I wake up and I’m not screaming. There aren’t any horrible scenes going through my mind. If I had any dreams, I don’t remember them.

So this is how it feels to have a good night’s sleep and wake up normally – I’d almost forgotten. It’s really nice. It’s like they say, whoever “they” are, you should appreciate the small things. Waking up well rested, refreshed and definitely not terrified.

Maybe I did have a dream last night. I was at a club downtown and I met a guy, and we hit it off – no, I don’t think it was a dream at all. That’s a memory. That’s what I did last night. At least I hope it is.

His name’s Brian and he lives in the next dorm to mine. We talked and he did something to me – we did something to each other, I think – and then I made out with him in the middle of the street, in front of everyone. I completely fell for him in just a couple of hours. He gave me his phone number and we’re going to – I don’t know what we’re going to do exactly but I have very strong feelings about what I’d like to be doing with him.

I’m fairly certain it really happened, but there’s only one way to be sure. I reach over to the desk, grab the phone. I dial the number, 1550, just the four numbers because it’s on campus. It rings. Once, twice, three times.

“Hello?” It sounds like his voice.

“Is Brian there?” I hope, I hope, I hope.

“Sara?” Yes! Yes, I’m Sara, and you’re Brian, and you’re real and everything is right with the world.

“In the flesh. Good morning,” I notice the clock and I correct myself, “Oops, I mean afternoon. I hope you had a good time last night.”

He hesitates. I know it’s not because he didn’t have a good time, but because he’s trying to think of exactly the right words to say. “Um – it was – you were…yes, I had a good time,” is what he settles for. “Did – did you?”

There aren’t words. But I do have to say something, don’t I? “I absolutely did, and I’d really like to see you today. Please tell me you don’t have any plans.”

“You want to go out on a date, right? That is what you mean?” He still doesn’t believe it. His nerves are back; he’s lost his way from that strong, confident place. But that’s no problem – he’ll find it again. I’ll make sure he does.

“Yes, I do. So when are you going to come over here and pick me up?”

Beth walks in from the shower just as I hang up the phone. “So how’s your new boyfriend?”

He’s not my boyfriend!

Not yet, anyway. But I’d like him to be, if things keep going the way they did last night. I put on my best stuck-up voice: “Brian is fine, thank you very much. He’s taking me out to dinner and a movie tonight, if you must know.”

“You do realize I’m just teasing. Right?” She looks almost worried, as though maybe I don’t realize it. I guess she thinks she was too negative about Brian last night. I don’t think she was, really. She was just looking out for me. Besides, I didn’t tell her everything – she’d understand if I had. Or maybe she’d be even more worried about me.

“I know you are,” I tell her, and just to make it clear that I understand I throw a pillow at her. I hit her right in the face, interrupting her from the long and complicated process of drying her hair.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“Nothing,” I giggle. It just seemed like the only appropriate response. She throws it back at me, I catch it and lie back down on my bed. She doesn’t look 100% convinced that I’m not mad at her, and she’s just about to open her mouth and rehash the whole conversation again, but I stop her.

“You don’t have to say it. Look, I asked you for your opinion and you told me. End of story. The truth is, if it was anybody else telling me all the stuff I told you I’d think they were a few tacos short of a combination plate too.” It looks like she’s going to protest that, no, she didn’t think that at all, but I wave her off. “Don’t. I know that’s what you were thinking, and I don’t blame you a bit.”

I sit up, stand up, walk over to her, hug her. “Thanks,” I say.

“For what?”

“For being a good friend. I’m lucky to have you worrying about me.”

There, everything’s all better now. I go back to lying on the bed, and she goes back to drying her hair. We’re both quiet for a while. Finally, she says: “I’m thinking I should see if Ron,” her boyfriend, “wants me to spend the night over at his place. I’m just thinking, since I haven’t seen him all week. And you’d have the room to yourself, in case, you know, there’s anything that you wanted to do where you’d need the room to yourself.”

She’s smiling as she says it, and I don’t think she expects my answer. Neither do

I. “I think that’s a great idea.”

“Seriously?”

Yes! “I think so, yeah.”

“Sara, you’ve known this guy for what, twelve hours?”

