April Patterson was wondering if it was even worth sleeping that night; she had to get up in four hours--more like 3 hours and 45 minutes--in order to catch the cab she'd called earlier and get to the bus station in time. Besides, she never slept very soundly when she'd been drinking. She thought that maybe she should just try and make it an all-nighter.

She opened her eyes and turned onto her side. She had been so exhausted when she'd arrived back at campus only 20 minutes earlier, but suddenly felt like plucking one of her roommate's textbooks off the shelf and reading through it.

And then she wondered if she could sleep, even if she wanted to; the whole rez hall was distractingly quiet. She closed her eyes and concentrated very hard on hearing something in the building, but couldn't. Computers were turned off; the little dorm refrigerators were unplugged and silently defrosting; no one talked in the halls or stomped up the staircase that was on the other side of her wall.

There was something spooky about all the silence; she wasn't used to it. She there was another student at the far end of her hall, a friend of hers, and she saw one of the international students brushing her teeth in the bathroom earlier that day, but she heard no evidence of either of them--footsteps in the hall or flushing toilets or cell phones vibrating against the cheap wooden furniture.

She missed her roommate, the way she tapped on her keyboard, chatting online until well after April went to bed each night. Not that she was a bad roommate, April thought. She was sweet and shy with a surprisingly vulgar sense of humor, and seemed stuck in HS days, calling old friends constantly, trying to explain old inside jokes to April, hanging up photos from birthday parties and proms of long ago.

April didn't get it; she liked her old friends, and was planning on seeing them when she got back to Milborough, but was glad to be away from them for once, glad to get away from the oppression of shared memories and expectations, of old habits and the weird looks and comments she got whenever she tried to break out of them. Here, in college, she could go see an electronic music showcase without dumb jokes about how she was a raver now, without questions about whether or not she was still going to play guitar, without someone asking about who she was going with.

When she'd arrived on campus in September (was it really so recently? She counted on her fingers. Less than four months!), April had been afraid that she'd be called out for being the hick she obviously was, that everyone else at school would be so well dressed, conversant in high culture and obscure references, able to take a shot of whiskey without coughing and cringing.

But the first person she met, her roommate, Eliza, was even more small-townish than she was, her clothes were overly trendy but somehow less cool than what even April wore, her hair cut in a non-style that fell down her back, her drinking experience probably even less storied. April had felt comforted somewhat.

Eliza's parents (who were much younger than April's parents, she had noticed with a start) had driven her from just outside Huntsville to move her in to the dorms. April's own mom and dad hadn't come with her, instead helping her ship some items beforehand and then seeing her off at the bus station. It was what they had done with her siblings before her. April had thought at first it would be better without them, then suddenly missed them terribly, and then, after watching Eliza's parents putz around the tiny room, obliviously bored, taking on nonsensical projects, hinting about various orientation events she should go to, occasionally tearing up, and constantly offering well-meaning advice advice, April was relieved beyond belief that her parents weren't there.

April, still laying awake in her bed, finally heard a door somewhere on the hall open, shut, then locked, and it made her feel better somehow.

April was leaving campus at almost the last possible minute; the absolute final time for check out was 8 that next morning. Students had started leaving almost a week earlier, but April had two exams, and then a paper a professor was uncharacteristically lenient on, saying it just needed to be uploaded to the class website before noon on the 22nd. It was for her Anthropology class, something taken to fulfill the social science requirement, although the professor seemed to be under the impression everyone in the class was an anthro major. She hadn't taken the class as seriously as she should have at the beginning of the semester, and done terribly on the first test, the second wake-up call of her freshman year.

Although she did better on the second, and also made a decent grade on a short paper due at the midterm, she obsessed over the final paper, convinced herself it needed to be perfect in order to bring up her grade, and futzed with it longer than she probably should have, editing and changing word order, adding another source, erasing and rewriting her conclusion section at least four times.

She had told her parents that the reason for booking her flight on the 22nd was because of this paper, and then later an excuse that flights were just so much cheaper on this one day than the day before, or the day before that. They'd hardly argued, and she'd booked the flight home with her dad's credit card, not really sure why she wanted to delay her return.

It wasn't that she didn't want to come home, she told herself--she did want to see her family again, she did want to come home; she just wanted to put it off.

