FINDING A PLACE

“For the ones who had a notion

A notion deep inside

It ain’t no sin

To be glad you’re alive”

--Bruce Springsteen, “Badlands”

--ONE—

As I started unpacking my parents’ van, I was filled with a certain amount of anxiety. Hey, who wouldn’t? It was my first day at college. Stanford University, to be precise.

I’m Brendan—Brendan Carruthers. It had been a long drive to California from Chicago, but now it was finally done. Here I was, at Stanford—the place I had wanted to be since I was a freshman in high school. Of course, for most of high school I wanted to be anywhere other than high school—but Stanford was the number one choice.

I had gotten my key, and my room assignment, and headed up with the first batch of my stuff. I went to my room, and found the door open.

“Hey, you Brendan? I’m Jake, Jake Atkinson.” I shook his hand. Jake was a very large human being. My parents came up behind me, and Jake introduced himself to them.

“You need some help?” he said.

“Sure. Thanks,” I said. “You’re all moved in?”

“I’ve been moved in for some time,” he laughed. “Football players had to be here a month ago.” Oh, shit, a football player. If there’s anything I hate more…..

Jake was cool, though, helping me and my parents get all my stuff in. I went downstairs and kissed my parents goodbye. They were crying. Hey, I was their only child, and here I was, going to be 2000 miles away. I didn’t cry, but I was going to miss them. They were great parents.

I went back up to my room, and Jake was there, reading what I assumed to be a playbook, listening to music. “Hey. Your parents get off all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you from? I forgot to ask that.”

“Just outside of Chicago.”

“Shit, we’re almost neighbors,” he grinned. “I’m from Milwaukee.”

“Milwaukee. Since you play football, you must be a Packers fan.” He grinned and pointed at his desk. I hadn’t noticed it before—an autographed picture of Brett Favre, the Packers’ great quarterback.

“Are you a football fan? I take it you don’t play, not with that body.” It wasn’t said nastily, which surprised me. I was tall, but skinny.

“No I don’t, but, yes, I’m a fan. Da Bearrsss, of course.”

“Of course. However, I’m not anticipating any autographed pictures of any Bears quarterbacks being your prized possession!”

“Not hardly. If I did have any, it’d be a linebacker like Urlacher. The Bears don’t do quarterbacks. So, what do you do? Football-wise, I mean.”

“I’m a linebacker,” he grinned. “I was all-state in Wisconsin last year. U of W recruited me, as did a few other Big Ten schools, but I’m sick of snow.”

“Don’t I know that. I got offered a full ride by both Northwestern and U of Chicago. I decided California sounded better.”

“Full ride?” he asked. “Academic?” I nodded. “Oh, goody, I get a brain as a roomie. Us dumb football players need all the help we can get,” he laughed.

“Most of the dumb football players I knew in high school needed a lot more than that,” I said.

“I have no doubt,” he laughed. “Hey, I hold my own. I don’t care how good you are at football, you don’t get into Stanford unless you can hold your own. But I wasn’t going to get any full rides academically from U of Chicago, I can guarantee you that.”

“Most football players I knew in high school couldn’t get a full ride to Kindercare.”

He cracked up laughing at that. “You’re not fond of football players, are you?” I just looked at him. “Hey, I had assholes on my high school team, too. I know what some of the smart kids went through.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

He looked at me. “How well do you know football?”

“Well. That’s your playbook, right?” He nodded. “I could understand it without much of a problem. I just don’t have the physique to play.”

“Well, if you can understand this, you’re a better man than I,” he grinned. “There’s about a gazillion different defensive formations in this system.”

“Of course. It’s Stanford, right? The playbook was probably designed by some computer science major with too much time on his hands.”

He cracked up laughing. “So, are you a computer science major?” he grinned.

“Yup,” I laughed. “You?”

“Undeclared. I’ll probably go for history. If the football thing doesn’t work out, I’d like to be a teacher slash high school coach.”

We sat there, chatting for a while, very relaxed. I liked Jake immediately. He was cool, and didn’t seem full of himself. Very unlike football players I knew.

Hey, he got it right. I got picked on. I was a geek, and I knew it. I was valedictorian of my class. I was tall, geeky, skinny, and wore glasses up until senior year, when I finally got contacts.. And the football players led the torment.

