There it was: the tug of muscle, so distinct from the snag of reeds or submerged logs. This was the feeling of instant, horrifying realization, telegraphed right up the line and into Dawn's hands. She had a fish.

She let the line out a bit, playing the fish, and then reeled in slowly, played the fish again, and reeled in slowly. Each time she reeled in, she brought the fish a bit closer to her than before she played it. Now, she could almost see the swimming shadow just under the surface of water. And then she felt a strong tug and the line went slack. She reeled in a spinnerless, fishless line.

Just like my life, she thought. She glanced over at the skinny stranger, and caught him looking at her. He immediately made a face and turned away.

Was that anger in his eyes? she thought. Or was that disgust, or something? Does he know me from somewhere? She picked up her things and looked in his direction again. His head pointed stiffly at the river, as though he were deliberately trying to avoid eye contact with her, to ignore her.

Screw you, she thought. And she walked, without fish, up the path to her apartment building.

Not a single muscle in Dale's body failed to shake. He felt like his stomach was somewhere at the back of his lungs. Lines of sweat streaked his face. The armpits of his shirt were soaked.

She caught me looking at her! he thought. She looked right into my eyes! And I didn't even smile or nod or anything. In his mind, he reenacted the entire eye-brushing incident, each time with a different scenario: smiling at her, nodding to her, waving to her, calling out something about how's the fishing, or nice day. All the things he didn't do. All the things he could have done. All the things that haunted him as he packed up his things and walked back to the office.

That night, Dale made up his mind that he would approach her first thing Monday morning, even if Pat were in the office and he had to just get up and walk out right in front of her, he would do it. He had to do it. He would apologize for not being friendlier on Friday morning. He would tell her that he'd watched her — no, that sounded almost like stalking — he would tell her that he'd seen her fishing a number of times and it made him think that he hadn't been fishing since he was a kid and so he bought a fishing kit, and here it was, thanks to her. That's what he would do — he would approach her and thank her for inspiring him — no, too slick-sounding — he would thank her for reminding him how much fun he'd had fishing as a child. And that would probably lead into something to talk about, maybe into fishing in general, or childhood experiences, anything.

I should have said something.

It's not a cold feeling at all, thought Dawn. Kind of warm and relaxing. If she kept her arms still in the soapy water, she couldn't even feel the pain in her wrists. And then her thoughts turned to fishing. She stood by the bank of the river with a beautiful little dark-eyed girl. They laughed as they cast their lines into the water under the flawless blue sky.