As much as she liked the holiday itself, and always had, she grew tired of the build-up to it, especially once the celebrations grew and started to involve her niece, her nephew, her brother's in-laws, her brother's social circle, her sister's boyfriend-then-husband, and other members of other families--her mother's obsessive cleaning and decorating, her concern that the guests might find fault with some detail of the house, even when the house wasn't theirs anymore, the joylessness and intensity in making sure everything was just right. Now that she'd been in college, she saw that same look in the hardcore partiers, the ones who mechanically drank every Friday night, not really concerned about meeting people, or enjoying their company. She wasn’t sure what they were concerned about.

But there was something else although she couldn't quite describe it. She remembered being the last kid in the house during Christmas; her brother had left for college when she was only four, and her sister four years after that. She liked being a defacto only child, but couldn't wait to see her siblings again, especially around Christmas; the whole house seemed to look forward to their return, especially once Liz left. The planning and cleaning seemed to have a point, and seemed to culminate in the arrival of the sibling--tired but in good spirits, their happiness at being home reward for the all the work and excitement. 

She remembered being a kid those days, counting down until Liz returned, counting down to the day when she herself would leave, and then return to a grateful house. She would see the clean kitchen, the slightly rearranged living room, know it was done for her. Her mom would be so glad to see her; there would be a special dinner cooked just for her. She hoped her niece and nephew would act the way she had, excited by this familiar novelty, going through her luggage, asking to help her unpack.

Things would be different, April knew. Everything had changed so much. Her parents lived in a different house; her mom was more concerned with her grandchild than with her, her older sister was pregnant. Even the kids were probably too cool for her now, or at least more interested in their aunt's growing belly than their other aunt's arrival and boring college stories.

It wouldn't be the same, April thought, but wondered if it would.

Somehow, she was able to fall asleep.

You Are Not

You are not feeling well.

You are lying in bed, and you slowly turn so that you are on your back and then you open your eyes. You find a spot on the popcorn ceiling that stands out and stare at it. This is something you remember from when you were a kid. Whenever you’d go out on a boat with your dad, and you'd start to feel ill from the movement of the water, he would tell you to find something that never moves and concentrate on it--the top of a building, a group of dead leaves in a tree, a red blanket laying out on the beach. It has something to do with how your brain interpreted movement. It always made you feel better.

This isn't the same thing, but somehow it helps. It helps to concentrate on something other than yourself.

The bedroom door is slightly open and you listen to the sounds out in the rest of the house. The TV plays a news show too quietly for you to pay attention, too loud for you to ignore--you hear the name of a town near yours, and something about identity theft. Early morning fire. Roadwork on some exit. You hear the clinking of dishes in the sink.

If your stepdaughter were home, the sounds would be louder. The TV would be on cartoons. Her high voice would be clear, even from the kitchen. But she is at her mother's right now. You miss her. You miss her voice and her girlish laugh that she never laughs around you and the way she spends every morning describing, in detail, whatever dream she'd had the night before. You've never been one to have particularly exciting dreams, and you liked hearing hers, even if they were, as you suspect, half-made up on the spot.

The dream you had the night before--something about trying to check your e-mail but not remembering a complicated new password--slips from your consciousness.

You are finally feeling better. Not great, but better. You get out of bed and walk toward the bathroom. You run some water into a cup, and the room suddenly becomes over-warm and stuffy. You feel hot. You make a motion to open the small window above the sink, but you start to throw up before you can even reach it. You just barely make it to the toilet and let the thin bile--tinged the slightest bit pink from the strawberries you'd eaten the night before--falls from your mouth. You throw up more, and sigh deeply.

This is the worst part about being pregnant, you think--not the so-called morning sickness, but how unsatisfying it is. You puke for hours, tiny amounts for hours through most of the morning and early afternoon, and never really feel any better.

You then remember a time when you were younger, either right after you graduated from college, or was it the summer after that? You and some friends rented a cabin up by Lake Couchiching for the weekend. It was such a fun time--you stayed up late, you went for a swim in the incredibly warm water, you drank, someone played guitar, there was a game of Trivial Pursuit that lasted for hours. You woke up the next morning horribly hung-over. Every detail of packing and cleaning seemed insurmountable. Your friend Candace was there, too, feeling the same way. At some point—you can’t remember what caused it—you ran outside and vomited into the bushes. But when you were done, you felt amazing. You felt 100% better. Even your headache had gone away. You cleaned the gross macaroni and cheese dishes someone had left outside without a problem.

