Stargazing with You

1. Columbia University

Chapter 1

Columbia University

First Year

T he moment I met Javi Valenzuela, I was naked, and I was crying.

An hour before, I lay in my twin bed in my one-hundred square foot dorm room on the seventh floor of John Jay, listening to my neighbor Omar loudly have sex through the thin wall separating our rooms. Omar was an international student—Turkish, I think. He was very attractive and incredibly wealthy but forced to live in the squalor of a tiny single dorm room, as all first years were.

We had only been at Columbia University for just under a month, and he had already paraded an impressive number of glamorous women through our dingy halls. I couldn’t imagine that these women were very impressed with our shared living space, but Omar’s dad owned half of Gucci, or something like that. I imagined that was enough to make any woman overlook peeling white wallpaper and a bathroom shared by forty co-eds. Every time he brought a new girl to his room, I was subjected to approximately thirty minutes of heavily accented exclamations of ecstasy through our shared wall. But tonight was different.

Normally, I would put my noise-cancelling headphones in and tuck my nose back into my textbook. But on this night, my nerves felt like they were frayed and raw. It was 9:30 pm, and I was trying and failing to settle in for sleep. My tiny room felt stiflingly hot and muggy. The dorms had no AC. My window only opened about six inches—a grim preventative measure put in place by the institution to prevent me and my fellow Ivy Leaguers from offing ourselves in the event of a bad exam grade. Even with the window open those full six inches, the air was entirely stagnant, refusing to grace my tiny living space with even the smallest breeze.

Even before I heard Omar’s door slam, and he and his companion giggle and stumble into his bedroom, I felt like the walls were caving in on me. A dull ache was growing in my chest just beneath my sternum. With every breath, my ribs seemed to grow a little tighter, the muscles of my chest wall a little more reluctant to expand. I felt like I was suffocating.

And when Omar’s deep grunts started, it felt like the sounds were echoing around me. While my room was filled (as much as you could fill a one-hundred square foot space) in soft, cozy things that my mom had handpicked from Pottery Barn Teen, making a true echo in my room improbable, the sounds seemed to bounce against the walls of my skull, rattling around from one temple to the other.

I yanked my noise-cancelling headphones off my nightstand and shoved them over my head. But even as I turned the noise-cancelling feature on and the pressure weighed against my eardrums, I could still hear them. I wanted to crawl to the end of my twin bed and bang my fists against the wall to startle them. Maybe they would fall out of bed—God knows, there wasn’t room enough for two grown adults in these things. Maybe it would spook them to the point where they would lose the mood for one evening.

Just one evening of peace—this evening, specifically—is all I really wanted. I wouldn’t complain or make a fuss normally. I would find something to do elsewhere on campus, on any other night. But tonight was the night before my first General Chemistry exam, my first exam as a Columbia pre-med. I already wanted to vomit just thinking about it. And that was before I could hear the wet slapping of human skin on human skin, just feet away from my pillow.

I launched myself suddenly from my bed, tumbling down from the sheets ungracefully. Getting out of my bed was almost never graceful, as it was lifted on high risers to use the space beneath for extra storage. With only the dim light filtering through my window to guide me, I stripped off my sweat-soaked pajamas and threw them onto the floor. I grabbed my discarded towel off the floor from where I had thrown it this morning and wrapped it around myself. I grabbed my room key and shower caddy and slipped on my flip flops. I decided to take a long, cool shower, and hopefully my skin wouldn’t feel so uncomfortably hot and itchy after I finished. And maybe, if I was lucky, Omar and his friend would be asleep or will have parted ways by the time I came back.

I half walked, half ran down the hallway in my towel toward the communal bathroom. I vaguely registered a couple of girls from my floor sitting at the end of the hallway, giggling in response to the noises coming from behind Omar’s wooden door. The faster I walked, the quieter the grunts and giggles became. A wave of relief hit me when shutting the heavy bathroom door behind me was finally enough to drown out the noise and the pounding in my head. The bathroom was mercifully nearly empty—no sounds of partiers vomiting sour beer into the toilet. That was usually the Friday or Saturday night special, but Thursday nights like these were not always exempt.

I finally felt some of the tension in my shoulders release as soon as the water hit my skin. It was still early, I kept telling myself. If I spent thirty minutes in the bathroom and slowly made my way back to my room, it would only be just after ten o’clock. Still, plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep before my exam at 8:40 the next morning. I would get up early, have breakfast and coffee in the dining hall on the first floor, and review a couple last-minute notes. Start the year off right.

