As a middle measure, she bought coffee and a grilled cheese, and perched on the end of a hard-plastic chair until both food and drink cooled to a consumable temperature. She watched fellow disgruntled passengers huffing and milling around her.

She messaged Ruben to say she’d be late arriving in the city and he replied with a text that made her wilt further.

That is understandable. I will adjust our itinerary accordingly, dear Carla.

A flash of copper-colored hair caught her eye and she watched as a girl wearing hiking boots and a yellow dress strolled past her. Something fell from her backpack, a soft toy, but she didn’t notice and carried on walking. Carla jumped to her feet, leaving her coffee and sandwich on her seat as she picked up the limp fabric rabbit. She hurried after the girl and touched her shoulder. “Hey, you dropped this.”

The girl spun around and they faced each other. At first, Carla thought she was looking at her own reflection. The girl had similar hair and a Roman nose, except she was twenty years younger. Carla could see their resemblance, but she doubted the girl would notice it. She’d probably only see a random mature woman who’d picked up her toy.

“Oh, cheers. I didn’t hear him drop.” The girl kissed the rabbit and stuffed it into her pocket. “He tries to escape from me now and again.” She smiled, turned and walked away.

Carla’s eyes trailed after her, thinking about her own youth and how easily life had since slipped from one year to another, one decade to the next, gathering pace until it felt like a blur. She wanted to shout after the girl, Have fun, be adventurous and don’t get boxed in.

Instead, she sat down on the departure lounge floor, on top of her sweater, and ate her grilled cheese.

Carla had forgotten how pretty Amsterdam was, and her old photos didn’t do it justice. Tidbits about the city’s architectural history started to come back to her—most of which she’d learned from Ruben. She recalled that the merchant’s houses built along the side of the canals were called grachtenpand. They were tall and slender to avoid high taxes in Medieval times, and their bricks were the color of cocoa, terra-cotta and white chocolate. Their gabled roofs were shaped like bells and funnels, or stepped like staircases to historically signify warehousing and trade.

Many had been converted to houses over the years and Carla’s Airbnb took up the entire second floor of a mahogany building with neat white mullioned windows stacked on top of each other. She dropped her luggage there, then set off across the city on foot to meet Ruben.

It was one of those perfect late afternoons, sunny but not too hot, people out and about but not on top of each other. There was a sound of fountains sprinkling and boats chugging along the canals.

During her gap year, Carla’s main focus had been locating good-looking people in the city who knew the best bars and hostels. Now that she was older, she appreciated all the bicycles, the green spaces and tulips, even though she felt a bit motion sick after her flight.

She walked past a woman juggling bean bags and spotted a little bistro that reminded her of the place she and Tom had enjoyed their first date. After connecting through Logical Love, they’d shared texts and a couple of calls, so they already knew a lot about each other before they met.

They’d both ordered ham served with a fried egg and shared a portion of battered onion rings. They’d agreed that chunky chips tasted better than skinny fries.

Their mutual joys had included getting more than one question right on Jeopardy, playing Monopoly (though they both got bored if the game lasted more than one hour), cafés that served breakfast all day and feeding ducks in the park, even if the weather was drizzly. Neither of them could stomach watching horror films and preferred cheesy action movies instead. They’d agreed on the futility of superstitions and would both happily wander under a ladder, unless someone was standing at the top of it.

After they’d left the bistro together, Tom had opened the taxi door for her and placed the belt of her coat across her lap so it didn’t dangle in the rain. This thoughtful act and their high match statistics had made Carla think she could possibly fall in love with him.

She hadn’t witnessed the side of her fiancé that saw him jump on a plane to America at a moment’s notice, or drink with strangers and an ex-girlfriend in late-night bars. If she was honest, she wasn’t sure she liked it. Similarly, Tom had never encountered Carla the Adventurous Traveler, someone she herself hadn’t known still existed.

And now they were in separate cities, on opposite sides of the world. Did inviting another woman to use his bathroom show that Tom was kind, naive or foolish? She was sure she could trust him, but what about Sara?

What about herself?

Carla watched bicycles whizzing around her and paused to read a plaque that said bikes outnumbered cars in the city by four to one. Eighty percent of Amsterdammers owned a bike, traversing the towpaths of the one hundred and sixty-five canals. During her gap year, she’d developed muscles in her legs from cycling that she hadn’t known existed, and her skin had turned nutmeg brown in the sun.

She turned a corner and saw Ruben standing on a bridge waiting for her. He was as lean and angular as she remembered him, reminding her of a wooden toy soldier hanging on a Christmas tree. He now wore round wire glasses that made him look even more intellectual.

When they’d dated, he’d been studying for a master’s degree in sociology, which she’d found clever and sophisticated. He was a few years older than her and had engaged Carla in highbrow discussions on gender, sustainability and diversity. They’d watched so many foreign films together that she’d started to see subtitles when they talked.

