We'd met in my freshman year of high school. We'd dated for a year and a half and we'd thought we would get married. We'd decided to have four children because I hated the feeling of a quiet house—Aaron hadn't yet been born—and what we'd name the kids. I'd made a Pinterest board detailing what our future house would look like. It'd been a free-falling, cloud-nine, helium-balloon type of love, precisely because it was my first.

In hindsight, Khan ain't special.

Our relationship ended when I realised being a wife and a mother were literally last on the list of things I gave a shit about. I had cared more about table tennis practises, calculus, watching movies with friends, staying up late reading manga—pretty much everything, actually—more than I'd cared about being there for him. Khan had dumped me on the grounds of being a bad girlfriend after the umpteenth time I forgot about our plans to get pizza.

I hadn't disagreed. Maybe that was the flaw of all adolescents. Teenagedom was the time for self-absorption, wildness and unpredictability, not family-building. Love couldn't survive on shifting ground. That would be like asking a tree to grow in quicksand: just inviting disappointment.

And, five years later, I was loath to say anything had changed.

Between Khan—my first love—and Eric—my last love—a whole lot of shit had happened in my roller-coaster of a love life, but I effectively ended up where I started. Still great at calculus. Still loved manga. Still ambitious, busy and completely uninterested in maintaining a serious relationship. Thanks to Eric's unwelcome phone call three weeks ago, at least I had the proud reminder that it had been nearly a year since I wasted any mental bandwidth on something as banal as love.

With a month to go before Halston's academic year ended, I had far more important things on my mind. It was the end of April. WISA was gearing up to deliver its last events and host its Annual General Meeting. I had to revise for final exams. I had to finalise my shortlist of med schools and graduate programs. I had to start compiling potential references and drafting primary applications.

Since the morning, I had been camped out in the crowded Science 2 Building—laptop in front of me, textbook to my left, a cup of boba to my right—revising for finals. I pulled my earphones out and did a grand stretch backward over the back of my chair, feeling a satisfying click of my vertebrae.

Study break time.

Between drinking glorious taro bubble tea and checking my social media, my mind wandered to the events of yesterday. Specifically, a conversation with our immediate friend group—Riley, Krista, the Jays.

It was Jake who'd brought it up. Granted, he was drunk out of his mind at the time, but everyone had tacitly understood his question as a serious request.

"Whenever Avalon is gone, I feel like my life is on pause until she returns," he began, the five of us squeezed onto the couch. When we—well, sans Krista, the monk—drank these days, considering no-one had the spare energy in finals season, we hit the town less and hit the common room more. "But I didn't feel like that this year. I felt like I could have my own life, friendships and hobbies independent of her. Even though I love her so much."

The end credits of a crappy 2000s rom-com had been fast approaching on the TV—not that we'd paid attention—but Jake had taken this odd time to get sentimental on us. "Maybe it's this building. With its glorious air-conditioning and vending machine. Sweet, sweet vending machine."

"Focus, Jake. You numbnuts." Maybe that last part had been unnecessarily harsh, but Drunk Viv had the worst tendency to season her sentences with insults.

"Or maybe it's the people. I just want to say, it's been an honour," Jake announced dramatically. Boy, he was so hammered. "I've had so much fun with you all. And if you guys would be willing, can we pretty please live together next year?"

That was the crux of it.

In our personal check-up conversations with our RA, he had let each of us know that this building was open to advance accommodation applications. If we had lived there previously and didn't screw up the place too badly, it would strengthen the application. We would likely be able to even get the same floor and same rooms back.

He left all of us with the same rehearsed sentence: "It's up to you guys."

Checking my Snapchat yielded a series of unflattering pictures from Jamie—the camera was tucked low into his lap while he was clearly sitting in a lecture hall, proudly displaying his nostrils and multiple chins. Jake had sent back a similar work of art thirty minutes ago. I chuckled and did the same, ignoring the odd looks from the people studying directly adjacent to me in Science 2 as I grinned into my crotch.

When I first met Jake in sophomore year, and Jamie eight months ago, I had no idea they would become some of my closest friends. I thought Jamie would end up hitting on me and making things awkward—like what had happened with Krista and one of our floormates—but we seemed to have reached a silent understanding: no floor-cest.

