choice felt fitting. I walk through the glass double doors into the breath-catching cold of the gray morning.
Halfway to the curb, I hear someone shriek.
I whip my head in the direction of the sound. The source isn’t difficult to find. In the middle of the courtyard, I see a girl examining the fresh coffee stain seeping into one corner of her cream-colored cardigan. Her parka is unzipped, and the coffee trickles from her exposed sweater onto her jeans. The person with whom she presumably collided watches sympathetically, holding his Starbucks cup with lid half off.
Coffee. My mom and dad’s story flits through my head. I wonder if this is the beginning of something life-changing for this girl and Starbucks guy. If I’ve just witnessed a real-life meet-cute. If—
The thought evaporates, because the guy continues on his way, walking hurriedly like he’s late. The next instant, a hulking blond guy walks up behind the girl. He’s like a fourth Hemsworth brother. While he inspects the stain with a dire expression, he places one hand on the small of her back. Boyfriend, I immediately read in the gentle gesture. Definitely not a meet-cute, then. The way the guy is watching her holds an intimacy, a familiarity drawn from considerable time together.
I’m close enough to hear their conversation.
“Asshole,” the Hemsworth-boyfriend mutters, eyes fixed on the Starbucks guy’s retreating form.
“It was my fault,” the girl replies immediately. Despite myself, I notice she’s strikingly pretty. Her heart-shaped face frames dark eyes, with freckles dusting her light brown skin. Errant flyaways of her wavy chestnut hair escape from her ponytail. “I was distracted. Too busy looking at the dorms.” Even as she’s speaking, her eyes return to the campus surrounding us. Her fascination radiates the kind of intensity I thought only existed in fiction. She studies everything with enraptured eagerness—everything except the sidewalk. I now understand how the coffee incident happened.
“Well,” Hemsworth says, “we should go back to the hotel so you can change.”
“No!” Her eyes dart to him. “We’ll be late.”
“But your sweater—”
“It’s fine,” she interrupts. “I’ll just take it off when we’re inside.”
“You sure?” he asks doubtfully. “It’ll stain if you leave it too long.”
“I’m sure,” she says. Excitement comingles with decisiveness in her voice. “I’m not missing this.”
He rolls his eyes affectionately. “Yeah, I know, Juniper.” They walk down the street in the direction opposite me.
Juniper. I wonder what having her momentum would feel like—literally running into someone because she’s intently focused on what interests her, then charging on to whatever she can’t stand missing despite the coffee. It’s enthralling, her indefatigable energy.
I fight for a moment to imagine having her curiosity, her hunger, for college and the possible futures it represents. I fail, of course. But it’s possible I’m briefly better for having put in the effort.
I’m staring, I realize, watching Juniper and her boyfriend. I don’t want to become that guy. Remembering plans of reading, I divert my eyes from the couple. There’s still twenty minutes before the information session begins. Plenty of reading time.
Except I don’t want to read. I want to wander. Not the campus, necessarily—I figure I’ll just explore in one direction and take in whatever I find until I have to return for the information session. I’m going to have nights in hotels not talking to Lewis to read James if I want.
I follow the road until I reach a tree-lined lane of brownstones. They’re grandiose and imposing, fire escapes curling over their curved stone windows. This street’s quiet. I hear only the hushed whisper of the wind through the icy branches of the trees, even though I’m just blocks from Commonwealth. For a moment I think I’ve finally escaped the reach of the campus, until I notice plaques for student living on the doors. Is every dorm here insanely nice?
I check the time, finding I have only five minutes until the information session. Grudgingly, I pull up the campus map on my phone and double back toward the admissions office. Before I’m even near the building, I find I’m slowing my pace. The prospect of sitting through the session, enduring details of the campus life I’ll