Cressida tore through the apartment, hoping that the elevator was still there, that no one had gone down to the lobby in it. She could hear Graham calling her and punched the button over and over, as though that might make the door open faster.

He entered the foyer just in time to see the door close on her white and stricken face. He briefly considered taking the stairs, but discarded this idea almost immediately as impractical. It was nearly twenty flights, and he might fall and hurt his hands.

Katherine had now entered the foyer, damaged blouse hanging open.

"Jesus, Katherine, not now, okay?"

"At least put on a coat and shoes, don't go chasing after her in nothing but your trousers and socks," she suggested.

Graham stomped on some shoes and pulled his coat on.

The elevator finally came back and he got on, pressing the L button very hard. The last thing he saw before the door closed was Katherine's face, disappointed and hurt. Welcome to the club, Graham thought grimly, of the women disappointed and hurt by Graham Stevens.

"Did you see Cressida?" He asked the doorman. "Which way did she go?"

"She ran straight across the street and into the park, sir, nearly got hit by a car."

The park? At this time of night? And in December? Not a lot of people in the park, and most who were there had nefarious purposes. Graham felt the first frisson of fear for Cressida.

He, too, risked jaywalking across Fifth Avenue and gained the other side of the street. He quickly ran to the 72nd Street entrance and ran in, hoping she wasn't headed for the Ramble, the remote and woodsy section of the park. "Cress! Cressida!" It was brutally cold, and he could feel the biting wind on his bare flesh around the collar of his coat.

He looked and thought he saw movement to his right, so he ran in that direction. There weren't a lot of lights, and he was worried that she might fall as she ran.

Dear god, what had he been thinking? The truth was that there wasn't a whole lot of thinking going on when he'd reached for Kath. He'd been angry and frustrated, and wanted to do something violent. There had been no tenderness in his actions.

"Cressida! Please, Cress, where are you? This isn't safe!"

"Shut the fuck up!" A deep voice responded from somewhere in the park.

Graham ignored the voice and kept calling. Finally, though, he had to stop running, he was too out of breath. He also had to admit that he had no idea where she was, and he could be running completely in the wrong direction.

But he couldn't go home and just leave her here. He passed a man walking his dog and asked, "Did a girl go running by here? Upset?"

The man just stared at him, as if unsure that he wanted to answer.

"It's cool, she's my sister," Graham explained, tying to look reliable and not like a rapist.

Finally the man gestured behind him.

Cressida was headed straight for the Ramble.

No. No no no.

"Cress? Cress, please wait for me," he called as he started again, this time at a jog. He began wandering though the Ramble, calling her name every so often, looking for the scrap of pink and yellow that would indicate her blouse and backpack. There were lots of rustlings and noises coming from the dense cover; birds, he supposed.

Please, please let her be okay.

Graham tried not to think about why Cressida was out here; he was only worried for her safety. He only wanted to find her, to make sure she was okay. Beyond that he wouldn't think.

"Cressida! Where are you? Answer me!"

A couple of joggers passed him, headed his way. He wanted to ask them to look out for Cress, but they were listening to their phones. Graham wished he'd thought to bring his, but he was out here, shirtless in his winter coat, looking for a girl in Central Park in the dark.

He finally exited the Ramble at the Bow Bridge and turned south, not knowing which way to go. He hated to admit that he might just have to give up. This was worse than a needle in a haystack; a needle couldn't move and would just sit there, waiting to be found, at least.

"Cressida!" he called desperately, his voice breaking from the shouting and the cold. He frightened some ducks in the lake, who took flight at the sound of his voice.

"Cress!" he cried as he arrived at Bethesda Fountain, of course deserted at this time of night.

"What do you want?"

Cress' voice, floating to him out of the darkness, startled him. He began running around the fountain and found her on a bench around the other side.

She sat huddled and miserable, her backpack next to her, tears coursing down her face.

"Thank Christ!" Graham ran to her and sat, reaching for her.

She flinched away as though from an open flame, and he let his hand drop into his lap. Around them the silence of the nighttime park was loud.

"What do you want?" she repeated tonelessly.

"I want—I want—I wanted to find you, to make sure you were all right," he stuttered lamely.

"Well, you have, and I am, so good bye." She was shaking from the strength of her crying.

"You're not all right," he admonished, his voice soft. "I—look, what you saw, it was—"

"What? It was what, Graham?"

