I never thought Emily and I would ever be apart. Well, I knew for sure we'd be apart-by about two thousand miles-but I didn't think Emily and I would ever be apart apart. I guess first loves are like that. Or maybe all loves are like that; I've got no way to tell. Maybe I should have known.

But I didn't, so, oblivious to our diminishing moments together, I absent-mindedly stared at the baked potato in front of me as she chatted with my parents. "Math," she answered.

"Well, yeah, but not just any old math," I prompted, looking up at her. She smiled and kicked my shin under the table.

"Discrete math," she proclaimed with mock self-importance, "otherwise it'd be boring." I returned to my potato.

Later that evening, Emily and I reclined on my bed together, tears streaming down our faces. On the screen in front of us, Basil was forcing Manuel into a burning room. "It's only a drill," I mimicked, despite my spasming throat. Emily sat up in my lap and exclaimed, "Fuego!" before falling on her side and howling. The pledge break didn't rescue me from my desperate struggle for air for several minutes.

We were similarly situated on my bed two hours later, except we sat in silence. Both of us anxiously awaited the end of Leno's monologue, since that meant Conan would be on in half an hour. Emily suddenly asked, "Are you nervous about going away to school?"

"I guess. Are you?"

"Yeah. I keep thinking I'm making a mistake going all the way to the East Coast. I won't know anyone, and I'll be away from my family and..." She didn't finish her sentence.

"You'll know Derek," I said jokingly. She rolled her eyes. "Great, a bully who can exponentiate matrices. Okay, I won't know anyone worth knowing."

"Relax, Em, you're doing the right thing." I gently stroked the narrow strip of exposed skin above her waist with my finger. "You'll be great over there."

"How do you know?"

"I know." She didn't say anything, so I swept her copper-colored hair to the side and kissed her behind the ear. "Want to know just how great you'll be?"

"Okay, Nostradamus, tell me. First give me another kiss." I leaned forward to kiss the side of her mouth and then squeezed her against my chest.

"Well, let's see: first semester, you'll breeze through multivariable calc' and linear algebra, so you'll have plenty of time to write me filthy email. Second semester, a bit tougher: analysis and abstract algebra..." Emily turned around and faced me.

"Sounds to me like you're not seeing the future so much as you're reciting my class schedule."

"Hey, it's my prophecy."

"So prophesize already." She let me go on for a few minutes about honor's theses and the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, and looked progressively less amused the more I talked. But Emily tolerated my rambling an inhumanly long while, until finally, she just shrugged and started to unbutton her blouse. I stopped and watched her work her way to the bottom, then gave her a questioning look. "Just taking an active part in the betterment of my own future. Keep going." She let the open blouse fall from her shoulders and reached back to undo her bra. I coughed.

"And then you graduate. Congrats." I put my hand over one breast, lifting it slightly, and bent forward to nibble at the other.

"Is that it?"

"No, but further scrying requires a somatic component."

"Ah, 'Detect Impending Sex'?" she asked.

"Yep, 'Range: touch'. And indeed, I sense impending sex."

"I guess I failed my saving throw." She giggled and tugged at my shirt while I continued to caress and kiss her soft flesh. "So, have any farther-reaching insights, o Great Diviner?"

"Of course." I didn't offer any.

"Wait, I think I might have the Gift, too: after I graduate, do I," she paused for dramatic effect, "go to graduate school?"

"Good guess, but, no, you're wrong." I went back to her breasts to buy some time. "Uhm, but actually you take some time off to write for the Kids in the Hall," I mumbled between licks while I unbuttoned her jeans and started to work them off her hips.