A hot flash of anger licked at my throat as I thought about the fact that Ritika wouldn’t think about this, that she would just consider this inherently disrespectful treatment as part of the job, and it was a struggle to keep myself looking pleasantly genial as I turned around to greet the next guest.

A small lifetime of what-if ’s, and just like that, reality had blended with the imagined.

Jay.

In a dark suit, blue tie in place, walking into the room, smiling a greeting, turning me instantly into a grenade.

I had to talk to him. I had to. His eyes had skimmed over me as he passed, but he hadn’t recognized me. I hadn’t expected him to.

I hadn’t expected my feet to walk themselves over to him either, or for my right hand to gingerly tug at his coat sleeve.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi?’

I found my mouth glued shut by too much history, reduced back to six years ago because—no.

No. Let me just tell you what love is at seventeen.

At seventeen, he’s a quarterback in the real world and you’re still stuck in the linens of the schoolyard. He indulges you sometimes, tells you what lies ahead and shares a little of his life. Occasionally, he asks you something about yourself, and those moments when you are the centre of his attention become the highlights of your days and weeks and months and years.

At seventeen he is hopelessly, comically out of your league. Twenty-three and done with Princeton, saving the world with the beautiful girl he loves by his side, he is so far away that all you ever do is shake your head, laugh at yourself and head into second-period history.

But at seventeen, he’s the boy who helped you when he didn’t have to. At seventeen, he took the time to walk you to the decisions that would build your future. He told you to go ahead and be crazy, to take it all in and let it all out. He made you brave. And at seventeen you’re bruise-free and don’t know better than to be brave, to not be afraid to fall. So you fall, right into his words, starry-eyed and awestruck and most definitely in love.

‘Mm, hi? Could I help you with something?’

The tousle of his hair, the pink pooling in the centre of his mouth, the line of his neck as he turned his head towards me—a straight, strong arrow from the lobes of his ears to the collar of his shirt.

‘I—would you happen to have the time?’