Was college going to be different, or was Jake just an exception? A very welcome one, considering we were rooming together, mind you. That was something to find out.

--TWO—

We were three weeks into college. The first week was orientation. Boring, for the most part, as I had suspected. All kinds of blathering about ‘diversity’ and all that stuff. My high school talked about ‘diversity’ too. It meant, “All colors and races are treated with respect—but we all kick the shit out of the geek.” Then there was the ‘sexual harassment’ seminar. Back in high school, the girls considered it ‘sexual harassment’ if I said hello.

Classes, however, had started well, surprisingly enough. I was taking a variety. Stanford required general-type courses, like a humanities course and a writing course. Despite being a computer geek, I had always done well in that sort of thing—especially writing. I worked hard at that. Hey, I wanted to go into computer research. I wanted to help develop the next generation of computer applications. Being able to write up research findings was a plus. So, I did well in the writing courses. I was also taking calculus—and math is one of my strengths.

What surprised me were my classmates. I didn’t get scorned. I wrote a paper for the writing course that led to a lively discussion in class—and the feedback I got from my classmates was great. No scorn, no derision, just opinions founded on respect. It was pretty awesome.

What happened the first Monday of the third week of classes was pretty neat, too.

It was in Calculus. We were doing some problems, and I was doing fine with them. I heard a sigh to my right, and turned.

It was a blonde girl I had seen in the class. Didn’t know her, but I had noticed her a bit. She was obviously having difficulty with the material.

After class, she stopped me. “Hey. You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s my strength.”

“I thought so. Listen, I know this is presumptuous of me, but I need help. I’m a pre-med who has to take this stuff, but Calculus throws me. And I know you are getting it, and I don’t know who else to ask.”

“I’d be glad to.” I stuck out my hand. “Brendan Carruthers.”

“Sheila Mitchell,” she smiled, shaking my hand. “Oh, Brendan, thank you. I’ll be eternally grateful.”

“No problem. When do you want to do it?”

“Are you free tonight?”

“Sure.” I gave her my dorm and room number, and we made plans for her to come up about seven.

Jake had some football thing going on, so I was alone when she showed up. “Brendan, I can’t thank you enough. I’m doing fine in my other classes, but this is really losing me.”

“I’m glad to do it.” And I was. I didn’t mind helping people at all with classwork. I found it flattering.

We pulled up a chair, and I talked her through some of the stuff we had been doing. As she worked on it, I took a look at her. She was wearing a tee shirt and shorts. Her legs were long, muscular, and very tanned. Her arms looked like they had prominent muscles, too. I could tell she was broad-shouldered. Her face? I think most people would describe it as “cute”. She had long, straight blonde hair, a cute turned-up nose, and freckles, visible even with her tan. What I liked were her eyes—they were deep blue and seemed to sparkle.

After a while, she seemed to be picking things up a bit better. I suggested a little break. “You want something to drink?” I asked.

“Love it. Do you have any diet coke?”

“No, but my roomie does,” I laughed. “He’s cool about stuff like that, I’ll just have to owe him one.” I grabbed one for her and took a coke for myself. “I don’t drink diet coke, I have enough problems keeping any weight on as it is.”

She giggled. “Where are you from?” she asked. “I know it’s not California, you have an accent,” she giggled.

“Chicago. And you?”

“San Diego.”

“Ah. That explains the tan.”

She giggled. “Well, that and the fact that I spend way too much time in swimming pools, many of them outdoors. I’m a competitive swimmer.”

“Oh, you swim for the team here?” I asked.

“Not this year. Next year I will be, but I’m concentrating on some international meets this year. And Nationals next spring—and, hopefully, the Olympics next summer.”

“Is that realistic? I mean, do you think you have a shot?”

“Oh, yeah. I won one gold and two silver medals at the world championships this past summer.”

“Wow. I’m impressed.” She just grinned. “I noticed you were pretty muscular.”

“Yeah. You have to be. The backstroke is my primary stroke, and that takes strength, especially in the legs. And, believe me, when I get to the Olympics, I guarantee there will be a couple of people in the pool with me that are on steroids. Since I have no desire to fuck up my body like that, I have to be an animal in the weight room instead.”

“Very smart,” I said. “I knew a couple of football players in high school who everyone assumed were on ‘roids. And they were bigger assholes than the other football players. Which is saying a lot.” She giggled. “I have to ask you, though—you said you were pre-med?” She nodded. “ And high-level swimming? You must have no time.”