Graham took a deep, gulping breath. "I'd just gotten off the phone with you, and I wanted to see you so badly, I was so frustrated and upset—"

"What, so you just reached for whomever was handiest?" Cressida's voice held scorn and disbelief. She put her face in her hands. "You know what? I don't care, I just don't, so could you leave please? Just leave me alone?"

"I'm not leaving you here alone. Please come back with me, Cress, at least let me get you indoors so you can warm up?"

"The last place on earth I'd go is back to that apartment, especially with you."

"You have to, you left your coat in the foyer," he said, cursing himself for not bringing it with him, for Cress was shivering.

"Just keep it," she said through her tears. "Please go away, Graham, just go away."

"No. No, I won't."

"Why? We're through, you must know that, right?"

Don't say that, Cress, no," he begged, shaking his head. "I have no feelings for Kath, she means nothing to me—"

"So that's what you do with people who mean nothing to you? Telling, isn't it?" Cressida said derisively. "So glad to know how much I mean to you."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Graham said.

"You were going to fuck her. You would've, if I hadn't shown up and interrupted you."

Graham shook his head again, vehemently. "No. No, that's not true."

"You would've stopped?" Again, her voice dripped with sarcasm. "One thing I know about you, Graham, is that you don't stop once you've started." Cressida sniffed, wiping her face on the sleeve of her blouse.

"Cress, please, please talk to me, let's work this out, I'll do anything, anything, just please don't say we're through, don't do that to us!"

"I didn't do it!" She blazed up at him. "You did. You're rude and selfish, a child who only thinks of himself. I can't be with a person like that."

She was right, he thought to himself. Even now, he kept his hands in his pockets to keep them safe from the elements, so as not to risk his playing.

"You're right, I know that. I'm so, so sorry, Cress. I was going to stop with Kath, right before you opened the door, it was like a lightbulb going off in my head, I swear. Please. I feel nothing for her."

"Then why did you do it?" Cressida cried from the bottom of her soul. "Why did it happen in the first place? You must've wanted it on some level, or you never would've started." Cressida finally gave in to helpless, hopeless sobbing, hunching over her backpack.

Looking at the vulnerable curve of her back, a back he'd spent countless hours admiring, Graham wanted to kill himself. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and put it on her back, and she allowed this, even leaning into him a little for comfort.

"Graham, I can't do this," she said, her words hard to understand because she was crying so hard. She rose. "I have to go."

Graham, too rose. "Please come back with me, get warmed up, and we can talk."

She looked at him in disbelief. "I can't."

"At least come back and get your coat. It's going to snow tomorrow, you'll need it to go to class," he said reasonably.

Cressida nodded despondently and they began walking back to the 72nd Street entrance. Graham took off his coat and placed it around her shoulders. This, too, she allowed, until she noticed that he was shirtless. Then she politely shrugged out of it and returned it to him. Graham had the feeling that if he hadn't taken it from her, she would've just dropped it on the ground.

He put it back on, and noticed, just from the brief time she'd worn it, that it already carried her scent. He snuggled into hit, reveling.

By the time they got to the lobby, Cressida was shaking from the cold. She wiped her eyes again on her sleeve.

"Cress?" he tried again on their way up in the elevator.

Silence.

She exited the elevator, saying, "Please hold the elevator for me," to Graham as she stepped into the foyer and grabbed her coat. She slipped it on as she got back on the elevator.

"Good bye, Graham," she said, just as Katherine entered the foyer, looking worried and upset.

Graham let the doors close without getting off.

"What are you doing?" Cressida asked, putting her backpack on over her coat.

"I'm coming with you. We need to talk."

"I won't let you into my apartment, Graham." Her tone was final. "Besides, you don't want the prof getting upset with you, do you? You should go back."

"No."

Cressida shrugged.

He followed her on the subway, and all the way back to her apartment. It was the longest subway ride of his life. Cressida sat, huddled in her coat, still crying, occasionally heaving a big, sobbing, sigh. Her nose was bright red, her eyes were puffy, and she'd never looked more inaccessible or adorable to Graham.

In typical New Yorker fashion, most people simply ignored her. However, there was one woman who sat next to her and asked, "Is there anything I can do?"

Cressida shook her head, giving he woman a tremulous smile. "No, thank you, though."

She turned to him when they got to the stoop outside her apartment. "I told you that you can't come in," she repeated.

"Please, Cress, at least let me into the vestibule so I don't freeze?"

She shrugged again and let him in.

At her door, she once again said, "Good bye, Graham, and firmly shut the door in his face.

Graham hit the wall next to the door once with his palm and turned to lean against it, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor.

What now?