I repeated this last phrase in my head like a mantra as I massaged shampoo into my scalp. I really didn’t need to wash my hair for the second time in one day. I usually didn’t wash my hair more than a few times a week on principle, but I needed to do something to pass the time. I washed and conditioned my hair, shaved my armpits and legs. Scrubbed my face with soothing exfoliating scrub. Covered myself head to toe in suds, twice.

I wrapped my fluffy towel around my wet body, gathered my shower supplies back into my caddy, and left the shower stall. I stood before the mirror and meticulously went through my hair and skin care regimen. I sprayed my long, brown hair with detangling spray and ran a brush through it. I massaged several products and moisturizers into my freckle-covered cheeks and beneath my blue eyes. Finally, when there wasn’t anything else I could possibly do to delay, I walked slowly, hesitantly back toward my room at the end of the long hall of identical wooden doors with golden numbers. The giggling girls had dispersed. I stopped at my door, Room 736, delighted at the absence of distant grunts or moans. I fished out my ID card, which also acted as the key to my dorm room, from the pocket of my shower caddy and slid it into the key slot in my door.

The light flashed red.

I looked down at the card in my hand and felt my stomach sink into my ankles.

In my hasty departure, I hadn’t picked up my room key. I had picked up my New York Public Library card.

Though I had unlimited access to Columbia’s Butler Library (or as the students here affectionately called it, The Butt ), I had found myself wandering the public library the previous weekend. Butler was the enormous, beautiful, historic structure, with a sturdy rectangular frame and tall sand-colored pillars, topped with the names of long-dead philosophers. But God help me if I knew how to check out a single book from its maze of wooden bookcases and ancient leather texts. Nor did I know if there was a single normal, non-ancient text to check out among its many rooms and hidden nooks and crannies.

With my pre-med course load steadily ramping up, I knew my free time was going to grow more limited. But if that free time ever came, I would like nothing better than to spend it curled up somewhere cozy with a steamy romance novel. But to achieve that end, I was not willing to walk up to the desk of Butler Library, the cornerstone of this over 260-year-old university, and ask someone where I could find books about women who fall in love with time-traveling Scotsmen or Fae High lords.

Even though those were my exact preference in reading material.

So, when I passed the local public library on my way back from the grocery store the previous Saturday, I had picked up the most heart-pounding love story I could get my hands on as a reward for when I aced this chemistry exam this week.

Except here I stood, 10:15 pm the night before my exam, holding out a library card in front of me as if it would magically transform into what I needed it to be before my eyes. My hair was dripping cold droplets onto the blue carpeted floor. I had no way to get back into my room, no way to crawl into my bed, to fall asleep and get a good night’s rest before my exam.

And that moment, of course, is when Omar’s “friend” emerged from his room. She jumped in surprise when she saw me, clearly not expecting another nearly naked woman to be standing a foot away from Omar’s door, then smirked. She was beautiful, of course, if not a little mussed. Her lips full and swollen, with evidence of a red lip stain that had faded with the evening’s activities. Her thick, black hair somehow looked purposefully disheveled. She was wearing a strappy black slip dress and combat boots. She had to be another international student. Effortlessly cool. She looked me up and down from my wet, dripping hair to my plastic shower shoes, then brushed past me with a laugh.

When she was out of earshot, I heard a noise, like a small and very pathetic dying animal. I realized only after it emerged that it was a sob escaping my throat.

I knew it wasn’t the end of the world to get locked out of your dorm. Nearly everyone on the floor so far had gotten locked out, at one point or another. I was one of the luckier ones; it hadn’t happened to me yet. This was just the most inopportune possible moment. Wearing only a towel, dripping wet, being laughed at by Omar’s dazzling bed partner, the night before my first pre-med exam.

The only thing that could make the situation worse would be to have more of an audience to laugh at me, which—of course—was what happened the very next second. Behind me, the heavy wooden door to 735 opened and two boys emerged. They were mid conversation, but their sentences abruptly halted, I imagined, when they realized a wet, crying, nearly-naked girl was blocking their exit. I couldn’t turn around to meet their eyes, but I also had nowhere to which I could escape. Nowhere to hide.

“You do know you’re holding a library card, right?” said a nasally voice, high-pitched for a boy, as if he hadn’t quite settled into his adult vocal cords yet. I recognized the voice immediately—Harrison, the occupant of Room 735.