“I manage it pretty well,” she smiled. “Though I’m not out at parties four nights a week, I can tell you.”

“I can imagine,” I laughed.

“Pre-med gets harder as you go along. I’m just taking basic courses now. Which is a good thing—I’d hate to be trying to fight my way through some of the junior-level biology courses in an Olympic year. The timing worked out well.”

“Except for having to take calculus,” I grinned.

“Yeah, except for that,” she grinned back. “I’m breezing through Biology, and my humanities-type courses aren’t bad, but calc is killing me.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” I smiled. “I have to help you, so your mind is at ease, so I can watch on TV as that American flag goes up a few times next summer.”

“Good plan” she grinned.

--THREE—

I helped her out a few times in the next couple of weeks. She wasn’t dumb, not by a far long shot—she was very smart, actually. She just wasn’t intuitive about math, and the professor didn’t help. It was a good thing I was intuitive about math, or he would’ve lost me.

So, I was helping her. I didn’t see it as anything more than that. Though I did enjoy her company. We always took breaks to de-Calculus our brains, and I enjoyed chatting with her. But that was it. I was helping her study, that was all. That we got along decently just made it easier.

That’s why I was surprised when, about three weeks after I had started tutoring her, she came to where I was sitting in the dining hall and plopped down in front of me. “Hi! Want company?”

“Sure,” I said, surprised.

“You looked lonely sitting over here all by yourself,” she giggled.

“I usually eat with my roommate, but he’s in Oregon at the moment.”

“Oregon?” she asked.

“He’s a football player. Away game tomorrow.” This was on a Friday. “They go up there a day early.”

“Ah. Well, am I an acceptable substitute for your roommate?” she giggled.

“Well, you’re a hell of a lot better looking than he is,” I said, surprising myself. She just giggled again. “However, if you want to talk sports—which is what Jake talks about most of the time—be advised that, while I know a lot about football, I know little about swimming.”

“Well, what’s to know? It’s a rather uncomplicated sport,” she smiled. “You get in the pool, you swim, whoever swims fastest wins. Football’s a lot more complicated.’

“Especially here,” I grinned. “Jake’s playbook is bigger than our Calculus textbook.”

“Welcome to Stanford,” she laughed, “where they even expect the athletes to know how to think.”

As we chatted—easily, especially for me—I noticed something. Sheila was a very popular girl. Ten seconds didn’t go by before someone passing by us yelled out a “Hi Sheila” or a “Hey, Sheila, how’s it going?”

After a few minutes of this, I looked at her, bemused, and said, “What, do you have your own fan club or something?”

She laughed. “I just know a lot of people, that’s all.”

“You’re a social butterfly,” I grinned.

“Sort of. And you’re not, are you?” she asked astutely. “You should be. You’re a good person.”

“I’m rather shy, actually.”

“Not with me,” she smiled.

“Well, you got me where I live,” I grinned. “Flattered my brains. I’m a complete sucker for that.”

“Ah,” she laughed.

“And you’re easy to talk to, imagine my surprise. Even though you asked for my help, you talk to me like I’m a person, not a computer with legs.”

“You are a person. A nice one, even,” she grinned. I think I probably blushed! “However, I was wondering, do you have time this weekend? What with that exam coming up Monday….”

“Of course, I have time. Any time you need.”

“Tomorrow afternoon?”

“That’s fine. The game is tomorrow night. I have to watch my roomie kick Oregon’s butt.”

“That’s cool, I’m going to a party tomorrow night. 1 in the afternoon OK? I have to swim before that.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

--FOUR—

I got up the next morning, did some laundry, went to brunch. By the time I got back from brunch and retrieved my laundry, it was still only 11:30. I had an hour and a half to kill before Sheila came over to study. I ended up walking the campus—and somehow ended up at the aquatic center.

There were stands—swimming was an important sport at Stanford, our team was always nationally ranked, and the meets actually got respectable crowds. So, I parked myself a few rows up and watched. There were a number of people swimming, but I picked her out immediately.