I got to see the side of his personality hidden from potential conquests. The dedicated but insecure side. The really, really immature sense of humour.

And he got to see the side of my personality that only emerged when I was off the defensive from men. Which, if I was being very honest, was exactly the same as when I was on the defensive from men: I made sexual jokes, brought a lot of liquor home and roasted everyone.

The same letting-down-of-guards happened among Jake, Riley and Krista. We all cared for and looked out for each other like family. Laughter, parties and fun. Next year, that's all I wished for.

I hoped nothing screwed it up.

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When I returned to Halston University in late August after a relaxing summer vacation, I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me as I headed up to the eighth floor.

My advance accommodation application had been successful, but I hadn't told the twins. I also received places in other residences, but I knew in my heart I couldn't pass up another year with my found family. Krista and Riley were in the same boat as me, eighth floor, same rooms.

I heard their voices in the common room before I even rounded the corner from the elevator lobby. I threw open both doors as I marched in and announced, "Round two, bitches."

Riley turned and squealed so hard when she laid eyes on me again, though it actually hadn't been that long that we'd all been separated.

Riley in Carsonville, Krista in New York and myself in Boston, we'd all been East Coast-bound this summer and had reunited in July to hit the road, rent a beachside house and do nothing but suntan for two weeks. Not enough time had even passed for the tan lines on my back to fade, but any amount of time away from my best friends felt like an age.

As for the twins, I had lost touch with them over the summer vacation. Not purposely, on either of our parts. It just happened when we spent months apart and didn't have anything in common but our dormitory.

Sporadically, Jake would tag me in memes that reminded him of Physiology or Organic Chemistry courses we'd shared together. I would drop the occasional snarky comment on the twins' Instagram photos. But Jamie and I didn't have anything to talk about when we weren't drinking, so I knew nothing about how his summer had gone. I knew it didn't mean we loved each other less.

As a found family, of course.

The next day, seeing as it was orientation week, Sushmita and I were tasked with running the WISA stall at the Halston University Clubs Expo. Last April, I got voted in as the treasurer for this academic year. I would have blushed and no-stopped about my election, except I'd been all across the budgets since sophomore year, and I didn't flake on my commitments. Plus, I knew how to make a killer spreadsheet.

So I supposed I should have expected Expo duty, now that Sushmita (elected Communications Officer) and I were two of the most senior members of the organisation, but that didn't mean I felt up to the job.

Wasn't it often said that age didn't equate to experience—usually in support of young people?

Well, I thought I should argue that being older didn't make me more capable.

I was fucking treasurer, Goddarn it. I could do maths, not schmooze people.

Vivian Sok, approachable? Ha.

"Okay, you need to chill your face out," Sushmita told me. A group of curious freshmen had been and gone without much interaction or conversation with us but they did sign up to our mailing list. As soon as they drifted away, Sushmita turned on me.

Bemused, I wondered, "What do you mean?"

"Smooth out your eyebrows," she instructed, pinching her thumb and pinky together between her brows and spreading them out. I tried to emulate the movement with my facial muscles. "Chill out your mouth. You look positively vengeful. Chill."

I rearranged my face with considerable effort, but it didn't feel markedly more inviting. In fact, I was pretty sure I looked constipated. "Better?"

"Mm..." she tapped her chin. "You remember when Kageyama tried to smile at his teammates?"

I threw my head back and cackled. I did remember. Another thing that Sushmita and I bonded over—aside from WISA, mutual affection for parties and blunt candour—was anime. And her comment had the exact opposite effect on me than she intended.

"That..." I placed a hand over my heart, visibly touched. "That's just a compliment to be compared to him. I'm going to make my resting face even bitchier than usual."

Sushmita rolled her eyes and laughed. "Ugh. Never mind. I'm going for a free iced coffee from the Christian Club. You want one?"

"Yes, please," I nodded and sat back down in my lawn chair.

The Clubs Expo was held at the Quad, in perfect view of the cenotaph and sprawling green grass. I wore a pink WISA t-shirt and denim shorts, but I was still overheating in the humid air that couldn't be blocked by the oak tree we'd set up under.

