MY PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE to Sydney's presence was unbearable.

Chalk it up to coincidence or precognition, but when I walked out of my dorm room this morning, something in me just knew that I was going to see him today. Maybe because he'd come back to Grace's Place and ask for the same coffee order. Maybe because I'd be too in over my head to not try and catch his eye in PSY 208. Maybe because I'd want to get another whiff of his cocoa lotion and take a step too close. Despite how certain I was of either of those possibilities, and despite the throbbing ache in my skull, I still walked across campus wondering if that thing was going to happen where he saw me but not the other way around. I wondered if I looked better than I felt.

But the clinic was the last place I expected him to actually be at, much less after I'd let myself brush off the consistent thought of him. And the brain fog was the last reaction I expected.

It was as if my brain thought I was a completely different person from who I actually was. It visualized me doing and saying and feeling things I couldn't, responding differently. Up until now, I was a mixtape of social conditioning, picking up habits from everyone else, because they always seemed so natural, so genuine, so valid, coming from them—the way they talked, the way they walked, the way they angled their legs when they sat, the gestures they made with their hands and bodies. In theory, I knew the right ways to behave. But whatever it was that fogged up my functioning never let me get out of my head enough to practice them.

It was why I froze at the sudden sight of Sydney Miller, why I consequently locked up. I was almost certain the shock was painted in my eyes, and whatever confidence I thought I'd built leading up to here evanesced like a ribbon of smoke.

Though still painfully aware of him, I stared into my phone and was reminded that briefly before I left the dorms, I was about to dry-swallow my pride and request fifty dollars on Venmo from my sister.

I should've thought against it, but beggars couldn't be choosers. I'd just sent the request through when Jason Rivera lowered himself into the seat next to mine.

My mom told me years ago that you could tell the extent to which a person was loved based on the way they smelled. She didn't mean something extravagant or fancy like deodorant or cologne, but intimate. Clean. And beneath the heady fragrance of his body products, Jace smelled like fresh laundry. Homely. It was funny how easy it was for me to identify now, how much I understood, when the only thing I did those years ago was think my mom was a little out of it.

When Jace beamed at me, I could tell he was most likely smothered with affection as a child. He had that air about him.

He handed a bottle of water to Sydney, who kept his focus on the form resting on his left knee. I bit down the guilt of barely acknowledging him before it built in my chest.

"We meet again," Jace said in lieu of a greeting, his voice slightly muffled by the mask over his mouth.

"Unfortunately."

He chuckled as he leaned back in his seat and stretched out his long legs. "Aye, c'mon. It ain't that bad."

My phone chimed with a text, but I turned it screen down before turning to regard him. "No, it's actually that bad. My day has been ruined before it even started."

"Even I don't deserve that level of harshness before 11 a.m."

"Oh, you think?"

Since I couldn't make out much of his face behind the mask, his eyes were the only things I could truly focus on. A deep, rich brown, like an endless stretch of healthy earth, framed with dark lashes that curled up a bit at the ends. His eyes twinkled with that trademarked mischief I was getting used to. Anytime he looked at me, I got this subtle rush, like he was holding a dare to my face, asking if I was brave enough to take it.

This time when he chuckled, his gaze lingered with a softness I couldn't place. "Hi, De."

"Hi, Jason." I shifted my attention back to my phone, where a text from my sister waited.

Really De?

I really didn't want to get into another argument about talking to my dad rather than milking her and my mother for money. The last time, it had ended with me having a breakdown in the dorm showers and not speaking to her for a week. I didn't think Tomi understood the gravity of what our dad did, hence why it was always easy for her to preach forgiveness and reconciliation. While my feelings for him grew from disbelief to muffled rage over the years, Tomi developed this quiet fascination.

I thought about a pre-teen fangirl fantasizing about her favorite boy band member. Holding him to high regard based purely on uninformed adoration and exaggerated importance. Making him who she wanted him to be, simply because she didn't know him well enough. Tomi behaved in a similar manner when it came to our father. He left before she turned one.

Her feelings were valid, and I'd come to accept that, but I didn't think the sentiment went both ways.

So I released a quiet breath and typed, Nvm.

Then I put my phone on airplane mode as soon as it was marked read.

"You doing okay?" Jace's voice cut into the moment before I allowed myself drift off, and I adjusted my weight in the seat.

"Yeah. Why?"

He gestured around, his eyes still smiling. "You're at the clinic."

A breath trickled out of me, and I realized too late that it came out more annoyed than I intended. "I came for a headache prescription." It was only a bit of the truth, but I didn't think he needed to know that part.

He nodded. "Cool." Then he turned to Sydney. "Bro, how long you need to fill a damn form? Flu got you that bad?"

"Can you not?" Sydney mumbled without looking up at him, and a part of me wanted to reinitiate conversation, ask how he was feeling, but after my cold greeting, and the obvious annoyance I just displayed, I wasn't sure how I would come across.

In times like this, I wondered what was wrong with me. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to people. Everyone just had bad timing and caught me either when I was exhausted—and consequently frazzled and or irritable—or when I was ticked about the state of my life. It was no excuse, and I knew, but I didn't exactly know how to help it.

Sydney eventually got up to submit his form to the nurse at the reception, and as he leaned lazily against the counter to most likely answer her questions, I let myself wonder if Tomi would've tried to call me. I liked to think I was bigger than this behavior, but it provided me with the safety I needed, without fail.

Jace didn't say anything else to me, and shortly after Sydney returned to his seat, the nurse called my name—with stress in the wrong places—to inform me that I could go in for my appointment. I briefly turned to the boys to guage the possibility of saying goodbye, but Sydney, now slouched in his seat with droopy eyes and his cheek resting on a fist, met my gaze. I was quick to chicken out.

