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Jane followed her after a lingering gaze back at the museum doors. Professor Corlyn was fifty years old, but never missed a chance to admire the male form, which was one of the reasons Jane took as many of her courses as she could fit into her schedule. During many a lecture, the professor would lapse into an anecdote of love and futility, somehow vaguely related to the subject of art. Wherever her youthful dalliances had taken her, she was eager to share the story with the more inexperienced students of life. It was perhaps Professor Corlyn's fearlessness that first inspired Jane to pursue The Guy.

If Sadie hadn't encouraged her to track him down, Jane may have dismissed her plan to visit the museum for a chance to see him again as obsessive. After the bus ride from Atlanta to Branley, Jane took her beater car home to the apartment she shared with Sadie. She had been sitting at their bar counter and poking at an uneaten pudding cup when Sadie came through the door. She was wearing her favorite spandex. As a matter of pride, Sadie went to the gym every day. She had a workout wardrobe to rival any gymnast, and none of it had seen any equipment more advanced than a treadmill. Jane had never
seen anyone wear so much pink in her life. Sadie's gym clothes made her look like a bottle of Pepto Bismol had exploded on her.

They had been roommates freshman year in the dorms. When Sadie decided dorm life wasn't for her, she invited Jane to move into an apartment together. She said it was because her father insisted she have a roommate for safety, and that was probably true, but Jane knew that Sadie was trying to help her. She saw how Jane struggled to do well in school and work a job to make enough money to cover her room and board at Branley. Jane never saw how much the rent was since Sadie signed the contracts, but she was pretty sure she was paying significantly less than half of what was due each month. For her part, Sadie was paying zero dollars toward the rent. Sadie's father covered all her bills. Sometimes it's very good to be a daddy's girl. Sadie had sat next to her and asked about her day. Jane told her all about her encounter at the museum, leaning heavily on physical descriptors.

“Professor Corlyn had to practically shove me onto the bus. He was the first beautiful man I've ever seen in the flesh. I don't even know how I managed to talk to him without throwing up all over myself.”

Sadie grimaced and sipped on her Hello Kitty bottle of water. “Well, kudos to you on that accomplishment. Vomiting on a hottie is never a great way to introduce yourself. He sounds like a real treat. I guess you have to get out of Branley every once in a while to find a guy that doesn't consider a dirty baseball cap a core staple of his wardrobe.”

“You don't even know, Sadie. I was staring at him like a crazy person, but he still talked to me. He was friendly, and gorgeous, and literate. At least he seemed literate. I didn't actually see him read anything. But, I bet he does it really well without moving his lips. Now I'll never have the chance to know for sure. It sucks.”

“Why don't you go back to the museum if he goes there for all the exhibits? Maybe you'll see him again, and you can talk about art…stuff some more. That way you will get to see his lips move. Maybe they do other stuff, like smash up against your lips.” Sadie was a psych major, and didn't really see the allure of an art education. Jane made a face at her use of the technical term “art stuff,” but she had a point about going back to a place that he obviously frequented.

Jane kept her eyes on her pudding cup as she seriously considered the idea. “Do you think that's kinda stalker-ish?”

Sadie waved her hand dismissively. “You're not kidnapping him for your love dungeon, are you?”

“No. I'm redecorating the love dungeon, so I can't bring him there. Too much dust.”

“Look, if you find someone you like, why not pursue
him
a little bit? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”

It was as simple as that. For Sadie, anyways. Jane thought back on the many occasions she'd been out with her, and she could not recall Sadie pursuing a guy. Ever. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her pink-lycra bedecked friend.

“Have you ever had to go after a guy?”

Sadie cocked her head as if to think through the many encounters of her love life. The time stretched and Sadie took another long draw of water.

“No. But, I probably should since the ones that find me are usually the ones I should avoid.” Sadie suddenly clapped her hands in childish delight. “Jane, it's soooo romantic. Think about the story you'll be able to tell your kids one day. Mom and Dad met at a museum, and nothing - not time or distance - could keep them apart.” She crossed her hands over her chest as if clasping her heart in a mock swoon.