You wish you could feel like that this morning.

You go back to the sink and run the water. You splash your face with the cold water and rinse your mouth out. You turn the door of the medicine cabinet so you can see your face in the slightly warped mirror.

Maybe this is the worst part about being pregnant. You look terrible. You are not "glowing," whatever that means. Instead, your skin has broken out, worse even than when you were in high school. You don't even look pregnant either. No one on the street would mistake you for pregnant. Instead, you just look heavy and fat, carrying your weight low on your belly. Your sister-in-law came over the week before with a box of her old maternity clothes, but none fit right. She told you that everything would get better in the second trimester.

The bedroom door opens and then the bathroom door opens. Your husband comes in and puts his hand on your shoulder and makes eye contact with your reflection. He asks you how you are doing. You put the toilet lid down and sit on it. You say you are okay. He puts his hand on your forehead as if you have a temperature. He kneels down to look you in the eye. He tells you that he has to leave for work in a few minutes, and that he made you a cup of tea. It's sitting on the table. When you hear the microwave beep, you should remove the bag. He tells you he brewed it extra strong so you could add some ice to it. He tells you it's going to be hot again today. 

He puts his hand on your shoulder and asks if you are going to be okay. He asks you this everyday. He tells him you are already feeling better. You remind him that you are going over to your parents' today. He gives you a look. You remind him that your sister is leaving for college in almost a week and that are helping her pack. You remind him that your folks invited you both for dinner. He nods and says that he remembers, and then worries about how to get there. Is it worth taking two cars? Should he take the bus?

You tell him you should just drive separately. He wonders if that's a good idea. You tell him you need to drive anyway because you have to take your sister to the post office. He seems satisfied with that answer. He kisses you on your cheek and leaves. He tells you he will see you tonight as he pauses at the bedroom. You get up and finally open the window. It is only 8:15, but it is already so warm outside.

You hear the door that leads to the garage open and shut, and you hear the garage door crank open. You take a quick shower. You get out and examine yourself in the mirror. You recently cut your hair to just below your chin, and the length doesn't lend itself well to ponytails or updos, something you didn't really think about. You find it frustrating, but there's nothing you can do about it.

You go back into the bedroom and put on your pajama pants and a tank top. On your way to the living room, you must stop and stare at the ceiling again. You take several deeps breaths and continue on your way.

The living room is crowded with furniture, but neat. Even when your stepdaughter is around, the place stays clutter-free. This is new to you; you have never been a neat person. You make an effort to keep your things from piling up in the living room and kitchen, to remember to put things back where they belong, but tend to leave the bedroom a little messy. Your husband never says anything about it. You guess this is a compromise.

 .

You stop by the window in the living room. It faces onto the street, and you can see a group of older kids walking on the sidewalk, limp backpacks hanging off them. It is the first week of school. The sight makes you a little sad. This is the first time in as far back as you can remember that you weren't going to school, in one way or another, this time of year.  You know it would be a bad idea to try to teach feeling like this, but you still miss it. The summer was okay but that's when your stepdaughter was around, and your husband had taken time off work. Now you will be alone for awhile. You hope you can find something to fill your time.

Your husband left some dishes in the sink. You turn on the water to wash them, and it doesn't take long at all. You don't bother to put them in the half-filled dishwasher and instead dry them and put them away.

You remember your tea. The microwave clock is showing the time of day, not a countdown. You must have missed the beep. You find the cup on the kitchen table and squeeze the tea bag with your fingers. You bring it up to your face and smell it. Ginger. You aren’t a huge fan of the flavor, but it's supposed to help with the nausea. The tea is almost room temperature now and you sip it.

You decide to do some laundry. One of the things you like about this house is having your own washer and dryer in a little closet off the kitchen. You sort your and your husband’s clothes in your bedroom, finding your cell phone in a pair of pants you'd worn the day before. You'd been looking for it. You flip it open. You have three missed calls: one from a blocked number, which usually means the school you used to work at, and two from your mother. The voicemail icon is at the top of the screen, but you aren't in the mood to listen to your messages now. Besides, you have laundry to do.

You do a load of lights, and then strip the bed of the sheets to do next. You wander through your stepdaughter's room, but there is nothing to wash there. You stop to take a rest, leaning against the sink in the guest bathroom off the hall, and you throw up a tiny amount of the tea, which burns your throat.