I’d known she was a swimmer, and I knew what swimming entailed. And I’d seen her body—well, under a tee shirt and shorts, but I had an idea about her muscles. But I wasn’t prepared for how she looked powering her way through the water. She was doing the backstroke, and she moved faster than I ever could’ve imagined. I’d seen swimming at the Olympics, of course, but seeing on TV didn’t come close. Watching her backstroke through the water was like watching a motorboat—except this motorboat was powered by sheer muscle. It was riveting.

I shouldn’t have come. That was my first thought. If I was intimidated by her before this—and I was—this was even more intimidating. I thought about leaving—but I was riveted. After I came to the decision that I was going to leave—Sheila came out of the pool for a break, and saw me.

“BRENDAN! Hi!” she yelled, and then came over to me. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know, I was wandering the campus, killing time, and I decided I wanted to see you swim.”

“Cool!” she said. “I'm glad. What did you think?”

“I’m flabbergasted,” I said. “It’s so much faster in person.”

“Everybody says that,” she giggled. “Are you going to stick around? I just need to do a few more laps in a couple minutes, then we can go study.”

“OK,” I said, trying to convince myself.

I ended up staying. Every time I thought about leaving, she paused in her laps and grinned at me. And it really was impressive to watch. The problem was, I had somehow avoided being my usual hopeless tongue-tied self around this girl—and I was afraid, after watching what she was capable of, I was going to revert to type.

Anyhow, I stayed, and she went out to change and I waited for her. I think the image of her powering through the water was forever imbedded on my mind. Also, I admit it, the image of her standing in front of me, wet, wearing a bathing suit!

She came out and we walked to my dorm. She was dressed more-or-less as she usually was—shorts and a blouse—but I couldn’t see her that way anymore. As I had feared, the old tongue-tied Brendan was in full presence.

“You OK?” she asked me after a while.

“Fine,” I said.

“Look, if you don’t want to do this today…” she began.

“Of course I do,” I said. “I’m fine. Really.”

“No, you’re not, but I’m not going to press the issue.”

How did this girl get me to talk? Before I could stop myself, I told her, “Look. I told you I get shy.”

“Never around me,” she said.

“I’ve never seen you swim before,” I said softly. She looked at me, but didn’t say anything.

Once we got back to my room, I was better—because we were back in my element. But the memory lingered long after she had left.

--FIVE—

We had our first calc exam on Monday. I didn’t have any problem with it. After class, Sheila walked by me and said, “I think it went well. We’ll see.”

Wednesday we got them back. We were sitting on opposite sides of the class, but when she got hers back, I saw her light up with a smile, then she turned around, found me, and grinned at me.

When class was over, she came running out of the lecture hall—and grabbed me in a hug! “Brendan! You’re a damn miracle worker!” She held up her test—which said 91. “I can’t believe I did this well!”

“I’m glad,” I said—which I was, but I was also thunderstruck that she was hugging me!

“Oh, Brendan, you did this for me! I’m so excited! Look, how can I repay you? Anything. Anything at all.”

I said it before I even thought. “Well, how about going out with me for dinner Friday?” And then immediately wanted to take the words back.

“I’d love to!” she said happily.

WHAT?

“Really?” I stuttered. “I mean, well, great!”

“I was waiting for you to ask,” she grinned. WHAT?!?!?!? “We can go wherever you want, I have a car—I know you don’t.”

“Well, I do, but it’s in Illinois,” I grinned. “That’s fine, we can decided then what we’re in the mood for.”

“Great!” she said. “I’ll see you in class Friday, we can work out the details. I have to swim Friday afternoon, but I don’t know when yet.”

“That’s fine.”

“Great! See you Friday,” she said, and she was off.

Oh my Jesus, did I just do that?

Oh, Christ. Now I had two days to go out of my mind.

I was sitting in my room after supper that night, pretending to do homework but really obsessing about it, when Jake stumbled in from football practice.

“Hey, Rooms, what’s up? You look preoccupied.”

“You know that girl I’ve been helping with calc?”

“Yeah, Sheila Mitchell, the swimmer, ” he said, “you told me. I’ve never met her, but I know people that know her.”

“Yeah, well, we have a date Friday night,” I said.

“That’s great!” he said.

“Yeah, great,” I said depressedly. “Jake, I’ve only been on a couple dates in my life, and none since, oh, tenth grade—and that one was a set-up from my mother. I haven’t yet been on a date that wasn’t a disaster. And I actually asked out this beautiful, popular, incredible girl. I am going to fuck this up. I can’t believe I actually asked her out! What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking that you like her,” he grinned. “Bren, don’t obsess, eh?”