Suddenly, my vision went dark as a pair of hands slid over my eyes.

I didn't move. For some reason, I hadn't startled. A person leaned closer to my ear and whispered with a croaky, broken voice, "Guess who?" It was a male voice, naturally husky and quite deep.

Pausing to think, I ran through all the people I knew on campus. There were few men who dared pull something like this at the risk of getting kicked in the nuts. There were even fewer who were willing to take the kick in order to pull off a dumb, immature joke. The heady scent of sweat and clementines curled around me, and then I knew.

"Putin? Vlad Putin, is that you?" I guessed wildly, making my voice overly tremulous. "I thought you said we couldn't elope anymore after—"

Jamie dropped his hands and spun me around. His hands rested lightly on my shoulders, and he pouted after having his joke commandeered by my superior sense of humour. "You are not funny."

"Yeah, I'm not funny but Europe poo is," I scoffed. "I get it."

Jamie's eyes crinkled as he recalled the memory and he let his hands drop to his sides. That had been over half a year ago. Since then, a lot had changed. "Well, it did its job, right? Look." His forefinger oscillated between us. "Friends."

"Uh-huh," I drawled. "Still your greatest accomplishment to date, Tanner?"

"Woah, I wouldn't say that. It's up there, though."

I guffawed incredulously, leaning my hip against the collapsible table Sush and I had piled with WISA brochures and reusable coffee cups. "How was your summer vacation?"

"Good," he answered simply. "Yours?"

"Good."

Jamie and I stared at each other for a short moment. I noticed he'd tanned considerably over the summer. The Jays' hometown was Bishop, California, which meant he travelled cross-country every year to get unfairly golden. A light smattering of freckles ran across his cheeks, the deeper tone to his skin making his green eyes stand out further.

Finally, over the time we'd all been living together, I'd learnt to articulate exactly how I could tell the twins apart. I'd known how to do it very early on, even when Riley had trouble picking it up. But I'd never been able to say why.

Now, I knew. Jake's eyes were more hazel, the shade of grasslands, while Jamie's were the shade of emeralds. Jamie's eyes were also more deep-set and downturned, which lent his face a more pensive aura than Jake's naturally cheerful features.

He cleared his throat. "Have you heard back from the accommodation office?"

"Yeah," I sighed disappointedly, deciding to mess with the chump. "I'm in a new building."

"Oh." I saw a flash of intense disappointment across his face, but as soon as it appeared it was gone. He smiled at me reassuringly.

I continued, wringing my hands, "I'm really nervous about it."

"Vivian Sok, nervous? Whatever about?"

"I heard some really concerning things about this place. Apparently, last year," I whispered almost timidly, "-a football player put a hole through the wall!"

Jamie's concerned expression froze on his face as he processed my words, and then he glowered at me. He pinched his temples and swore, "Fucking hell," before it really struck him what I meant. "You asshole. You are a complete asshole. Come here." Wide smiles broke out on our faces simultaneously, and I jumped towards him at the exact same moment he opened his arms.

Jamie caught me solidly and spun me around in the air while giddy cheers escaped us. He chastised me, but ineffectively, because his elated voice was without any hint of disapproval, "You said you got moved into a new place!"

After he placed me down I smirked up at him. "I didn't lie, it is a new building. Not even one year old, that's plenty new in building standards."

Jamie exhaled sharply and tried to muster a glare. But it was too exciting, too bright, too warm, hearing all our plans for senior year falling into place piece by piece. In the end, all he could do was shake his head at me, dipping his face to hide the smile that hadn't gone away.

"You are really not funny," he pouted. "Like, at all."

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Clearly, they're not sticking to the 'no floor-cest' rule in senior year. ;)

Side note: are the time skips making sense to you? We have covered nearly a year since Chapter 1. If you want to re-read the first few pages of each chapter to note the months, I think I've made it clear enough to follow.

It's just important for the plot that Viv and Jamie are friends before things heat up, but not really the details of how and why they're friends—I think the Clubs Expo really captures their dynamic though!

Please vote, comment, follow!

Aimee x