Not counting last night, when it comes to my love life I have no secrets from Beth. She knows that I’m no prude or anything, but I do take things pretty slow. I’ve never gone to bed with someone I just met, never had a one night stand. My last boyfriend, Thomas, we’d been dating for a month before we slept together. Before him, back in high school it was a year and a half of dating Richard before – well, before I gave in, and I’m not going to think about that now. I put it right out of my mind. “I know. It feels weird to me, too. But – it’s like you said last night, it would probably do me good.”

“Wow, you are serious.” She’s staring at me, maybe looking for some tipoff that I’m a pod person who’s taken over the real Sara. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

She has to ask? I can’t believe she thinks I’d be irresponsible enough to – no, that’s not it at all. She shakes her head when she sees the face I make at her. “That’s not what I meant! Just really be careful with him. I don’t want to see you get hurt. I mean, you don’t know much about him, and I know he seems harmless and all, but still – just promise me, OK?”

If it’ll make her feel better, fine. “I do. I promise I’ll be extra careful, and I won’t let anything bad happen.” There, that should convince her that I’ll be fine, except it won’t. But that’s OK. If she wants to be concerned and nervous and everything about me, well, good. It’s nice to have someone worrying about me instead of the other way around for once. Why not?

Exactly.

Here we are back at the dorm. Brian and I are standing right outside the front door. It’s freezing cold, and it just a minute ago started to snow.

I’ve had a great time. We went to Brandywine’s, one of the two pretty nice restaurants that are right near the campus. I didn’t suggest the really expensive French place; that probably would have been overdoing it. Besides, I couldn’t afford it without breaking out the emergency credit card, and I very much doubt he could have, either.

Dinner went very well. We talked, we ate, we had wine – well, I had a glass of wine, he had soda. I doubt they’d have carded him, they usually don’t there if you’re ordering a full meal, but I guess he didn’t want to risk the embarrassment. Besides that, I hardly saw any nerves from him at all, and a couple of times when he looked at me – I felt it. When dessert came – we had an ice cream brownie – he moved his chair over to sit next to me and we shared it. I’m pretty sure we annoyed everyone else around us by being so cutesy about it. Not that either of us noticed at the time, and not that we would have cared if we had.

The movie was great, too. They sometimes play old movies at the campus theater on Saturdays, and tonight was “The Thin Man.” It’s the one from the thirties with the husband and wife detectives. To tell the truth though, I liked the dog best.

Actually, that’s not even the truth. What I liked best was having his arm around me, and mine around him, up in the very back of the balcony of Strack auditorium. You don’t get the best view of the screen from way back there, but there are other benefits to compensate.

Afterwards, we made our way back to my dorm, snuggling close the whole way and not really noticing the cold at all.

And now here we are, outside the front door. What to do?

Kiss him goodnight and go our separate ways for the evening? Or does he come upstairs with me? I’m calling the shots right now, that’s clear. As confident as he’s been tonight, it only goes so far. I know he wants to come upstairs, but I’m going to have to ask him. There’s a part of him that’s still trying to grasp the fact that I obviously like him as much as he does me. He’s not going to push his luck. Unless I push first.

Well, what do I want to do? It’s easy, it’s obvious, there’s no question what I want to do.

Except, if I’m being completely honest, I have to admit I am just a little bit nervous myself. If you told me last night that in less than twenty four hours I’d be ready to go to bed with a guy I hadn’t even met yet, I’d have said you were crazy. But here we are and here I am and this is so completely not me, but at the same time it feels completely right.

Besides, the truth is, unless I’m completely wrong about him we’re going to go upstairs sooner or later anyway. It’s just a question of when if it doesn’t happen tonight.

But right at this moment, what I decide feels so important. This is going to sound totally ridiculous, but it feels like something out of a movie. You know what I mean, that moment when the music softens and the romantic leads are in the spotlight and everything else is forgotten; the whole world stops except for them.

Maybe it’s only my imagination or maybe I’ve got an overly developed sense of the dramatic – a few days ago I would have said it’s definitely that. But it isn’t. It’s not just my imagination. It’s real. It’s exactly what’s happening right now.

I don’t know why it’s so important – no, that’s not true. I do know. It’s important because it’s exactly what I want and need right now, and maybe I’m lying to myself about love at first sight and everything else. Maybe I’m just using him to distract myself from the nightmares and not sleeping right, maybe – well, maybe a lot of things.

You know what? I don’t care about maybes, and I don’t care about motives and I don’t care about anything else except that he’s here right now. He’s looking at me, waiting for me to decide. Everything else is silent, frozen. The snowflakes are hanging in midair; the whole world is waiting for my answer.