Jane groaned as she handed Sadie a pudding cup.

“That sounds more like a bad romance novel than a true love story.”

Sadie got a spoon from the utensil drawer and looked at Jane skeptically. “You know, there are a lot of different kinds of love stories, and not all of them end badly. ‘Boy meets girl' doesn't have to end with ‘boy leaves girl with two kids and a load of debt.'”

Jane met Sadie's level gaze with one of her own. “Don't you need a shower, Southern Barbie?”

Sadie huffed as she left to clean up. “Well, sometimes the corniest love stories are the best.”

Jane had shared her family history with Sadie early in their friendship, so it was inevitable that it would become a topic of casual conversation and the occasional joke. Jane regretted telling her, but a few shots of tequila can do wonders to solidify a friendship and expose your most vulnerable personal details. Sadie had lived a charmed life with a traditional family and never seemed to miss an opportunity to
battle Jane's romantic pragmatism with an odd mix of graphic sexual detail and girlish fairytale fantasy. Spending time with Sadie had softened Jane's hardness toward the possibility of the proverbial true and everlasting love, but she still retained the memories of a broken home and a struggling mother.

Jane often felt that she was robbed of part of her childhood innocence by her knowledge of the lies people told all around her all the time. She was cynical too soon. Having a sick mother and a cash flow problem didn't help matters. It should take decades for her to feel this jaded; she was only twenty years old! With her sister back home dealing with their Mom's advancing Alzheimer's, Jane was slowly allowing her guilt to convince her to quit school. She should leave school in Georgia and go help her sister in Wisconsin, but that would mean giving up a valuable scholarship and a chance at a different life.

Something about that brief encounter with a stranger in the museum, and the chance to feel young and impulsive, appealed to Jane. It wasn't even much of a risk to chase after him a little bit. After all, the worst that could happen would be that she never saw him again. But, she really wanted to see him again.

Now, it was several weeks and several no shows later. Jane was resolved. Today would be the last time she waited for him. She had no real expectations of enduring romance if she did see him again. She just wanted to feel like she had tried. While waiting for him last week, she had redrawn her quick profile sketch as a larger and more detailed study. This time, she drew him staring out from the paper. She reproduced his brown hair with honey highlights, his strong jaw, and perfect Roman nose. His eyes were friendly with a slight crinkle at the edges, but sad. Jane wondered where that detail had come from. When she met him, she had felt nervous and silly and he had seemed calm and friendly…and anything else she might have noticed was forgotten as soon as she saw how ridiculously hot he was. Now, looking at the new drawing of his face, she wondered if The Guy was the happy Adonis she remembered or the lonely man she had drawn.

One thing she wouldn't miss after today was the hard wooden bench she had been sitting on for days on end. Her butt was getting
numb. There might be permanent nerve damage. On top of it, the new sculpture was annoying her. The lion sculpture had been replaced with an abstract sculpture resembling macaroni noodles and a triangle. It looked like someone had run over a bicycle repeatedly, painted it silver, and named it “Composition Number 78”. Sometimes Jane wondered why people paid for this stuff. Jane set her bag next to her on the bench and fished out her sketchpad.

She had discovered in her last few visits that sitting in a museum all day in the same spot could be very, very boring. She had sketched every view from this position and was happy with the change of subject the abstract sculpture provided, if not the actual sculpture. Jane slipped on her headphones and picked a playlist that should keep her distracted for a few hours.

It didn't take her long to become engrossed by her drawing, and when she happened to look up and see The Guy sitting to her left she almost dropped her pencil. He was looking at her without smiling and Jane suddenly felt uncomfortable. Who was the creepy one now? He was as startling as she remembered, but she felt herself shrinking from his direct attention. He seemed different. He was dressed in a white t-shirt and khakis still damp from another rain shower, as well as the work boots she remembered, but his hair was messier, and his eyes were shadowed. He looked like he hadn't slept in a few days. Before he'd been easy to talk to despite his attractiveness, but now there was an air of malice emanating from him. For the first time she considered that he might not appreciate a mooning, goofy college student lying in wait for him.