“No shit, Sherlock,” the other voice said, one which I did not recognize. “Why do you think she’s standing here in the hallway?”

I turned my head ever so slightly at this voice, appreciating how quickly the owner of the second voice had understood my dire situation. I sniffled.

“Hey, are you okay?” the second voice asked, his worry sounding genuine.

I sniffled again, and nodded too emphatically, hoping they would accept the lie and move on with their evening. I knew if I voiced out loud any bit of my current situation, I would break down in uncontrollable sobs.

“Hey, what—” the nasally voice said again, but his voice was muffled by the sound of the wooden door closing in front of them. I guessed by the speed at which they retreated that they were uncomfortable by the sight of a crying girl. I hoped they were going to stay in there, leaving me alone to cry in the hallway while I figured out what to do next. But it didn’t take me long to realize my hopes were fruitless. I could hear the two boys arguing softly inside the door, not loud enough to make out the words, just enough to know that they were indeed arguing.

A few moments later, the door opened again .

“Hey,” the second, deeper voice said. And as the nasally voice did not respond, I knew it was directed at me, even though I still couldn’t bring myself to turn to face them. I craned my neck until I could see them over my right shoulder. I had my shower caddy and library card clutched in one hand, my other arm held tight over my chest, convinced that, with my luck, some stray draft would rush through the hall at any second and loosen the towel, leaving me completely naked in this hallway.

The two boys standing in the doorway were polar opposites in appearance. The first, the familiar one, was my neighbor Harrison, who I had, for obvious reasons, seen many times before. He had curly, dark blond hair and very pale skin, with a scattering of freckles and pockmarks from a harsh puberty plagued by cystic acne. He was very tall, probably 6’4 at least, but so lanky he looked like he had been stretched in a taffy puller. His counterpart on the other hand, was average height, maybe 5’10 or 5’11. He was all warm, dark features—caramel brown skin and dark wavy hair and warm, chocolatey brown eyes. Incredibly kind eyes, that were smiling at me.

I finally turned to see what the second boy held out to me. It was a stack of black clothing.

“Here,” he said, still smiling. “Put these on. I’ll bring you to get a spare key.”

I hesitantly reached out for the clothes.

Harrison scowled. “And they’re my clothes, so I expect them back.”

The second boy shot my neighbor a pointed glare. “Don’t be a dick, Harrison. She’s not going to steal your Star Wars t-shirt. And if she does, you know where she sleeps.”

The smallest smile tugged at my lips at the instant support I had somehow won from this stranger. He turned back to me, his smile reappearing on his face as fast as it had disappeared while looking at Harrison. “Here. You can change in dickhead’s room. We’ll wait out here.”

I did what he told me to do without argument. I pushed into the room between them and let the door slam loudly shut behind me. I found myself in a mirror image of my dorm room, if my dorm walls were decorated with movie posters and an impressive number of mounted light sabers of various colors. I quickly discarded my towel and pulled on the black athletic shorts and black t-shirt. I worried for a moment that Harrison’s clothes, as lanky as he was, wouldn’t fit me, especially in the hips. My saving grace was that he wore his clothes baggy, as one does when one’s height is so grossly disproportionate to one’s width. The shorts were only slightly snug in the hips, but both items hung well below my knees. I wrung the liquid from my hair into my towel and reemerged into the hallway.

I met Harrison’s eyes first, muttering, “Thanks.”

“It’s whatever. Just bring them back when you’re done.” He shrugged, pushing past me into his room, leaving me in the hallway alone with his counterpart.

He offered his hand, introducing himself now that we were both wearing clothes.

“Javi. Javier Valenzuela, but my friends call me Javi.”

I shook his hand. “Diana.”

“Diana…?”

“Richards.”

“Diana Richards,” he said, smiling again. “Nice to meet you. I’m sorry you got locked out of your room.”

“Me too,” I agreed, a little pitifully. At least changing had given me a few moments to stop crying. “I have an exam in the morning. Gen Chem.”

He winced on my behalf. “Pre-Med?”

I nodded. It was an easy guess—no one who actually liked chemistry took Gen Chem. The class was made almost entirely of hungry, hopeful future doctors trying to fulfill the long list of prerequisites for medical school. It was too basic a science class for real scientists, but too boring and difficult for the casual intellectual.

“Let me walk you down to Hartley Help desk to get your key replaced. I have a buddy who’s there right now for work study.”

I nodded. I might have protested, if I had any idea where to find Hartley Help desk on my own. I dropped my shower caddy and towel in front of my door and let him lead me away.