As I pushed myself up to my feet though, his voice came, calm and a little smug. "Have a nice day, De."

I looked back at him just in time to see a tired smile spread across his lips. He looked like he was this close to passing out, but his smile still managed to look a little amused. I felt like an ass.

I slipped my phone into my pocket as Jace looked up at me, too. "Feel better, Syd."

Jace gave me a chin nod, and they both stayed quiet as I made to walk back to the counter for my card. It was the type of silence that just let me know that they were definitely going to have something to say the moment I was out of earshot. It bit down on my spine, but I shook it off and reminded myself that it didn't matter.

As I navigated the familiar glossy path to Dr. Stewart's office however, I found myself wondering what Sydney would say about me. If he stared as I walked off. And I wasn't surprised to realize that a part of me wanted him to watch, even if he was too sick to.

I wasn't sure why I expected otherwise, but Sydney wasn't in social psychology that afternoon. The lecture hall was large, and we were easily up to, if not more than, 200 students taking the course. Trying to spot one person in a crowd of that many faces was no easy feat, but I knew he wasn't there. College wasn't like middle or high school, where you claimed a seat for the rest of the school year, but people had their angles. Sydney usually sat on the far left edges, while I sat on the right.

I guessed it was in part a reason why we often found ourselves looking over at each other. It was a clean, unobstructed path.

As our professor—a slim, graying woman with a similar gait to my mom—closed her Powerpoint presentation, and the rest of the students dissolved into incoherent conversations, I remained in my seat. Dr. Stewart had advised me to take things a step at a time after explaining that there was more of a connection between my anxiety and the constant, persistent headaches than I thought. I'd been mostly unresponsive to my last prescription, so he wrote me the dosage for a new one, which I got from the campus drugstore before getting ready for class.

I didn't understand why headache medication should have headaches as a side effect, but I hoped it would be different this time. I was getting exhausted of having to jump from one pill to the next and still manage to feel worse on top of. Like I was moving in reverse.

I was doing a pretty good job at blocking out the noise and focusing on my breathing when a ringed hand slammed down on the polished wood in front of me. The suddenness was startling, and a resulting bolt of annoyance shot through my body. Sharp pain went across the side of my head shortly after.

Amara Monye's jumbo goddess braids fell over the lecture hall desks, and her hair rings glinted beneath the lights as she slowly leaned away from me. I wanted to stay mad at the disruption, but I took one look at the smile on her face, and most of it dissipated. "Ticket," she said after securing my attention, sending a small nod towards the desk.

I looked down at the pastel design on mentioned ticket, and picked it up. "What's this for?"

"A faculty party two Fridays from now." Her voice was light and melodious and made me think of days in the sun. Or a store clerk trying to convince you to buy something you don't need. I made to speak, but she cut me off. "Which you're going to attend, of course. I got you a ticket because I knew there's no way in hell you're gonna buy one for yourself."

Amara and I had little in common. We were both Black Nigerian girls—though her family hailed from the eastern side—who came to Carlton with decided majors and family legacies to uphold, but that was where the similarities ended. If we were in high school, I assumed she'd get in trouble a lot for talking back at teachers and giving zero shits. She had this fearless, high-energy thing about her, and it was more admirable than annoying. She was the kind of girl I would be in another life, and I'd known that ever since she casually handed me a boba tea in freshman year and said, "Don't ask, just have it. Thank me later."

Perhaps the only part of her that I wasn't a fan of was that she was involved in the social aspect of student government. Her Instagram stories were usually flooded with e-flyers for seminars and conferences and parties and donations, with convincing captions that had me wondering if it was worth risking my mental health for.

"I don't know—" I started to say, but she cut me off.

"This is a good deal. You don't even have to stay till the end of the thing. Just be there." She must've sensed my hesitation still, because she reached over and placed a hand over mine. I didn't really like being touched because of the way most people's hands felt, but I refrained from shaking her off. "I wish I could compose an ewi on the spot to eulogize the hell out of you the way one of your Yoruba ancestors would, but this accent will not do it justice." That drew a chuckle out of me. The level of detachment I felt from my culture was one of the reasons why I kept the accents on the letters of my name. "But you should step out of your zone once in a while. Even if you're only there for twenty minutes."

I believed she had an argument ready to fire, but I was stubborn. "I'll have to think about it." I didn't mention that she'd triggered my fight or flight response, and I'd do anything and give any excuse possible to ensure she understood that I didn't want to be at any social gathering. I stretched the ticket back in her direction. "I might have plans."

Her smile fell, and she took her hand off of me. "Girl, you're keeping that ticket. You could even ask your roommate to buy one so you guys can come together. Or you could join me and my girls, and we'll call an Uber to the venue. It's off-campus. Can I have your number?" She was already pulling her phone out of her black tote bag while I still processed the onslaught of information. I wanted to speak, wanted to protest a bit more, but I found myself taking the phone from her and typing in my number, instead.

The lecture hall had started to empty out, and I only noticed how only a few students lingered when I handed Amara back her phone.

She beamed at me. "Great. I'll text you."

I gave her a nod, and she was gone before I could even offer a goodbye, her braids swinging behind her.

I remained in my seat for a moment longer, before deciding that my phone had been on airplane mode for long enough. Then I impulsively opened a new text thread with Sydney and was typing and backspacing before I could let myself wonder when or how I got his number. I only knew I'd had it for a long time.

ewi: the yoruba equivalent of a poem.

just a heads up—this book is a slowburn. potential frustrations. anyway, i hope you enjoyed the chapter! <3