“What’s worse is that she’s only going out with me out of gratitude.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “Girls don’t do that, trust me. Especially girls that know you like them—and believe me, she knows you like her. Girls pick up on those things. Unless she’s cruel—and, from what I’ve heard about Sheila Mitchell, she’s a sweetheart—she’d never say yes just out of gratitude.”

“Hmm. Then why would she say yes?”

“Because she likes you, you idiot!” Jake said, but not nastily.

“Why on earth?”

“Bren, you’ve got some major self-image problems. I don’t know what to tell you about that. All I can tell you about Sheila is this, though—go with the flow. She likes you, OK? Go with it. And relax, for Chrissakes!”

“Easy for you to say,” I laughed.

--SIX—

Friday dawned. Much to my dismay.

She found me outside of calc. “I’m swimming until 5. Is 6 OK?” she asked.

“That’s fine,” I managed.

“Great,” she said. She gave me her dorm and room number, and said “See you at six,” and off she went.

Giving me a lovely few hours to panic. And panic I did. What with Jake playing a game tomorrow, he wasn’t around at all, so I couldn’t even get a pep talk from him. By the time five o’clock rolled around, I was contemplating throwing myself down a flight of stairs and breaking a few bones, just to get out of this. What a coward.

But I didn’t. I managed to find something half-decent to wear, and managed to walk over to her dorm without tripping and killing myself. I went in and knocked on her door.

“Hi!” she said as she answered. She was wearing a pink blouse and a gray knee-length skirt. She had even put on a bit of makeup. She looked fantastic. We left her room and got in the elevator.

“What are you in the mood for, to eat?” she asked.

“I don’t know. How about you?”

“I’ve got a mad craving for sushi,” she giggled.

“I’ve never had sushi.”

“It’s great.”

“Raw fish?” I asked, skeptically.

She giggled. “Not all sushi has raw fish—but the stuff that does, most of it is actually pretty good. The way they prepare it, it doesn’t taste raw, if you know what I mean.”

“OK, I’m game,” I said.

“My roommate told me about a good place. And it’s only a few blocks off campus, so we can walk. And it’s a full-bore Japanese restaurant, so if you can’t stomach the sushi, you can get teriyaki or tempura or something.”

“OK,” I said, and we started walking.

We walked a little bit, and she said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” I answered.

“Do you regret asking me out? It almost seemed to me like it was an impulse you wanted to take back.”

“Uhh…” what was I supposed to say to that?

“If you don’t want to take me out, it’s OK, we can turn back,” she said with a sad little smile.

“It’s not that,” I said. “I do want to take you out. It’s hard to talk about, OK? But it’s not you, and I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to.”

She grinned at me. “You didn’t expect me to say yes.”

“No, I didn’t,” I admitted. “You shocked the daylights out of me.”

“Why? Why is it so shocking that I’d say yes?” I didn’t say anything. “Brendan,” she continued with a smile, “when I asked you how I could repay you for helping me with calculus, that was a hint. I wanted you to ask me out. If you didn’t, I was going to do it myself,” she giggled.

I stopped walking. “WHAT?” I said.

“Brendan, again, why is this so shocking?”

I took a breath, and told her. “This is my first date in three years, and it’s the first time I’ve asked anyone out and gotten a ‘yes’ in close to four. The one three years ago was a blind date arranged by my mother. My list of rejections is probably longer than your list of swimming trophies. Girls do not go out with me.” Then I blurted out the rest. “And the reason I wanted to take it back when I asked you out is that I’m so inexperienced that I’m terrified I’m going to fuck it up. I haven’t been on a date in my life that went well, OK?” I couldn’t look at her when I said the rest. “I asked you out sincerely. I wanted to go out with you. I just can’t help but think that you’d have been better off going out tonight with just about any other guy on campus.”

“I’m out with who I want to be out with,” she said definitively. “We really need to work on your confidence. However, that’s a project for another day.” She grinned. “Today, we’ll just get you to like sushi. Come on!” And she grabbed my hand.