Within five steps down the hallway together, he was making conversation. He was the small talk type, apparently. I had never been the type myself.

“Have you always wanted to be a doctor?” he asked.

“Always.” I nodded. It was an easy question, at least. “Dad named me Diana Richards. D.R . Couldn’t really be anything else after that.”

Javi laughed. “Wow. I would bet your dad is a super low-key, down-to-earth kind of parent. Really laid-back type.”

I only guffawed in response.

“I’m guessing your dad is a doctor?”

I nodded. “Cardiothoracic Surgeon.”

We got into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby.

“Ah yes, the most laid-back of the medical specialties.” He chuckled. “I’m in the engineering school.”

“Cool,” I said, even though I didn’t personally find engineering very interesting. “Do you know what kind of engineering you want to do?”

“No,” he said. “I’m waiting for the right thing to speak to me. My parents considered calling me ‘Chem-E,’ but they couldn’t agree on it, so they settled for Javier.”

I met his eyes and saw the laughter there, and a laugh stuttered out of me in surprise. His face broke into a brilliant smile, his whole face alight; like he couldn’t find anything more satisfying than getting me to laugh.

We walked through the lobby doors and out into the breezeway, the gravel kicking up with the flapping of my plastic flip flops. We crossed the fifty feet to the adjacent dorm Hartley and walked through their front doors. I had never been in any of the other dorms before, even though the first-year dorms were all in very close proximity.

The guy at the help desk was playing something on an old Gameboy SP that sounded vaguely like a Pokémon game. He didn’t raise his eyes from the screen until Javi held his fist out toward him.

“What’s up, Jeff?” Javi said.

Jeff returned the greeting and glanced briefly at me. He didn’t seem at all confused by my appearance, with wet hair and clearly borrowed clothes. In fact, I was certain by his ambivalence to my appearance that he had seen many a towel-clad or even fully naked college student grace his help desk before. The thought made me feel better, somehow.

“Nothing much. How are you fine folks, this evening?”

“Great,” Javi said, though he probably knew I would not have agreed. “I was hoping you could get my friend Diana here a replacement key to her room.”

Jeff nodded knowingly, handing me a clipboard before Javi could finish the sentence. “Fill this out with your name, ID number and room number. I can get you a temporary replacement, but you have to get it back to me soon or they’ll put a hold on your record. Not important now, but you won’t get your final grades at the end of the semester unless the hold is gone.”

I nodded in understanding and started filling in my information. Jeff looked at my room number and went to a back room behind his desk, and I could see him flipping through envelopes in a card-catalog style system. Leave it to a university as old as this one to have such an archaic looking backup system for our room keys. He handed me an envelope with JJ-736 written on the front.

When we were outside in the commons once more, I turned to Javier.

“Thank you for your help,” I told him. “Not many people would have walked me all the way down here.”

“It’s nothing,” he said.

We made our way back toward the front doors of John Jay. I showed the security guard at the front desk my temporary key and started to explain why I didn’t have my school ID , but he waved me through knowingly. When we got back into the elevator, I could feel my nerves start to creep back and settle into my chest. I tapped my temporary key against my palm. The ache in my ribs was starting to burn again.

I made the trip back down the hall of John Jay quickly and without chatting, my anxiety distracting me from acknowledging Javi, who was still at my side. I picked up my shower caddy and towel from beside my door and opened the door with the temporary key. I had one foot in the door as I turned to bid Javier thank you and goodnight , but he spoke before I had the chance.

“Hey,” he said. “What would you say if I told you that you look like a girl who needs a milkshake right now.”

My eyes went wide, looking at him incredulously.

“I would say that I should get to bed.” I sounded a little more exasperated than I intended, especially toward someone who had gone out of his way to help me. I added, trying to soften the edge to my voice, “Exam in the morning.”

I didn’t think, when I had enrolled in an Ivy League school, that these things would require this much explanation.

“I know,” he said. “Gen Chem. But can you tell me honestly that if you lay down right now that you’re going to be able to sleep?”

I peered at him, unnerved. How could he possibly know how very unready for sleep I felt?

“My older sister Gaby has a PhD in clinical psychology. She has taught me a thing or two about anxiety. And you look anxious as hell.” His observation made me realize suddenly that I had been picking at my nails, and I tucked my hands behind my back, feeling self-conscious.

“A milkshake?” I asked, skeptically. “How is sugar going to help me sleep?”

