My Dark Vanessa. Kate Russell Elizabeth

decide I’ll come by later, after faculty service hour when the humanities building is quiet. When I’m nearly out the door, he says, “You look lovely.”

      I can’t stop the grin from taking over my face. I do look lovely—dark green sweater, my best-fitting corduroys, my hair falling in waves over my shoulders. That was on purpose.

      When I return to the classroom, the sun has set, and there aren’t any window blinds so we turn off the lights, sit behind his desk, and kiss in the dark.

      Ms. Thompson organizes a Secret Santa in the dorm and I draw Jenny’s name, which seems like it should hurt. Instead all I feel is a vague annoyance. I take the ten dollars I’m meant to use on a gift and go to the grocery store, buy her a pound of generic-brand ground coffee, and spend the rest on snacks for myself. I don’t even wrap the coffee; at the gift exchange I give it to her in the plastic grocery bag.

      “What is this?” she asks, the first words she’s spoken to me since last spring on the last day of the year—the I guess I’ll see you around she tossed over her shoulder as she left our dorm room.

      “It’s your gift.”

      “You didn’t wrap it?” She opens the bag with the tips of her fingers, like she’s worried what might be inside.

      “It’s coffee,” I say. “Because you were always drinking coffee or whatever.”

      She looks down at it, blinking so hard that for a moment I’m horrified, thinking she’s about to cry. “Here.” She thrusts an envelope at me. “I got your name, too.”

      Inside the envelope is a card and, inside that, a twenty-dollar gift certificate to the bookstore downtown. I hold the gift certificate in one hand and the card in the other, my eyes darting back and forth between them. Inside the card, she wrote, Merry Christmas, Vanessa. I know we haven’t kept in touch but I hope we can work on repairing our friendship.

      “Why did you do this?” I ask. “We were only supposed to spend ten dollars.”

      Ms. Thompson moves from pair to pair, commenting on all the gifts. When she reaches us, she sees Jenny’s red cheeks, the vacuum-sealed bag of cheap coffee fallen out onto the floor, the guilt all over my face.

      “Mmm, what a nice gift!” Ms. Thompson says, so enthusiastic I think she’s talking about the gift certificate, but she means the coffee. “As far as I’m concerned, you can never have too much caffeine. Vanessa, what did you get?”

      I hold up the gift certificate and Ms. Thompson gives a thin smile. “That’s nice, too.”