• • •
I make friends.
Real ones.
Mara — who has never once been wrong about anything and will tell you so.
Jonah — who finds everything funny and makes you feel like you do too.
Others who fill in the edges.
I feel like I’m fitting in more and more.
• • •
I’m okay.
Better than okay some days.
And every night I FaceTime Cassian and that’s when I’m the best.
He answers before it rings.
Every time.
Like his phone is already in his hand. Like he’s been waiting.
Cassian is going to community college because his grades weren’t great and he didn’t want any financial help from his dad. So he’s working part-time at an auto shop.
• • •
The first night I called from Georgetown I was sitting on my dorm bed with boxes still unpacked around me and the room smelling like someone else’s detergent and I was fine — I was genuinely, surprisingly fine — right up until his face appeared on the screen.
• • •
And then I wasn’t fine at all. In the best way.
• • •
“Hey,“ I said.
“Hey.“ He looked at me for a second. ’You look terrible.“
“I haven’t slept in thirty hours.”
“So normal then.”
“Good night, Cassian.”
“Wait —" That smile. The rare one. “You look terrible and I missed you.”
• • •
We talked until two in the morning. His voice in my ear while I finally unpacked my things and he narrated whatever was happening on his end — his roommate, his first class, the vending machine that kept eating his dollar and then giving him two things anyway.
I laughed more that night than I had in months.
• • •