You go into the small room that will belong to the child you are pregnant with now. It is a "guest" room, although you and your husband rarely have guests--your friends Candace and Rudy once, your husband's cousin from Winnipeg another time. The room is pleasantly personality-less. The furniture is from your old apartment--your futon covered with green striped sheets; the futon frame you bought from Craigslist; the small dresser with the bottom drawer that doesn't come all the way out; the nightstand you used to put your TV on; the collapsible bookshelf stacked with college texts you thought you might want to refer to later, a few paperbacks, and hardcover copies of memoir bestsellers your mother thought you would enjoy.

A nice oak colored changing table is pushed into the corner, blocking access to the closet; you got it from your sister-in-law. There's no other baby furniture just yet. You don't even know where you'd fit it. You'd have to get rid of everything else before you started moving stuff in.

You finish your tea and return to the kitchen to put a slice of bread in the toaster. You turn on the TV in the living room. Law and Order reruns don't come on for another hour or two, but there is a documentary-style crime program that comes on before, one about real forensic investigators.

You can't help it. You have a soft spot for these sorts of programs. It was something your ex-boyfriend Paul always used to tease you about. You remember watching one of the CSI shows with him while he muttered, "Why is the crime scene investigator interviewing witnesses?" and you shushed him.

You eat your toast dry and leave the crusts. The police use DNA from saliva on an envelope to track down a serial killer. Your stomach starts to settle, and you think about eating something else. A banana, maybe some of the leftover soup in the fridge, another slice of toast, this one with some almond butter on it.

Good Lord, you suddenly think. That summer at the cabin was only four years ago. You do the math in your head again. It had seemed like so much longer.

This makes you think about your friend Candace, and then you think about your phone. You walk back into the bedroom. The battery is close to dead, and you press 1 to hear your voicemail.

The first message is from your mother, from yesterday. You rarely listen to her messages all the way through. They tend to be long and rambling, and it is usually just easier to call her. This one is about some hiking pack you used to own, you know, the green one? Do you still have that one? It would be nice for your sister to have at school. You think it's still around, in the house somewhere. You think about getting annoyed about giving up your stuff, but then you realize you can't even remember the last time you used it.

The second one is from this morning and doesn't make any sense. Something about your brother's winter jacket. You delete it before it finishes.

The third message is from Corey, a teacher at your old school. He was a substitute last year, and is technically subbing for you again this year while you are on leave of absence. You told the principal that you were planning on coming back to teach next year. He asks a question about a lesson plan you had used last year before a field trip. You plug your phone in to recharge. You go back into the bathroom and think about vomiting, but you don't. Progress.

You rinse off your breakfast plate, and poke around in the fridge. You eat a few pieces of a slimy fruit salad with your fingers, but the texture is making you choke.

You go into the garage to find the bag your mother is talking about. You remember it. You used to use it when you'd come home for college. It was designed for hiking, but you mostly used it during short weekend trips.

The garage, like the rest of the house, is neat. It is small; only one car fits into it, and the perimeter is lined with metal shelves stacked with boxes. Your husband uses plastic bins with lids for storage. Their sides are labeled with black marker. You pull down the box that reads, "Elizabeth: College," and pry off the lid. On top are some bound papers, beat up notebooks, and manila folders with tests in them, and what looks like your robe from graduation. Underneath the folders are some binders and a box labeled "art supplies". You find some things from your student teaching semester during your senior year--your evaluations, a generic letter of recommendation, the seating chart.  

You put the lid back on, hoist the box back up on the shelves, and find another one simply labeled, "Elizabeth," not in your hand-writing. In it you find your two formal dresses wrapped in plastic, some bright textiles that were a gift from your parents after they went to Mexico some time ago, books that weren't worth keeping on display, and the bag in question on the bottom. It is filled with things you had forgotten about--a pair of running shoes, a crumpled tri-fold booklet about a historical building, printed out directions from MapQuest, a plastic water bottle with a little bit of water still in it.

It takes you a second, but you realize the last time you used this bag was when you went on that weekend trip to meet up with Paul. It was after you had moved back home and he was still up North. You had left early Saturday morning, and met him half-way, south of North Bay, close to a provincial park. 

Paul had surprised you with dinner at a nice restaurant that night, and then the two of you stayed at a crummy motel that had a surprisingly nice hot tub. You woke up early and went on a hike together before heading back home. It was during September, you think, which has always been your favorite month. You like it when the weather cools down. The leaves had been changing, and it was a beautiful weekend. You had felt so lucky that day.

