After being away from his hometown in North Carolina for almost two decades, Phil is returning home to reunite with his teenage sweetheart, Evelyn. Forty-one years old now, Phil has never married; because of his service in World War I at the age of nineteen, Phil was separated from Evelyn and, not knowing whether he’d return, they ended things. Evelyn wound up married, with two kids, but within the last few years, she has finally divorced Joe, the man she found after him.  Being back in town gives Phil a strange, stagnant feeling, especially when comparing it to his busy life in New York. Still, being with Evelyn is a thrill: even after all their time apart, when she sees him, it is as though nothing has changed. Whereas Phil has withered into a middle-aged man, Evelyn retains her youthful beauty—a carbon copy of her high school self. They spend their first day driving around town, just as they used to, but at the end of the night when Phil attempts to kiss her, Evelyn backs away. Leaving Evelyn’s house, he sees a dark figure watching from across the street and comes to learn it is a man named Keith, whom Evelyn has become involved with. The next day, they attend a dance. The duo have a ball dancing and drinking, though Phil is irked when he sees Evelyn dancing with Keith and other men. Coming to collect her at the end of the night, Phil suggests that they join the rest of their group at a local eatery, but instead, they decide to blow them off and drive around. Suddenly, while the two stand on Evelyn’s porch, Keith appears behind them and Phil decides to teach him a lesson for spying, knocking him backward with a punch. In retaliation, Keith cuts Phil across the forehead with a small knife and dashes off. They go inside to clean his wound and get to talking about the future. As Phil is saying his goodbyes, Evelyn asks him to move back, and after explaining why it wouldn’t be possible, he asks her to move to New York with him. But Evelyn loves the uneventfulness of a small town such as theirs, she loves the way that nothing changes, including her; you grow old in big cities, she says. Lustful for change and chaos, Phil returns to New York alone.