't forget that. She gave a small sniff and smile at the memory. He had acted like a bad smell had reached him when she and her younger brother had shown up, cutting in line to join them at the entrance.

If I had only known then what I know now, she thought to herself. It had all been a defense mechanism she knew. He had been dealing with a lot and his walls had been up. His mother had recently died, his little brother was in his care full time and he had a distant father who was dealing with grief in his own, distant way. Amy's smile faded, and I drew them both into the mess that Dan and I live with every day.

They had been through a lot in their five years. They had briefly started dating, but then broke up when Amy told him she didn't love him, which was a lie, to protect him from ending up like…Evan. Her first boyfriend. Evan's smile swam in her memory. That's all that was left of Evan, a memory. She couldn't bear to lose another boyfriend the way she had Evan. That grief was so horrible.

In a way, breaking up had been the thing that had saved their relationship. After Amy took the serum, Jake had refused to leave her side eventually administering the antidote himself as their plane crash landed in the Atlantic. Amy had been minutes away from death. Later, he had told her that he had been moments away from drowning because he refused to let her die. She knew then that he loved her and could never leave her. She spent nearly a year just recovering in obscurity with her brother before agreeing to move back home and start at Harvard with him. And here they were; doing day to day life together and growing closer by the moment. He flipped the lights on and dismissed everyone with an assignment reminder and a smile. Amy made to get up, but the room was so crowded she decided to wait while they left. She pulled out her phone and went to check Instagram when a nearby conversation caught her attention.

"Just go talk to him!" a female voice said in a forced whisper.

"He is so hot, he has to have a girlfriend," said a second whispered voice.

"Or a wife," said a third girl.

"Uh, do you see a ring? Because I don't." said the first

"What if he's gay?" asked the second.

"Only one way to find out," said the first.

Amy watched their eyes as they traveled back up to the front of the room where her boyfriend, Jake Rosenbloom, graduate student who taught this class, was putting away the equipment and packing his bag to go. Amy was amused. She went back to her Instagram so she wouldn't draw attention to herself and pretended to struggle with her bag.

"Seriously, Kaylee, go talk to him. You've been pining after this guy for a month now and I'm so sick of it. If you don't, I will!" said the first voice.

"Well, wait a minute," said the second voice, clearly Kaylee, panic beginning to creep up into her voice, "what do we even know about this guy?"

"WHO CARES! He's the hottest guy any of us knows!" said the third voice, to which all three of them started giggling.

"You guys, he's our teacher, isn't that kind of, like, gross?" said Kaylee to her friends.

Amy had to smile at this. No way would she have worked up the nerve to talk to Jake, much less ask a grad student out on a date if she didn't already know him. He was a bit intimidating. She had to give props to these 18-year-old girls.

Jake was about to leave and when he looked up into the seating, he'd see Amy any second, it was now or never.

"Are you guys talking about Jake?" Amy asked innocently.

All three heads whipped around to stare at her. They each took measure of Amy: older, probably 20 or 21, long reddish-brown stick straight hair, lean, t-shirt, ripped jean shorts and sandals, no make-up except a little lip gloss. No threat detected.

"Yes!" exclaimed the first girl, "what do you know about him?"

The other two looked at her intently, excited.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jake walking up the center aisle now, having spotted her. She reached down and got her bag and hitched it up to her shoulder, phone in her hand.

"Quite a bit, actually," Amy said turning to face Jake who was only a few steps away now. She gave him a big smile as he reached her.

"Hi, I didn't expect to see you here!" he said nuzzling right up to her and reaching out his hand for hers.

"I thought I'd take you to lunch." She said smiling and giving him a quick kiss before turning to the girls.

Amy gave the three a small smile before turning to leave with Jake. Jake noticed the three and said, "see you three on Thursday, yeah?" He inclined his eyebrows at the three and flashed them a big smile. Then he turned to Amy and gave her a wink before they walked out of the lecture hall with the three girls' mouths hanging open in shock.