You start to tear up, and then you get angry. Stupid hormones. You tell yourself that it seems so romantic now, but you broke up a few months later. You tell yourself the relationship was already more or less over by then. It wasn't for real, you tell yourself and wipe your face.

You dump the contents of the bag back into the plastic box. You open the little zippered pockets and find a few other things--a bottle of ibuprofen, some candy wrappers. You slip it over your shoulders and before you put the box on the shelf again, you take out one of the textiles. It's a rich orange color, with a pattern woven in cream. You think it would look nice in the living room.

When you come back into the house, you leave the bag near the front door and attend to the laundry. You leave some shirts out of the dryer and hang them up in the bathroom so they don’t get wrinkly. You clean off the coffee table and spread the tapestry on it. You think maybe you should buy some flowers to put on it. You have a vase somewhere.

Your face feels warm. You stare at the ceiling.

You sit at the kitchen table with the back of an envelope and a pen and write a list of people you want to call today 1) April; 2) Corey; 3) Candace. You have gotten into a habit of making lists lately. You usually throw them out immediately after writing them, except for the few in your bedroom, lists you made up for your sister: advice about college, what to pack.

You turn on the computer in the living room and decide to write an e-mail to Candace instead. Last time you talked to her, she had applied to grad school for this fall and was still waiting to hear back. You can't imagine that she didn't get in; she is so smart, and so passionate about the field. You can't remember when university starts, and wonder if she is still working, if she is planning a trip, if she will have time to see you. Maybe you could drive down to Toronto.

You wonder if you are jealous of her. When she first told you about her plans to return to school, you felt a pang of something in your chest. You had wished, for a moment, that you were going back to school. You kind of miss it, even though you remember how challenging the classes were when you were in it. You miss the social scene, the people, the straight-forwardness of the work. You miss how everything mattered so much.

You erase your e-mail and start again. You had been a little corny. You open up a search engine and find something you want to do in Toronto. An art museum, a new restaurant. You tell her how you are feeling. You ask about grad school. You ask how Rudy is doing. You ask if she is busy. You ask if she can meet up with you sometime this week, or maybe the next. You paste the link to a museum's website into the e-mail. You ask if she has been there before, and you tell her how you think it would be a fun place to visit. You tell her how you just thought of that weekend with the cabin this morning. You laugh to yourself. You send the e-mail before you can erase it and start again.

You look at the clock in the corner of the screen. It is 10:45. Your sister should be up by now. You go into the bedroom for your phone and dial the number labeled as "House" in your phone. Your mom picks up the phone.  She asks why you didn't call her back. You tell her you didn't get her message until earlier today. She asks what the point of a cell phone is if you aren't going to answer it. She asks what you were doing over the weekend. She asks how you are feeling. She asks if you got the message about the bag. She asks if your husband is at work today. She asks what time you will be coming over. 

You tell her you can come over whenever. Your mother asks you to come over in about an hour. She tells you your sister hasn't even started getting ready. You tell her she has more than a week left and it's not a big deal. Your mother sighs and you tell her you’ll see her later.

You hang up and turn the volume back up on the TV. Now Law and Order is on. You haven't seen this episode yet.

When the episode is finished, you get up and take the sheets out of the drier. You make the bed as best you can by yourself, and look in your closet for something to wear. You put on a denim skirt and one of the maternity tops your sister-in-law brought over for you. It doesn’t really fit. You change into a regular shirt, and then a different skirt.

You go into the bathroom and fix your hair as best you can, wearing it down but pinned up at one side.

You drive to your parents' new house, which isn't very far away. About two years ago, they moved into a smaller place only a few blocks away from the house you grew up in. You still think of it as the new house. They are not too far away. You flip through the radio stations. You turn left down their street, and park along the curb.

You knock on the front door before opening it and calling out your sister's name as you walk in. She peers around the corner wall from the kitchen and waves. She has the phone against her ear and returns to the kitchen, talking brightly into it, saying her good-byes, saying something about how she's not sure, she doesn't know, she'll talk to her mom. She hangs up the phone and returns, giving you a big hug. She asks how are feeling. You say you have been better, but you're doing okay. She tells you she is glad you are over, because she was looking for an excuse to get off the phone. She laughs. She tells you that her friends are nice and all, but they're so mopey. She tells you all they want to do is go out and talk about high school and stuff. She tells you they're getting so sad about leaving, and are, like, acting like a bunch of fogeys. She tells you it’s kind of weird.