He grinned. “Milkshakes fix everything.”

“Except lactose intolerance,” I supplied, dryly.

“Except that,” he relented, wavering slightly. “Are you?—?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh good, we’re back on track.” His grin returned. “Milkshakes, then?”

I hesitated.

“Miiiiilkshaaaaaakes?” This time he said it in a sing-song way, like trying to tempt a child. “My treat.”

I realized suddenly that during this short conversation with Javier, standing in the doorway of my dorm room, that the burning in my chest had ebbed. But I could feel it there, sitting in wait somewhere around my diaphragm. It felt like the sea at low tide. I knew it was only a matter of time before it crashed against me again like waves on a shore. I did not want to feel that way again, and I felt like I would do anything to delay the rising of the tide.

“Milkshakes,” I said, this time like an affirmation. He beamed at me. “But please, give me two seconds to get out of Harrison’s Star Wars t-shirt and my shower shoes.”

“Of course, take as long as you need.” He turned around to face the other direction, as if closing the door between us was not enough privacy.

I threw on the closest shorts and t-shirt from each of my dresser drawers and slipped on socks and sneakers. I grabbed my wallet and my actual ID card this time—turning on my desk lamp and scrutinizing the plastic card to double check. I returned my shower caddy and towel to their hooks on my closet door. I carefully folded the borrowed clothing and emerged into the hallway.

He turned at the sound of my door and smiled at me, clearly pleased that I had reemerged. He was probably worried that I would change my mind and stay shut in my room once he gave me the opportunity to escape. I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider it, once I could see my waiting bed and my gen chem textbook, still lying open on my desk from earlier in the evening. But the sight of the textbook made my breath hitch in my throat and that burning start to flare once more in my chest, so I made my way resolutely back out into the hallway.

I dropped the neatly folded pile of clothes in front of Harrison’s door, and let Javi once again lead me out of John Jay, back to Hartley Help desk so we could return the borrowed key to Jeff. We walked out of the south gates to the sidewalk on Broadway, where the streets were still bustling with people coming and going and a mix of yellow and green cabs driving past us looking for fares.

“So, Diana Richards,” Javi said, as we walked southward, the destination unknown. “Where are you from? ”

“The upper east side,” I replied. “Well, I’m originally from Westchester, but we moved to the city when I was in high school.”

He laughed. “Wow. So, you’re rich-rich.”

I didn’t respond immediately. How does one reply to being called “rich-rich?”

Before I could form an answer, he continued, “I mean, I knew this already, with the whole cardiothoracic surgeon for a father thing. But now you’ve confirmed it.”

That wasn’t even the beginning of it. My dad’s personal wealth was impressive, but both my mom and dad had inherited generous amounts of money from their own parents as well. But that was not something I discussed with... well, anyone , much less someone I had just met.

“And what do your parents do?” I asked, posing it like a challenge. It’s not like having a renowned surgeon for a father was a big deal, not at this school. Columbia’s student body regularly hosted distant royalty, heirs to vast fortunes, and celebrities on hiatuses from their movie and TV careers.

“My parents did not go to college,” he said. “They have a restaurant in Corpus Christi. That’s where I’m from. My mom manages the business side of things, and my dad is the chef.”

“That’s really cool,” I said, meaning it. Honestly, the truth was far more interesting to me than if he had told me he hailed from royalty or celebrity. “Are you first generation to go to college?”

He let out a nervous laugh. “First gen, yes. Definitely not first. My sisters would beat me if they heard me implying such a thing. They all have at least bachelor’s degrees; the two older ones have graduate degrees.”

“What do your sisters do? You said one of them has a PhD in psych. ”

“Yeah, my oldest sister Gaby. She did her thesis on kids in the foster care system, and does a lot of work with kids still. My middle sister, Manuela, is a paralegal. And my youngest sister works in HR at an oil company in Houston. Makes more money than the rest of us combined, I think. Certainly, more than me, since I make negative money.”

I imagined what Javi’s parents must be like, to go from having no college degree themselves to having four incredibly high-achieving children.

“What kind of restaurant do your parents own?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow at me, grinning wickedly. He gestured to himself, as if his appearance should have been more than enough to tip me off. “Come on, do you even have to guess? Classic Tex-Mex.”

“I wouldn’t want to assume,” I said with a laugh.

“They actually started franchising a couple years ago,” he went on. “Now there are Tia Alba’s all over Texas and Oklahoma. It’s still weird to me. I basically grew up in the restaurant, and now it’s a household name back in Texas.”