As we walked down the street—with her still holding my hand!—she said, “Look. I’m glad you told me that you haven’t dated in a while. I knew you weren’t Mister Experience, but I didn’t know it was that bad. But it’s OK, you know. I want to be here with you. I said yes because I wanted to go out with you. Just remember that, OK?”

“OK,” I said.

We got to the restaurant, and I decided to let her order. “We can just get a selection. I like all types of sushi, so we can have them bring a pile on over and see what you like,” she grinned. She started me off with some of the easier ones, which had cooked stuff like crab and shrimp in it. “That green stuff? That’s wasabi, Japanese horseradish,” she told me. “Be careful with that, it packs a kick.”

I tried it, and, actually, put some more on. “Actually, I like that wasabi stuff. It’s not any hotter to me than regular horseradish. And my mother’s Polish, so I know from horseradish,” I grinned.

The first few things she introduced me to, the milder ones, I liked. “I can’t believe you’ve never had sushi,” she said.

“Well, I’m from Chicago. If the plate doesn’t contain a big hunk of something that used to be part of a farm animal, it’s not a real meal,” I grinned. “I actually like this, though.”

“Good,” she grinned. “Try this one.”

I looked at the one she was pointing at. “Now, that appears to be an uncooked fish on that one,” I said.

“Yeah. Tuna. That’s my favorite. You’ll love it,” she said. I gave her a face—but I tried it.

“OK, I admit it. I liked that one,” I grinned.

“Told you! Don’t worry, I stayed away from some of the more extreme ones like uncooked eel.” I grimaced. “But that one, and this one over here—that’s salmon—are good.”

As we ate our selections, she said to me, “Tell me about your family.”

“Well, we live in Highland Park, which is north of Chicago on the lake. Nice suburban-type place, at least at first glance. I, personally, wouldn’t mind if I never set foot in the place ever again. Anyhow, I do love my parents. Dad’s an architect. Mom’s a schoolteacher.”

“Brothers or sisters?” she asked.

“Nope. I understand that I was something of a surprise—they thought Dad was infertile, and were going to try to get some treatment, when I unexpectedly started growing.” She giggled. “They were never able to have another kid, though, and they figured since they had me they wouldn’t push their luck. You?”

“I’m from La Jolla, which is north of San Diego, right on the Pacific. Also suburban—well, on the ritzy side of suburban. Dad is some sort of corporate bigwig. Mom is a nurse. I have a younger sister, Jenny, she’s 15.”

“So you learned to swim in the Pacific?” I asked.

“Pretty much at first,” she grinned. “Pools are more efficient, though, so I was in those before long.”

We chatted easily—very easily, for me—throughout the rest of the meal. I paid the bill, and we left.

“Did you want to do something else?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she grinned. “What’s playing at the movie theatre?”

“Let’s go find out,” I grinned back. We started walking to the theatre, and she took my hand again.

It was pathetic, really, how much of a thrill I got from that. I was 18 years old, and I got a thrill out of a girl holding my hand. I tried to just enjoy it, and forget how pathetic I was. Anyway, we found a romantic comedy we both wanted to see, so I paid for our tickets, we got some popcorn, and went in.

It was a good movie, and we both enjoyed it, laughing as we munched on the popcorn. After the popcorn had been exhausted, we put the tub on the floor—and she leaned closer to me and wrapped her arm around mine. It took me a minute to notice—it was a good movie—and not noticing right away made the little thrill I got when I did realize a little less pathetic.

Anyhow, we got out of the movie and walked hand-in-hand to her dorm, laughing and discussing the funnier points of the film. I took the elevator up to her room with her.

“I’d invite you in, but my roomie is temperamental about her beauty sleep,” Sheila giggled.

“That’s fine. I’m going to get woken up about 8 tomorrow morning, anyhow. Jake’s got a game, and he’s not quiet in the morning,” I laughed.

“Good. Brendan, I had a great time. I told you this date wouldn’t be a disaster.” She smiled at me. “I’d like to do it again.”

“I’d like that, too. I had a great time myself.”

“Good.” She looked at me, and then leaned over and kissed me! It wasn’t a five-minute-long heartstopper or anything like that, but it was sweet and warm and nice. Very nice. I was shocked at first, but then returned the kiss.

“Goodnight,” she said, breaking the kiss, blushing, as she opened the door to her room.

“Goodnight,” I said, and watched her go in. Then I floated back to my dorm!