“Uh, hi there.” Jane removed her headphones and tried to look a little less embarrassed than she felt.

He leaned towards her intently. “You were here a few weeks ago, right?”

“Yes, I was here with my class to research a paper.” She smiled and tried to meet his eyes without staring.

“And now you're here again.” It was more a statement than a question, and Jane was now certain that he felt she was intruding.

She was immediately wary. “Yes, I wanted to see the new exhibit.”

He wasn't smiling today. Far from it. “Isn't your college on summer break, like all the other colleges? You should be in Florida, getting drunk and misplacing your clothes.”

Jane felt her temper flare at his rudeness. She spoke with deliberate casualness as she felt her possible love connection slipping away in awkwardness. “I'm not here for a class, I wanted to see the new exhibit.”

He lowered his voice and some anger crept into his tone. He pointed violently toward the new sculpture. “That thing looks like it fell off a garbage truck. Is that what you wanted to see?”

Jane was suddenly scared by the change in his demeanor. She couldn't think of anything that she had done to provoke him, and she felt the need to defend herself. The anger in her voice matched his now. “What else would I want to see? This is a museum isn't it? I'm an art student, aren't I? Who the hell made you unofficial art bouncer anyway?”

He looked taken aback but persisted in a stern tone. “It's just a little suspicious that you would be here again when I'm here, isn't it?”

Jane was horrified. She immediately thought he knew everything. That she had been here in this spot for weeks on end, waiting for him. That she was irrationally obsessed with him, and thought that he might be interested in her. She felt stupid and humiliated and clearly rejected. Suddenly, leaving sounded like a very good idea, so she gathered her things quickly. Well, fairy tale officially over. Jane couldn't calm herself down, she snarled at him, “Look, I'm sorry if I'm intruding on your personal bench. I'll leave you to it. My ass is numb anyways.”

She kept her eyes forward and walked quickly to the parking garage and felt her anger starting to turn to self-pity. “I will not cry. At least until I'm in the car.” In terms of failure, she was sure this incident would be one of the highlights of her young life. She was angry that she was stupid enough to believe a guy with the face of a model and the body of a professional swimmer would feel that she was special and see something in her that obviously wasn't there. Different leagues? They were not even playing in the same bowling alley. She flew through the doors and into the humidity and echoes of the garage and headed straight for her car. Jane was also trying to figure out how she could face Sadie's questions about how the stakeout went without seeming hopelessly pathetic when she saw her path blocked by a big dark arm.

“Excuse me, I need you to come with me now.” Jane was still distracted, but managed to draw away from grasping hands.

“What?” She looked at the man attached to the big arm and deep voice. He was huge and dressed in black from head to toe. His hair was too short and his eyes completely devoid of emotion. For an instant she thought he was museum security come to chastise her for speaking louder than a whisper in the gallery. Jane knew all the guards on shift at this time, and he definitely wasn't one of them. He was also a persistent bugger, and refused to move out of her way when she leaned away from him.

“I need you to come with me, now.” Jane suddenly realized that he wasn't alone, and a tall skinny man was approaching her from her left side. He was similarly attired, and they were both starting to crowd her in a very unfriendly way. Jane realized they wore a modified military uniform not like anything she'd ever seen before. Religious zealots? Drug lords? Who knew? Her stomach dropped and she knew she had to run as fast and as far as she could.

“No, thanks.” Jane spun around and tried to run back towards the museum, but she could hear them running after her. She made it about 20 feet when she saw The Guy coming towards her from just outside the museum doors and for a moment she thought he was with them.

At first he had the same angry look on his face from earlier, but when he saw her running and looked behind her at the big guy chasing her, his face was surprised. She thought she would make it to the museum entrance until she felt a pair of strong hands lock around her hair and yank her back. She tried to scream, but lost her breath when she landed with a thud on the ground. Her head snapped onto the concrete, and she lay stunned on the ground. One of the men straddled her and shoved a rag over her face, and that was the last thing she remembered.