During orientation at graduate school, you sweat through your undershirt while listening to presenters, a couple faculty and a couple students, explain how they will make you a better writer. Not only will you become a better writer, you've decided, but you will also become a better person. There will be no more flings. All of it seems entirely within your grasp, even when a friend asks if there are any attractive women in the program and you respond, "Well, there was this one girl with intense eyebrows."

Her name is Tatum. In the weeks to come, you will learn that she is from California but went to college in New York, takes her coffee with real sugar, speaks fluent Spanish from living in Ecuador for a year, writes nonfiction, and has a mind as compassionate as it is intelligent. Her ass is the most gorgeous thing you have ever seen.

Early in your relationship with Tatum, you come to rely not only on the embrace of her lissome and yogic appendages but also on her estimation of you as considerate, flawed, and reparable. She does not tolerate when you speak to her as though you were the leading man in a film of your life. She does not reveal herself to just anyone enough for them to perceive the fragility of her psyche. You fall in love with her.

On a February evening, Tatum arrives at your apartment trying to hide a face covered with tears. You at first think they are what is left of snow. Instead of asking what's wrong, you take her in your arms and say, "It's going to be okay." She tells you what happened through her sobs. It recently came as news that her ex-boyfriend, whom she dated for five years, has started a relationship with someone new. That she is so upset, one might say, should upset you more.

Years earlier, at such a moment, you would have selfishly thought, "I am being selfless," but now, holding a woman you love, all that comes to mind is the thought, "I am holding a woman I love." Suggest the two of you watch a movie together. Dry her face with your sleeve. Make her laugh with your mimicry of baby talk.

It might be the night you watch Junebug and she loves it, or it might be the night you watch Days of Thunder and she hates it. You won't remember because it doesn't matter. Distinctions blur in hindsight. Assembly is always required when remembering what has happened to you.

The sex later that evening is indicative of your new self. Even though you will one day long to describe each detail, the neckties used as handcuffs, the scarves used as blindfolds, you know, fully aware of the irony that Tatum is halfway through writing a memoir, she would be mortified to have such a personal experience revealed to the world. One thing must be said: the person you used to be never would have done so much to help someone else get theirs.

The next morning, you wake up before Tatum and look out the window, where the interior courtyard of your apartment building has been transformed into a brilliant white replica of itself. You imagine for a moment that the tears from last night have reverted to what you thought was their original form. Once Tatum wakes, you say, "Let's make snow ice cream," motioning towards the window. The making of snow ice cream, you explain to her, is a tradition from your childhood. On the rare days it would snow in Mississippi, your mother would send you and your siblings outside to collect giant bowls full of fresh snow, which she would then let all of you help stir as she mixed with sweetened condensed milk. The result was snow ice cream.

"Sure," Tatum says, "okay."

Outside, after buying the varieties of milk from the bodega on the corner, you shave the top few inches of snow off car hoods and collect all of it in a large Tupperware container. You go back inside and mix the ingredients. Voila! You go back to the bedroom and give Tatum a spoonful. At that moment, you notice a look on her face that you realize is the result of, first, someone so reticent about revealing herself having someone else reveal himself so openly and, second, a woman coming to learn that her boyfriend feels something for her that she does not feel for him.

She does not love you.

Across the room, the radiator bangs to life with fresh steam, and out the window, snowflakes cease to flutter through the air. That specific look on your girlfriend's face is something you've been expecting for a while. Ignoring your thoughts of karma, you are fine with the fact Tatum does not love you because of another meaning to her look, namely that the emotion inside you is genuine. She only could have gotten so distraught if the situation made her realize your love is for real. Understand it doesn't matter that she doesn't reciprocate your feelings. All that matters is that you have them.

You set aside the bowl of snow ice cream, kiss her eyelids, and pull the covers over the two of you. On that chilly winter morning, you snuggle with Tatum, who will later prove further you have a heart by shattering it to bits but who has for now mended your conscience by allowing you to feel again, and say, "Have I told you the story of how I got crabs?" 

Photography by Barrett Kowalsky.