Twenty-eight minutes later, a college girl bundled up to high heaven walks in and beams a bright smile to the cashier. The eager cashier immediately offers her a menu, and by the look in his eyes, he would go in for half a spleen too. I can’t help but smile. Sorry, dude.

“Oh, that’s okay.” She smiles. “I know it by heart, thanks!”

Before the guy can work out another way to keep her attention, she’s already back on her phone, walking this way. The ability to write essays—actual essays—on her phone while walking is uncanny. She kisses me, and I can feel the smile despite her hurried tone.

“So, I’ve decided,” Corinne says as she begins to unpack a startling amount of books and work, considering we have only four hours today. “I’m done with you.”

She removes her hat and sighs in frustration and slides over to my side of the booth. And just like that, another day-trip to Saratoga Springs, roughly halfway between McGill and Princeton, has already paid off.

I once opened a calendar and tried to backtrack to the exact date Corinne and I officially “got back together,” and ultimately couldn’t narrow it down to a single date or event or even a spoken request. It just happened.

Was it all the midnight phone calls freshman year when college was either living up to or falling short of all our FATE-sponsored expectations?

Or was it bumping into each other in the lobby of the Wyatt, both getting in late for the holidays and ending up walking the width of Manhattan with a seventy-pound Palm Tree?

Or was it the sudden flare-up of jealousy when Marvyn visited Princeton with his lacrosse team and tagged me in the photo of him and Corinne at a party?

Was it the fights or misunderstandings, because there are always a few? Or maybe the fact that we always answer the texts that come after?

In the end, that “We went to high school together” line we give over red Solo cups in basement parties or champagne flutes at Princeton events always feels both like the most complete version of the story and a lie that doesn’t cover the gist of it. That’s how lives meld together, I suppose: they melt and meld and then they are one.

“Oh, yeah?” I ask. “Two years and you’re out?”

“Give or take some high school shenanigans.”

The signature pink hat still hasn’t changed, but at some point last semester, the high hair turned into middle-of-the-back cornrows.

“The train arrived twenty minutes late! That’s very valuable LSATs study time. We had a good run. Let’s wrap this up.”

“If you think it’s best,” I concede. “How’s the new roommate?”

Corinne makes a face, scooting closer under my arm. “Black but apolitical.”