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“That transition may have given me whiplash,” I said. “What do you mean, dinosaurs?”

By dinosaurs, he meant the Museum of Natural History. Having grown up in the general area, I’d of course been for a school trip back in middle school, but not since then. “Okay, sure,” I said. “Why not?”

The museum wasn’t a long walk from Bev and Benjamin’s apartment; I enjoyed passing all the old fancy buildings, some with lion statues flanking the entrance and others covered in crawling ivy. Fifteen minutes later, we were standing at the bottom of the museum’s majestic marble steps, which rose to meet an even more majestic marble building, round pillars flanking an arched entrance tall enough to admit giants.

Seth stopped at the bottom of the steps. “There. We’ve seen dinosaurs.”

I snorted. He was kind of right: an enormous topiary sculpture of a brontosaurus stood at each side of the door, their long, green, leafy necks creating a secondary arch for people to walk beneath. Giant red poinsettia wreaths ringed each one. “And to think we didn’t even have to pay the price of admission.”

“Great news: my parents are members, so we don’t have to pay the price of admission anyway.”

“Nice. I love a deal.”

Of course, we still had to wait in line and everything to get in, then check our coats. I swiped a map from a kiosk, unfolding it before me as we walked. “So obviously we have to visit the dinosaurs. You can’t come here and not get a selfie in front of a T. rex.”

“That would be blasphemy,” Seth agreed. “Hey, watch out.” He settled a hand on my shoulder, and my heart very nearly stopped. Because of the unexpected touch, I told myself, not because of how warm and strong his hand was even through the weave of my sweater as it guided me away from a trash can I was about to walk into.

I took a deep breath. The hand fell away. My shoulder felt cold for a moment. “I’ll be more careful.”

“Don’t worry, that’s what I’m here for,” Seth said amiably. “So, what besides the dinosaurs? Obviously, we can’t see the whole museum in one morning.”

“Just the morning?” I said. “Didn’t you ever read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler as a kid? You know, where they ran away and lived in the Met? I always kind of wanted to do that.”

“The fun thing about being over eighteen is that we could be arrested for that,” Seth said. “I think it’s trespassing.”

“But think of how much fun it would be.”

“Getting arrested?”

“Yes, Seth, I think it would be tremendously fun to get arrested. I’ve always thought prison orange was my color.”

“Anyway,” he said, ignoring me, “how about the hall of gemstones? I haven’t been there in a while, and they’re stunning. Or there’s the new butterfly vivarium.”

Of course he would want to see gemstones and butterflies. “I think there’s an exhibit on sharks going on right now.”

“Okay,” he said. “We can see the sharks if we also see the butterflies.”

“Deal.”

But first, of course, came the dinosaurs. Seth and I maneuvered our way through throngs of lollygagging tourists toward the appropriate hall. It was almost like an obstacle course: dodge the harried dad swinging around a diaper bag; leap over the tantrumming toddler; zigzag between the couple who can’t decide whether they’d rather examine a glass cabinet of fish skeletons or make out. “This is one thing I don’t miss about the city,” I said, sighing.

“It’s not like we don’t have tourists up in Vermont, too.”

“Sure, but there’s a lot more space to get around them.”

I waited for him to tell me earnestly that he loved when tourists jostled him because it transferred some of their joy to him or whatever, but he just shrugged. “That’s true, I guess.” He was quiet for a moment. “I can’t be too hard on tourists, considering I was one the first time I went to Vermont.”

Right. He was a transplant as much as I was. “Why did you end up there anyway?” I asked, genuinely curious.

He avoided my eyes. “Hey.” He craned his neck. “There’s the T. rex.”

Sure enough, the empty eye sockets and massive sharp teeth of the legendary carnivore loomed ahead of us. It was cool, but not cool enough for me not to notice that he’d dodged the question. I opened my mouth to pursue it, then closed it. It wasn’t any of my business. No matter how curious I was. Instead, I said, “It must have been so trippy to be one of the first people to find a dinosaur bone. No wonder they believed in dragons.”

“That must have been so—” His eyes widened so much in surprise that for a second I wondered if the T. rex had come back to life and chomped down on one of the tourist couple (who’d decided pretty vigorously on making out over the fish skeleton. Maybe dinosaur bones were an aphrodisiac). “Bonnie! Hey!”

I turned to find a woman about our age approaching with purpose, a high dark ponytail swinging behind her and a wide friendly smile plastered on her lips. “Seth! Oh my god, how long has it been?”

He didn’t answer, just returned her hug. He then turned toward me with a weak smile of his own. “This is Abby. My girlfriend.”