No pressure, though. No pressure at all. Yes or no? Nothing else matters except what I decide.

Yes.

Brian’s asleep, and I’m drifting in and out myself. This is so right, this is exactly how it was supposed to be, me and him here under the blankets, and I’m warm and safe and…

Sara’s holding Brian’s hand, they’re right outside her room. Sara’s just aware enough to realize this is as much a memory as it is a dream. The night is replaying itself for her, and it’s better than any plain old dream could ever be.

She’s holding his hand and turning the doorknob. She hears his voice, asking hesitantly, “Are you sure?” She doesn’t answer with words; she simply opens the door, leads him inside, and locks it behind them.

Fast forward: she’s on the bed, arms wrapped around him, kissing him and then breaking into giggles because she can still taste the chocolate from their dessert. She can feel herself melting into his arms when he caresses just the right spot on the back of her neck.

Skip ahead again: she’s leading him along, encouraging him every step of the way. Unbuttoning her sweater, pulling off her top, and watching his eyes go wide when she asks him to take off her bra.

And then a little later, there’s her voice, tinged with surprise: “Wow. I’ve never been anybody’s first time before.” She remembers thinking: This is how I wanted my first time to be, slow and romantic and exploring each other, really and truly making love.

The moment of truth: she lies back, feels his weight on top of her. Where he’s been tentative and careful and happy to let her take the lead so far, she feels the exact instant that he stops thinking and worrying, the precise moment that he finds that strong, confident place inside himself and just loses himself in the moment.

And at the end, the feelings are all she has: his body and hers, and the sounds she makes: first gasps and then low moans, and finally a shout of pleasure.

Afterwards, quiet time, Sara drifts off to sleep, holding Brian close and feeling his heart beating, feeling it come into rhythm with hers.

She takes the pieces of memory and plays them over and over again; no room for any other dreams – or nightmares. For one night, at least, everything’s right with the world.

There’s someone in bed with me. Someone’s holding me, someone warm and strong and I’m running my hand up and down his back and his eyes flutter open. “Hi.”

“Sara?”

In the flesh, literally and figuratively. “You were expecting someone else?”

He gives me a hesitant little smile. “This is going to sound really dumb, but for a second there I wasn’t sure if last night really happened or if it was just a dream.”

Any other time I would be very annoyed at that, but considering how we met it’s a fair thing to wonder about. “It was definitely real, but if you want more proof you can go next door and ask Kelly and Amanda what they heard. We were pretty enthusiastic, I guess you could say.” If Beth heard those words come out of my mouth, she’d have a heart attack. It might even be worth it, just to see her expression before she keeled over. Honestly, I’m kind of shocked myself.

But it is true – I’ll bet they heard everything. The walls are pretty thin, after all. And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time someone in room 208 kept the neighbors up. From what I’ve heard, Beth isn’t exactly shy about expressing herself when she’s, let’s just say, entertaining a guest in the room. Why can’t I have some fun once in a while too?

He’s quiet for a bit. He seems very contemplative. I ask him, “Hey, what are you thinking about?”

He looks embarrassed. I have a feeling I know what he’s going to say. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Well, I know this is probably a stupid question, but – is it always like that?”

I knew it. They always ask, don’t they? The phrasing varies, but the question’s the same. Except I don’t think it is right now. That was his first time, after all, so he’s got no basis for comparison. It could be an honest question. I’m definitely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I tell him the truth: “I’m not saying this for your ego, I really mean it – it’s never been like that before for me.” But then again, I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I’ve never needed someone the way I do now. And I’ve definitely never lost myself in it the way I did – we did – last night. I’m sure that’s got a lot to do with it.

I’m glad it was like that for him. They say you always remember your first time, and – this is exactly the kind of thing Beth meant when she said I’m a hopeless romantic – it’s supposed to be special and wonderful and perfect and all of that. I’d say that last night qualified on that count.

I wish my first time had been like that, instead of what it was, with Richard, the time I didn’t want to think about this morning. Rotten, awful, terrible, pick your adjective. And I can’t think of another time that I’ve ever felt worse about myself.

We lie in bed a little longer and he asks me something else. “What happened to you?” and as he asks he’s got his hand on my belly. Right over my scar.

“Oh, that? You noticed it?” It’s funny. The two boyfriends I’ve had since it happened never noticed, or if they did they never bothered to ask.

