We walk through the streets of New York, spotting a few people from school here and there. FATE’s cafeteria is more of a social space than anything. No one except freshmen actually eats there—especially not on Mondays, when classes end at two to make up for the fact that they run until five on Wednesdays. With tens of thousands of eating establishments in Manhattan alone, you don’t stand in line for a tray of de-congealed mac and cheese unless you really love it.

“I swear,” she continues, still on the same breath since exiting FATE. “The incompetence of the administration is only dwarfed by the incompetence of the student body sometimes.”

She stops and blinks a few times as we settle in line at the halal cart. It seems to be a thing that she does a lot. “Um, how did we get on this topic?”

“I asked how your week has been so far. That was about twelve months ago.”

“Stop making fun of me.”

“I can’t.” I shrug. “It’s too fun. Are you still fighting off the intense label?”

“Yes. Peyton Kelly? This girl from Lawrenceville I met at Evie’s party has a YouTube channel where she interviews people and cooks with them. She invited me to do it. I was thinking about it. Something nonacademic to put on my resume or something. If she doesn’t pigs’ blood me.”

I can’t help but laugh. “I feel like you have some trauma with farm lifeblood in a past life. No one is going to purchase blood and manipulate it just because they hate you. You’re cool. Peyton is cool. Or at least she was the few times we talked. You should absolutely do it.”

“I don’t even know if Princeton is going to factor it in. My application is not selling a social media presence. It might confuse things more than anything.”

“Well, don’t include it in your application, then.”

“They research applicants,” she exclaims. “I have it under good authority that, when they’re unsure about someone, they will go the extra step of a good search engine. And what if they put in ‘state-legislation enthusiast candidate Corinne Troy’ and . . . and get some YouTube nonsense?”

“Corinne,” I say. “Do you want to do it?”

“Yes,” she says after some self-reflection, looking at the halal plate she collects from the cart. We park ourselves on two cinder blocks near the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park.

“Then that’s all there is to it. Just do something you enjoy. Forget college applications,” I say. “It’s exhausting being so many things all at once sometimes.”

“I call it the O-Generation,” Corinne mutters.

“O-Generation?”

“Y’know,” she says with a mouthful of rice. “The children of Oprah and Obama.”