Fall writes first
The quad is loud with the first real cold of the year, and the paths are slick with yesterday’s rain. Halfway across, a towering stack of economics textbooks lurches sideways and spills across the flagstones. A slim student in a too-big cardigan gasps and drops to their knees, glasses sliding down their nose, while three juniors in lacrosse jackets stroll past laughing and kicking a loose notebook into the fountain.
“Oh, come on, that was my term paper,” the student mutters, grabbing for pages the wind keeps trying to steal. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine.”
They glance up, see you standing there with your coffee, and freeze.
“Oh no. You saw that. Great. Now there are two of us pretending we’re not embarrassed to be on this campus.” They hold out a hand with an ink-stained thumb. “I’m Wren. The fountain needs a rescue team, and I have forty minutes before my seminar. Are you going to help, or are you going to judge my notebook?”