“Well, I saw it last night, and after about two seconds it went right out of my mind,” he says, going quite red.

“I should hope so,” I laugh. “Anyway, I had my appendix out, senior year of high school.”

“Really?”

“The night before the prom.”

I see a flash of pain in his eyes. I know exactly what just went through his mind – for a moment there, he experienced what he imagines I must have been felt. It’s extremely touching – none of my previous boyfriends would have reacted that way. “That’s – wow, that’s horrible,” is what he finally says.

“It wasn’t any fun, that’s for sure.” It was incredibly painful, in fact. I remember very clearly that after we got to the emergency room, I cursed at my father for the first and only time in my life. My exact words, lying there in the exam room waiting for the nurse, were: “Dad, it hurts so bad! Make them give me the fucking pills! I need them to knock me the fuck out!” When he heard that come out of my mouth, he knew for sure I was seriously ill.

I relate that to Brian, and he gets a good chuckle out of it. It is funny now, three years later. “But I didn’t even really get my mind around the idea that I missed the prom. I was completely loopy on the pain medication for, I don’t know, three or four days. By the time I was thinking straight again, I was all caught up in getting ready for graduation. Besides, it wasn’t like I had a hot date that I missed out on.”

I’d be happy to just lie here together all morning, but Brian’s got to go back to his dorm so he’s there for the weekly phone call from his parents. His mother apparently gets all agitated if he’s not there and awake at exactly eight AM on Sunday morning. I guess it’s a way of making sure he isn’t partying too much or something like that. It sounds dumb to me, too, but like Brian said, “They’re paying the bills, so I guess I have to keep them happy.”

So he gets dressed and I throw on my bathrobe and walk him downstairs. The lounge is empty – it is way too early on a Sunday morning, after all – so we take the opportunity for one more kiss before he heads out the door.

I’m just standing there watching him go, and there’s a voice behind me: “I didn’t think you went in for public displays like that.” I turn around and I see Mona Charleston, a second-year medical student and our Resident Director. She’s standing in front of the door of her little apartment. She must have just come out; she looks like she’s getting ready for her morning run.

I’ve known Mona since she was a teaching assistant in my freshman chemistry lab. I wouldn’t say we’re best friends or anything, but we got along well enough then and she’s been a pretty good RD. And, she’s been giving me and Janet and Melanie – the other two junior girls in the dorm who are pre-med like I am – all kinds of advice. How to get ready for the MCAT’s, what to think about as we prepare for the application process, course schedules, stuff like that. So Mona’s OK in my book.

“I didn’t think it was public. It’s not my fault you want to go running at this hour.”

“Force of habit,” she says, looking me up and down. “It sure looks like you had a good time last night. You’re glowing. You do realize that people are going to talk.”

I blush, even though I know she’s teasing – mostly teasing, anyway. And so what if she’s not? People talk all the time, who cares if anybody wants to joke about how I “got lucky.” They can go right ahead. “Well, I can’t complain about it, that’s all I’ll say.”

Mona laughs. “No, from the way you look, I wouldn’t think you can. Tell you the truth, I’m glad to hear it. You’ve been looking awfully stressed lately, I was starting to worry about you. But I suppose your new friend will help with the stress relief, so I won’t worry anymore.”

“That’s good.” I think.

“Besides, it’s nice to know that someone had a good night. It sort of reaffirms my faith in humanity.”

“Why? What happened to you last night?”

She shrugs. “It wasn’t any one thing. I was on call, and every five minutes it was some stupid little problem. There’s a car alarm going off in the Brinkley House parking lot and it won’t stop, somebody’s passed out drunk on the fourth floor here and he doesn’t look like he’s breathing right, someone’s throwing stuff off the fourth floor balcony in Morgan House. All night long, nonsense like that.”

Last year I thought, briefly, about applying to be an RA. It’s conversations like this that make me glad I came to my senses. “So nothing really serious?”

“No. No property damage, no injuries, except to my nerves and my patience,” she says, heading for the door. “Maybe a good long run will clear my head. I’d ask if you wanted to join me, but I think you got all the exercise you need already.” I blush again.

“Thanks, I guess.” She’s off on her jog, and it’s back to bed for me. Another couple of hours in my nice comfy bed sounds like a great idea. Before I crawl back under the covers, I take a good long look at myself in the mirror. Mona’s right. I am glowing. And why not? Good for me.