She’d loved how Ruben squinted one eye and wrinkled his nose, deep in thought, while he considered her views, making her feel like her opinions were valid and interesting. He’d dissect and analyze her discussion points, challenging her to question her own thoughts. Carla wasn’t quite sure if she ever fancied him physically, but his mind had made her stomach flip.

When he spotted her approaching the bridge, Ruben raised a finger in the air, as if he was in class. “Hoi, Carla. It is very good to see you.” His long limbs moved mechanically toward her, and he pecked her on alternate cheeks three times in a row. “You are looking super healthy. I am delivering lectures tomorrow, so we should utilize our time together prudently. Remember how we once took a bike ride around Amsterdam and I taught you the trading history of the city?”

“Um...” Carla frowned, struggling to recall this.

“You found it most fascinating, so I thought you’d appreciate an updated version.” He set off walking and she had to skip a little to keep up with his stride.

“How long will it take?” she asked, now jogging to catch up with him. “Should we get a coffee together first, to catch up?”

“Perhaps two or three hours. I do not want you to miss out on anything, my dear Carla. I know you are a voracious learner.”

She couldn’t tell if his smile that followed was a bit patronizing or not. When Ruben slowed his pace a little, she was reintroduced to his habit of touching her elbow to steer her in the direction he wanted to go in.

“Do you remember how we spent hours in the Rijksmuseum?” Ruben asked her as they walked. “Do you remember we were asked to leave the Van Gogh Museum because we did not know the closing time? It was very amusing.” His guttural use of the letter g sounded like he was gargling, and he said hoor rather than um to punctuate his sentences.

She was flattered he remembered their time together in such detail. Either his memory was sharper than hers, or their relationship had meant more to him.

“Do you remember the time you rode too close to the edge of the canal and almost fell in? You never did have a good sense of balance. Did you have a good journey? Was the airport busy?” Ruben listed so many more things they’d shared, and fired off so many questions, it was like he’d written an encyclopedia about their time together and studied it before meeting her. Carla was left opening and shutting her mouth as she tried to keep up with his words. It was easier to nod and pretend she remembered everything, too.

“First of all, our bicycle ride,” Ruben announced, pointing to a line of bikes. “Let us begin.”

They rode through the streets together for an hour or more, passing many arched bridges and brightly hued houseboats. She’d forgotten how the city had a deep, rich mud aroma from the canals and she kept getting a whiff of the cannabis on offer in the legalized coffee shops.

“This is wonderful, isn’t it?” Ruben called to her over his shoulder. “It is like we have never been apart.”

“Yes, it is,” she panted, struggling to keep up as she wiped sweat from her brow.

He pointed out street art and hidden churches and skirted the edge of the infamous red-light district, explaining how the city had thrived in the seventeenth century from its trading of fish, wood, corn, grapes and spices.

It was fascinating for sure, but Carla’s stomach started to cramp, and her leg tendons felt stretched to snapping point.

Ruben indicated they should park their bikes at the end of a pretty, red-brick bridge and he took out his phone. He directed her with precise instructions on where to stand. “A little left, hoor, a little right. Is that okay? Please move back a little.”

Carla smiled until her jaw ached. When he suggested they ask a passerby to take shots of them both together, she’d finally had enough. She looked around her and pointed to a cute café over his shoulder. “That place looks pretty. Shall we get that coffee?”

Ruben frowned and looked at his watch. “We are only one-third of the way through our tour.”

“It’s easier to talk when we’re not moving,” Carla gently assured him. “I came here to see you, not the scenery.”

Her compliment brought a smile to his lips. “Yes, of course you are right. We shall do whatever you like.”

They found a table and he pulled out her chair for her, just like he always had. Carla used to find it thoughtful and attentive. Now it felt a bit odd and performative.

Ruben perused the menu. “I will have the bruine bonensoep, a brown bean soup. Shall I order for both of us?”

Carla tried not blow out her cheeks. Had she actually let him order her food in the past? “I’m craving something sweet, so would prefer pancakes.”

“I assure you the soup will taste very delicious and is a good source of protein.”

Carla tried not to feel irritated and caught a waitress’s eye. “May I order pancakes and a latte, please?”

The waitress smiled and tapped out their orders on her keypad.

Ruben’s left cheek twitched and he sat back in his chair. “Have you thought about me often over the years, as I have done with you? I shall tell you more about my endeavors and then I can learn more about you.” He cleared his throat and spoke as if reading his CV aloud. “After we parted, I completed my master’s degree and then progressed to undertake a PhD on the confines of selfhood. I am now the director of Sociology at one of the best institutes in Europe that ranks in the top one hundred globally. I was once engaged to a fellow academic. However, we found our research was more important than our relationship. I am still a bachelor,” he said, holding Carla’s gaze to emphasize his last point.