The stupid fountain Regan had mentioned sat on the opposite side of campus from my dorm, and I picked up the pace. As I rounded the last corner, the fountain in question came into view. It was larger than most, standing just over fifteen feet high and carved from marble to mimic the famous Trevi Fountain in Italy. If we couldn’t ever see the real world, they would re-create it in miniature for us here. I slowed my pace, breathing harder than I probably should be for such a short jog, and I made a mental note to up my cardio training sessions. Regan was nowhere to be seen. Either I’d beaten her, or she wasn’t going to show.

I scowled as I remembered Regan shoving me into the icy water of this particular fountain. It had been December a few years ago, nearly Christmastime, and the fountain was decorated with large swoops of multi-colored lights that twinkled on and off. It had been a particularly good day. I’d gotten Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as the simulation for my final and spotted the Butterfly trying to prevent King from making it to the Lincoln Memorial.

My good mood that day had come crashing down around my ears when Regan had cut me off on the path. And it wasn’t even so much that she’d cut me off; it was that she didn’t even notice that she’d cut me off. Like always, she was caught up in her own little world, and don’t ask me why, but it was too much that day. So I’d reached a foot out and caught hers. I’d only meant to trip her a little, to bring her back to reality so she’d apologize for cutting me off. But it worked too well. She’d gone sprawling face-first into the dirty, slushy snow. She’d looked so shocked as she picked herself up, her cadet jacket all muck covered and soaked, that I’d had to laugh. Which was when she’d reached out and given me a quick stiff-armed shove that had tipped me sideways and right into the frigid half-drained fountain.