“I’d love to try it some time,” I said earnestly.

“But the chains are nothing compared to the OG,” he insisted. “You really gotta come out to Corpus, to the original location. Nobody can cook like my dad.”

“I would love that,” I said, half because I wanted to try the food, half because I wanted to meet the combination of people who could have raised someone like Javi Valenzuela. He abruptly stopped in the street.

“Here we are,” he said, pausing before the flashing neon sign. “Tom’s Diner.”

I looked at the place skeptically. I had seen this place about a hundred times and never once bothered to stop in. Even now that I lived a couple blocks away, the urge had never struck me to stop inside its doors. There was a “Highlights of NYC TV” tour that stopped on this corner several times a week, the crowds of tourists frequently blocking the entire sidewalk on my way home from the grocery store. “Tom’s? Isn’t this a tourist trap for Seinfeld fans?”

“Yes, it is,” he conceded. “But it is so much more. It is my opinion that the option to dine in at Tom’s should be almost exclusively reserved for the drunk, and you will see that the vast majority of their clientele agree with me. We can save that for another day. But take out, on the other hand, is for everyone, at any level of sobriety.”

The bell over the door rang as we walked in. Javi went immediately to the counter, which was only occupied by a man with a cup of coffee and a half-eaten slice of pie. A waiter behind the old-fashioned cash register peered at us, cleaning a set of silver milkshake glasses with a white dish rag.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Two milkshakes to-go, please,” Javi said to the man. “Cookies and cream for me, and, for my friend,—?”

“Do you have pistachio?” I asked.

“We do,” the waiter said. “Cookies and cream and pistachio, coming right up.”

“Interesting choice,” Javi said.

“I know it’s weird,” I said, trying not to sound embarrassed. “But it’s my favorite.”

“Not weird,” he said quickly, reassuringly. “Just different.”

The waiter put down his dish rag and started shoveling out scoop after scoop of ice cream into two large silver cups. He topped them with milk before putting them beneath the classic silver milkshake spinners. He poured them out into two paper cups, the milkshakes so thick they poured out in big glops , before he handed them to us. That’ll be $7.50.”

Javi fished a $10 bill out of his wallet. “Keep the change.”

We headed back out onto Broadway, milkshakes in hand. I attempted to drink from my cup, only to find the milkshake so thick that my cheeks hurt trying to use the straw. I laughed.

“This is impossible!” I exclaimed.

He laughed. “You gotta give it a minute. Let it settle.”

We walked down Broadway together, holding our milkshakes in both hands, letting the warmth of our skin radiate into the cups. Maybe, by the time we graduated, they would be thin enough to drink.

Without discussing the matter, neither of us made the turn down 114th street to head back to John Jay. We ambled toward college walk, through the wrought iron gates, through the branching trees swaying softly, and to the sundial at the very heart of campus. We stood atop it, him looking toward Butler library and me looking the other direction, toward the rotunda of Low Library, two proud facades peering down at us. There was barely a soul in sight, and it felt for a moment like we were the only ones in the whole school. In the whole world.

He sighed. “Do you ever look at this place and think we’re the luckiest people in the whole world, because we get to live here?”

I had lived in or near New York City my entire life. I had been walking the lawns of Columbia’s campus since I took my first steps and yet somehow, I had never noticed quite how beautiful it looked until I saw it through Javi’s perspective. I took a deep breath, and it felt like the easiest breath I had taken in a long time. I smiled, turning around to look at him. He had turned to look back at me too .

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” I responded.

He lifted his paper cup to me to cheers.

“To the two luckiest people in the whole world.”

I tapped my milkshake against his, and lifted the straw to my lips, delighted when the rich pistachio milkshake hit my tongue. We both started giggling in delight like children.

We sat down on the sundial drinking our milkshakes, talking about our classes for the semester. When the cups were empty, we tossed them in the nearest trash and started making our way back to John Jay. He walked me once more to my room.

I had been expecting, once we made the trip back to my room, that I would feel that wave of dread washing over me once more. I imagined that the closer I got to my bed and therefore to sleep, the closer I got to waking in the morning to take this exam, the more intense my anxiety would become. But I was pleased to find that, instead of those feelings waiting to sweep over me like the tide, I could sense the anxiety in a much more distant way, like the view of the horizon from the shore.

“Hey, Diana?” he said, and I turned, my hand braced on the handle of my door.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You’re gonna kill it tomorrow.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Javi.”