She tells you that she cannot wait to leave for college.

She points to some boxes on the floor and tells you that her school is letting her mail stuff to campus where she can pick it up. Since she is taking the bus, she will be mailing a lot of things. She wants your help deciding what she'll needs right away, what she should pack for later. And what she needs at all. She grabs two of the boxes. You do as well and follow her down the stairs to her room.

She calls over her shoulder that Mom went to the grocery store, but should be home soon.

Your sister never really bothered to unpack entirely when your family moved into this place. Her room is neat and uncluttered, and devoid of all the souvenirs of childhood and adolescence. You remember when her room was filled with Gossip Girl books, posters for corny bands you feigned interest in, silly photos from her 13th birthday party.

You remember when you used to come home from college and go back to your room filled with your old kiddie toys and junk from High School. You hated that feeling.

There are a few stuffed animals on your sister's desk, and a framed photo from your wedding the summer before on the dresser. It surprises you that she would keep such a thing out on display. It seems a little sentimental for her. You wonder if your mother put it downstairs and she just never bothered to move it.

Your sister opens her closet and gestures. She pulls out some bed linens still packaged and puts them at the bottom of a box. She grabs a handful of some clothes. She tells you more about school. She tells you that she talked with her roommate online last night and that she sounds really cool. She tells you that she knows Mom and Dad think she's just, like, being, Oh My God this town sucks or whatever, but it's more than that. She tells you how totally jealous she used to be of you and your brother when you left for school, how cool it was that you were out of your own, that you had your own lives, that you were, like, adults. 

You nod and say it was pretty cool, but you always liked coming home. She pulls two nice dresses out of the closet and lays them flat on the bed. She says she's nervous about the classes, though. She tells you that she was, like, an okay student, but not really great. She's scared about being in a big lecture class, about maybe not getting it.

You think back to the list you made that is now sitting in your room: College Advice for April. You remember one of the entries on it and tell your sister that the best advice you can give her is that the professor is not your enemy. It's not you against him. You tell her that she shouldn't be afraid of getting the prof's e-mail address and going to office hours, and asking him, or her you guess, questions. Because they aren't monsters--they are people and they want you to do well. Well, most of them do.

Her sister nods and says that sounds cool, but kind of hard to do with certain people. Suddenly, you remember something from your freshman year that you haven't thought about in years. Before you can even think about it more, you are talking, remember it as you go along.

You begin, "This one time, my freshman year, I had a professor. It was a biology class, an intro level one. The professor was a woman, and she wasn't that old. She was probably the age Dee is now, in her early 30s. She didn't act like a professor. She was really cool and down to earth, and even invited us over to her place at the end of the semester. Anyway, for some reason during the first month of school, she mentioned that she got her PhD from Cornell--I think she was talking about a professor she had had there, and something he said--and I knew where Cornell was. Shawna-Marie's brother had gone there. It's in upstate New York, and it's an Ivy League school, although it obviously isn't that famous. And I think it was because I just recognized where that school was, and knew a little about it, that--I can't really explain it, but suddenly it seemed like she wasn't so far away from me." You feel self conscious, but you continue, "Like, the different between her and me wasn't this huge, huge difference, the way it was with me and a lot of my other professors, the ones who were older or, like, way accomplished. I felt like I could be her, if I wanted to. I knew I'd always wanted to be a teacher, but, suddenly, the idea of being a college professor didn't seem that strange." You stop again and April is looking down at a shirt in her hands and you add, "I felt like the whole world had just, like, opened up for me."

Your sister looks up and says quickly, "Liz, are you jealous?" but not in a vindictive or petty way. She seems curious, maybe even a little concerned.

And you are surprised by the question, and consider it for a long time. You finally say, "I don't know if I would have used the word 'jealous,' but, yeah, maybe a little bit. You are about to start something really cool, and start your life, basically, and have that same experience as me." You add, almost jokingly, "At least I hope you do."

"Yeah," she says. “I hope so, too. I’m just, like, really looking forward to everything.”

You start to tear up again. Stupid hormones. You point to a reading lamp clipped onto her bed frame and you say, “You should probably bring that. In case you want to study while your roommate is asleep.”